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Angie Mc
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| Posted: May 17 2005 at 11:13pm | IP Logged
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Our family will be staying indoors to avoid the Arizona heat soon. We really enjoyed being indoors last summer (our first summer here) but missed our outdoor nature study. We'll be able to get out in the early morning hours (5-6 am) for a few more weeks. As soon as it hits 120 degrees, we're inside!
What are your favorite indoor nature study projects and reads that would fit with a summer theme?
Thanks!
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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MacBeth
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Probably at the beach...
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| Posted: May 18 2005 at 8:23am | IP Logged
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Angie, do you have a good sized window? You can put a small water trickle just outside to refresh the birds and animals who also need to get out of the heat.
Outdoor evenings are cooler, so get some evening nature study in...astronomy, bat watching, etc. Out camcorder has "night mode" and we have some funny shots of the kids toad hunting at night.
Rock and mineral study can be done inside. Collect in the cooler weather and save the specimens for a hot day.
Set up an aquarium at home and watch the fish.
Set up a pond aquarium (from a local pond or lake...hmmm...I wonder what you have in AZ??) and keep local animals in it. Check the water with a microscope for protozoans and small crustaceans.
Use the sun to your advantage. Buy black tee-shirts and have the kids cut shapes from cardboard. Leave the shirts inthe sun for a few days,wth the cardboard shapes on them. Take them in and see what the sun has done.
Make a solar oven from a pizza box and cook your own pizza. Solar Pizza Oven
Also try the
Solar Hot Dog Cooker.
Create a shady spot and monitor the temperature.
Get a rain gauge  .
If I think of anything else, I'll post again... 
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God Bless!
MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
Nature Study
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alicegunther
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| Posted: May 18 2005 at 9:02am | IP Logged
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Well, Angie, I always say (referring to myself, of course), "You know you are a bad housekeeper when your kids are doing nature study indoors!"
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Love, Alice
mother of seven!
    
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Brew yourself a cup of tea, and come for a visit!
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Kelly
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| Posted: May 18 2005 at 3:08pm | IP Logged
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You can also do murals of whatever animals you are studying. I just had my kids paint a big piece of 2' by 4' cardboard blue and green, then we decorated the bottome with river plants, put a brown "riverbank" above it, and spent a lot of time coloring pictures of Amazon River Life. Then we cut out the animals, glued them on the mural and identified each one with marker labels. Sometimes we used pre-fab pics from coloring books, sometimes we xeroxed pics from books and colored them in or hand drew our own. The children really spent hours on this. It even inspired my older son to read "Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice" about the Amazon.
I think, this summer, we'll do this project again, but concentrate on indigenous animals. Maybe just specialize on something like Florida Woodland Animals. You can really take this kind of project and run with it. Add a few books on the topic for your kids to read, and you have a Unit Study.
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: May 20 2006 at 5:16pm | IP Logged
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Almost to the DAY one year later, I'm resurrecting this thread to say thanks for your original suggestions and to ask for more! Greedy of me, huh?
Love,
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Angie Mc
Maimeo to Henry! Dave's wife, mom to Mrs. Devin+Michael Pope, Aiden 20,Ian 17,John Paul 11,Catherine (heaven 6/07)
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marihalojen
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| Posted: May 21 2006 at 6:54am | IP Logged
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Angie,
I love the idea of a mural, Jan Brett has a new African Safari mural this year based on the book Honey...Honey...Lion! After you make the mural, you could make Rhythm Instruments and have a final reading of the book with each instrument representing an animal. (Rather like Peter and the Wolf, which you could listen to as inspiration) Maybe you could make a Paludarium with either local animals represented or the Safari animals - oh! - don't forget a huge Venn Diagram comparing Arizona animals to African.
I'll keep thinking...
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~Jennifer
Mother to Mariannna, age 13
The Mari Hal-O-Jen
SSR = Sailing, Snorkling, Reading
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: May 21 2006 at 8:18am | IP Logged
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Since you are in Arizona, how about a pet tarantula?
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
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Dawn
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| Posted: May 23 2006 at 12:41pm | IP Logged
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Angie, we do lots of nature study from our windows!
Can you set up a few bird feeders and maybe a bird bath where you can watch from the cool and comfortable indoors? Possible feeding stations: a suet cage (unless with the heat it's too messy), seed block, hummingbird feeder, tube feeders with black oil seed or niger for finches, a tray or platform feeder, and even a corn-cob feeder (if you are squirrel lovers like us ). I got a windowsill bird feeder for Mother's Day that lets us watch birds from the comfort of our couch. Also, try planting some bushes and plants that would attract butterflies, also within sight of your windows.
And what about some nighttime nature study, since it would be cooler then? Smear ripe banana on a tree trunk and then go and look at the moths congregating there after dark. Put up a bat house. There's stargazing of course. Keep moon charts. Take nighttime listening walks.
Soil testing. Rain water pH testing. Barometer/thermometer charts. Hurricane tracking. 
Similarly, maybe take early morning walks before it gets hot. Bring things inside when you can or take pictures to refer to later for drawing and examination.
I will poke around some of my books to see if I can think of anything else.
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Dawn, mum to 3 boys 
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: indoor summer nature study
