Science (Grade 2 level) Field Trip

We headed back to the Jack Pine Trail today to study chickadees & nuthatches. We'd read our chapter about them in our Handbook of Nature Study the day before and learned a lot in preparation for our field trip. Did you know that both chickadees & nuthatches feast on insect eggs and love suet (especially in the winter). They are great for orchards. We learned the differences between the two birds and what to watch for out in nature. We didn't think we'd get to see a nuthatch since they are out more in the winter.

We learned today that they don't like lots of noise & movement and their favourite seed are the black 'sunflower' seeds. My oldest son and I got a great look at a bunch of the chickadees when my good friend E. and some of the boys & her two boys had gone ahead and the chickadees were a bit braver and kept swooping down and feeding off our hands. What beautiful birds. Half way through the walk we spotted a nuthatch and Jürgen got to feed it & so did Johan (who was so brave and wished he could feed every bird). Nuthatches prefer to feed head down on the trunk of the trees and chickadees on the small branches. Sure enough, the nuthatch was feeding head down. We got a pretty good look at him. We also spotted a big blue jay. We got to see quite a few male & female mallards and witnessed two males in a "cat & mouse" chase and then a male chasing a female. They all sounded like Donald Duck and there were lots of feathers flying around! The boys also walked ahead and since they were in "observation" mode saw a perfect spiderweb (go ahead and enlarge it to get a better view). The sun was shining right on it!

I just love homeschooling my boys! How much I would miss of their young lives not with them spending my days learning with them & teaching them and getting to see & experiencing those "wow" moments together. It's getting even more exciting for all of us as they get older. What a blessing it has been so far to homeschool them and what a great time we've had getting closer as a family and other homeschooling families!

Whoops, it looks like the photos got posted out of order from the writing! Sorry!