Pecten Reef Loop

So I have some exciting news.  I decided to branch out and create my own nature study group.  I loved the one we went to before, but I never really felt like I belonged in that group.  So, this was our first meeting!  It was only a few days after I started the new group up so only one other family was able to make it on such sort notice.  I'm looking forward to when we'll be able to get the majority of the group together for outings.  It will be so much fun.

I decided for this first meeting, which I wasn't even sure if anyone besides me could make, we would try someplace new that we've never been before.  I found the Pecten Reef Loop after doing some google searches and decided it looked to good to pass up.  This trail was actually a prehistoric reef bed once upon a time.  There are fossils!  Most of the fossils we found were just shells, or pecten.  Hence the name of the trail.  And in case you aren't sure what a pecten is.. I googled that too!

 "Pecten is a genus of large scallops or saltwater clams, marine bivalve mollusks in the family Pectinidae, the scallops."

This loop was actually a very short trail as well, which I thought would be a great start to a brand new nature group for kids who haven't had much exposure to nature or hiking before.

And now my favorite part.  Pictures!

Western Tussock Moth Caterpillar, Orgyia vetusta   (There's two here, a yellow and to the left of him a white one)

Here's another on the bush

Western Fence Lizard.. I wasn't sure about this one because it was so dark so had to look it up.  "fence lizards are often very dark in color when they first become active in the morning, and grow lighter as they warm up"  Who knew?

Another red-eared slider (non-native)

Ladybug hanging out on a plant I haven't looked up yet

We found SO many snails!

An egg (not chicken!).  I'm not really sure if this is a bird's egg but the shell was very thin. There weren't any trees around it though. 

Pecten fossil

Kids exploring the fossils

Had to sneak a picture of the baby in.  She was carried most of the time.

I have no idea WHAT these are but I'm just sooo curious.  If you know, let me know?

Closer look at the little 'bladder' pods on them.  They didn't look to be filled with anything that I could tell though.

Green Bubbles' sticks!

After we got home we found a tick behind Green Bubbles' ear.  It's Tick Season and a great reminder to start doing body checks after our hikes to check for things like this!  (American Dog Tick)

Kelp Forests

Earth Day is a week from today.  Of course, that means there are a LOT of events, festivals, and activities going on this coming weekend.  One of which is the Laguna Beach Kelpfest.  This is a relatively new festival in the area.  Volunteers began working to bring the kelp forests back to our local beaches through restoration and education and in 2009 the first Kelpfest came to the area.  This year it is being held in Laguna Beach.  There is supposed to be a lot of activities for the kids, tours of the kelp beds, a beach clean up, and a lot of really cool people to talk to.  We have never been to this event but I wanted to try it this year so I decided to make it a learning experience all around.

So, I researched!  I swear, since deciding to homeschool I feel like I have personally learned so much more about the world around me.  New places to explore, identifying different plants and animals, even history!  But this research lead me to what exactly kelp is, the animals that live in kelp forests, the parks of kelp, and so much more.

I started off our lesson with the free coloring book offered by the Kelpfest website!  What a great introduction to children about the animals that live in a kelp forest, the parts of the plant, and my favorite, the page where it compares them to a real forest on land.  This was a great visual for my little man who knows about trees, but not kelp.  It made a great connection for him.

After going through the book and talking about it (my son is not a coloring book kind of kid), we then watched a movie from Dragon Fly TV.  Another great find on my part.  I love when doing next to no preplanning results in a great lesson!  Little Man was rapt with attention, a no small feat.  I don't know if it was because it was a place he had never seen before (underwater), something he had never really thought about before (scuba diving), or just the fact that it was kids and animals doing cool things.  He did tell me he had his swim goggles and could do that too when we went to the festival this weekend.  I used it as motivation to work at being a better swimming so he could learn to scuba dive when he was older.

Yay for unintended connections.  We just finished a lapbook about A House for Hermit Crab which talks about kelp forests in the book.  This lead us, unintentionally, to learning about kelp forests a little more in-depth.  And then due to that study, we are renewing our swimming lessons this week, which would have happened anyway.  It feels like a giant, unintended unit study.

Other great links to look at to learn about kelp forests and the animals that live there
California Science Center: Kelp Forest  - The California Science Center is an awesome place!  We lived our visit there this year and will do so again.  Consider this a GREAT field trip location to go after studying kelp forests if the Kelpfest isn't an option.

Monterey Bay Aquarium's Live Kelp Forest Web Cam - Watch a real kelp forest!  You can try and identify the different fish you see swimming by to make it a little more exciting for the kids.

A House For Hermit Crab by Eric Carle Lapbook

So we recently discovered lapbooking, or I should say rediscovered since I tried it last year with little success.  This is the third we've done this year and I really loved tying it in with visits to the beach and tidepools to try and find some of the animals in the book and shells we learned about in the lapbook.

We only do a few sections each day (2 or 3) and not everyday since he's just not ready for it yet.  But I think he does like all the gluing he gets to do and it's a break from normal 'school' type projects.  He also LOVES making books he can look at again.  We got this particular lapbook from Homeschool Share as a free download.  It is a level 2 lapbook which is for 4-6 year olds and was the perfect level for my little guy!

Our cover.  I just found a Google image of the book title to use.

When opened up this is the first 'page'.  On the left is a months of the year pocket.  We put the months in order and talked about what the current month was and other important months to him (October for Halloween, June for summer/swimming, December for Christmas).  He counted how many months away these were.  There is also a small book at the top where I wrote how he described a kelp forest.   The middle section is a chart of Hermit Crab's Year where he had to glue the events of the book in order to the months of the story.  On the right at the top is a mini book called "My Address" where we wrote what our address is.  Little Man knows his street address, but not his city so we're still working on it.  Below that I made up my own 'phonics' cards.  We practiced what letter sound each word started with and circled the answer.  I choose Sea Star, Dolphin, Crab, and Fish because those are sounds he is already familiar with and I wanted to show him he knew them.

If you open the middle section up there is another page.  Inside there is a mini book about different kinds of homes, and a mini book about different types of sea creatures.   On the right is flip book with types of shells we might find on the beach and on the bottom a mini book of different vocabulary words found in the story that he may not understand.

Just an example of what our mini book for kinds of homes looks like.  He glued the 'home' into the book and I gave him the words.  For some of the words he actually wanted to trace some of the letters but most of them he did not and I didn't push it.  We read a book about different types of Homes that was suggested in the download for this particular day.

An example of the sea creatures mini book.  He glued all the animal pictures in himself because he was already familiar with most of these animals without my help.

Pala Mine!

This is one of those trips that makes me realize how rewarding homeschooling can be... and educational.  I personally learned a lot about gems, how to locate them for mining, and the history of this particular mine.  We went to Oceanview Mine (Also know as Pala Mine). 

While it was a little hard for Little Man to make it through the entire trip, he did a great job!  We had a lot of breaks from 'mining' for snacks, games of tag and hide and seek, and just relaxing.  We found a lot of 'pretty' rocks, quartz, and a few little gems.  This is a trip we will do again in a few years when Little Man will get a lot more out of it and maybe we can bring Baby Bug along.

(My camera broke on this trip!  This is why I always purchase the service plan, this isn't the first or last time it has happened.  Most of the pictures were taken with my cellphone, but a few that have the black bars are from my camera, the lens wasn't opening all the way up and then it stopped opening completely.  To much dust/dirt.)

Group shot of the kids (although a few left before this was taken!)

Malcolm showing off one of his finds!

Large Quartz rock with green tanzanite crystals inside.

Various quartz crystals

Mica

Morganite

Lepidolite..?

Morganite (although not as pink)

Aquamarine

Onyx

I honestly don't remember what the black parts were called, but there was a lot of it at the dig.

Tourmaline

Mica

Mica.

Feldspar - an ingredient in porcelain

Malcolm standing by the untouched dig pile.

California Poppies

Our tour of the mines.

These are mines on the mountain next to us.

Entrance to the new mine shaft.

Current Oceanview Mine.  This is an active mine so we weren't allowed to enter.

Our Lord's Candle was blooming.   I have a thing for wildflowers :)

We got to see what the gems look like in a real mine when discovered.

Fun pics since the last time!

Here's just some pics of things that won't make it onto it's own post that we've done recently that I thought was worth sharing/remembering.

Showing an interest in stacking blocks now!

Showing off her new dress.

Malcolm made this beautiful bird feeder.

Flying his first kite!

Couldn't resist the cuteness.

Joined a friend for 'spring break' and did Disneyland, Legoland, and the Beach!

"The Arroyo" - 4/4/13

This was another new location for me which I love.  We drive by this a LOT since we do a lot on South County with other groups/friends so it was great finding this little surprise off the not-so-beaten path.  Just a heads up warning, the path is pretty steep at points although Little Man had no problem getting up and down the hills by himself.  The baby definitely had to be carried through a large portion of it. 

Another favoriate because of the water and now that weather is getting warmer the kids can really play in the creeks.

Our Lord’s Candle (Hesperoyucca whipplei)

Bush Sunflowers along both sides of the trail

A little gropher snake crossed our path on the way down.  Very exciting for the kids!

Closer look at it.

Relaxing at the creek.

Playing in the water.

Building a fort out of the bamboo... until a tick was discovered.

Playing with different settings on my camera.

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One of the few pictures of BOTH of my kids.

I loved these little white flowers but aren't sure what they are?  They grew along the creek.

The kids collected different colored rocks in the creek and, with a little help from a Mom, sorted them into a rainbow!