Outdoor Hour Challenge X.

I don’t think I actually completed an outdoor challenge last week.

At least not in an official way.

But I know the kids spent so much real-time good hours upon hours of outside time. While our family was visiting we trimmed branches, built forts, made wreaths and frames out of grape vines and spent long hours in the rope swing.

And I absolutely believe that time counts.

Besides, in truth, a large portion of the reason I joined in the Outdoor Hour Challenge was to gain direction, focus and inspiration to promote consistency in our outdoor times as a school assignment.

All that to say, I might not have recorded any specific experience and the kids didn’t even make a journal entry but they were revelling in the outdoor world.

This week we are a bit back in our routine, what there is of it, and we took the opportunity yesterday to gaze in our focus area.

Birds.

Uncle Danny discovered a bird’s nest in a tree we were trimming.

It’s incredible – like a gift delivered right to our doorstep.

We’ve been watching the parent birds as they have returned to the nest and we feel pretty sure we are waiting for four eastern grosbeaks to hatch.

Today we drew birds and labeled their basic features so we could discuss our finds more accurately.

Then we gazed carefully into our nest and drew what we saw there. We also drew the grosbeak and next week we will do a little more research into their diet and incubation period.

We also discovered two bird cams this week through some fellow homeschoolers. One site offers streaming live video of a giant nest with two eaglets and their majestic eagle parents. Otto is a particular fan of the view.

The second camera sits above a red tailed hawk’s nest where she is laying on her egg awaiting its hatching in the next few weeks.

I sometimes forget to use the Internet for its convenient learning tools – like cameras set up in birds’ nests. I tend to err on the side of less Internet use for school and more real stuff you can touch and feel, but it’s good to be reminded that it can be a tool when used properly and these two opportunities to see birds of prey caring for their young is actually amazing.

All in all, it’s been a good week for bird studies here at the School of Keigley.  

(Wait – have I told you we finally settled on a name for our school?)