100 Species Challenge

Did you know..."Most people... cannot recognize even a hundred plant species within a mile of their home."

Can you recognize a hundred plant species that are living within a mile of your home?

I know that I can not name probably more than 2, very sad I know. I am hoping with the motivation the kids and I can become more aware of our surroundings and the specimens that live here among us. I am very excited about this challenge...

Think this looks like something you would enjoy with your kids, here are the rules:

The 100-Species Challenge

1. Participants should include a copy of these rules and a link to this entry in their initial blog post about the challenge. I will make a sidebar list of anyone who notifies me that they are participating in the Challenge.

2. Participants should keep a list of all plant species they can name, either by common or scientific name, that are living within walking distance of the participant's home. The list should be numbered, and should appear in every blog entry about the challenge, or in a sidebar.

3. Participants are encouraged to give detailed information about the plants they can name in the first post in which that plant appears. My format will be as follows: the numbered list, with plants making their first appearance on the list in bold; each plant making its first appearance will then have a photograph taken by me, where possible, a list of information I already knew about the plant, and a list of information I learned subsequent to starting this challenge, and a list of information I'd like to know. (See below for an example.) This format is not obligatory, however, and participants can adapt this portion of the challenge to their needs and desires.

4. Participants are encouraged to make it possible for visitors to their blog to find easily all 100-Species-Challenge blog posts. This can be done either by tagging these posts, by ending every post on the challenge with a link to your previous post on the challenge, or by some method which surpasses my technological ability and creativity.

5. Participants may post pictures of plants they are unable to identify, or are unable to identify with precision. They should not include these plants in the numbered list until they are able to identify it with relative precision. Each participant shall determine the level of precision that is acceptable to her; however, being able to distinguish between plants that have different common names should be a bare minimum.

6. Different varieties of the same species shall not count as different entries (e.g., Celebrity Tomato and Roma Tomato should not be separate entries); however, different species which share a common name be separate if the participant is able to distinguish between them (e.g., camillia japonica and camillia sassanqua if the participant can distinguish the two--"camillia" if not).

7. Participants may take as long as they like to complete the challenge. You can make it as quick or as detailed a project as you like. I'm planning to blog a minimum of two plants per week, complete with pictures and descriptions as below, which could take me up to a year. But you can do it in whatever level of detail you like.

Our Little Visitors

Hurt no living thing:

Ladybird, nor butterfly,

Nor moth with dusty wing,

Nor cricket chirping cheerily,

Nor grasshopper so light of leap,

Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat,

Nor harmless worms that creep.

Christina Rossetti

Our memory poem for the week above, lovely little thing I think. We have a rule in our house, that we are to respect all of life ugly, disgusting and even annoying because they are God's creatures, with exceptions of course. If it is in the house it is usually fair game unless someone is feeling particularly merciful one day. If it is outside and not potentially dangerous to us then we are to let it be and observe, moving it is an option if we are to disturbed by it's presence.

Now, I want to share a few friends that we have met in our backyard this week. I would like you to meet Mr. Garter, the snake. We actually found 4 of them in 2 days. Very exciting. We all enjoyed some time visiting with them and getting to know them a little better. They were quiet joyful little guests. We then let them go where we found them, T-Rex had a hard time saying good-bye.

T-Rex enjoying some one on one time.

Superman taking his turn

Here is the third guest that I found in the grass.

And here was one of our guest rooms, I hope they enjoyed their stay as much as we did. :0)

*I am hoping to begin a little lapbook on our backyard, some time soon.

Unexpected Excursion

Don't underestimate the power of nature. It has taken hold of my children and intrigued their minds. They find themselves yearning to be in her presence surrounded by her mystifying and entrancing beauty and it isn't just enough to simply enjoy her with eyes of wonder they are overtaken by their curiosity to touch and feel and learn more about her. Last week while out doors at a local park just enjoying some nice weather they became quickly bored and unsatisfied with the superficial created structure they played on and found themselves drawn to their natural surroundings. They ran off away from the colorful structure meant to fullfill all their playful desires and into another world. I was suprised by this spontanious excursion and felt very proud as we ventured off.

I could not have predicted this little spontaneous adventure. My children's natural curiosity with nature is growing into a true love. I was truly amazed and excited to see them run into the arms of nature as she embraced them and they enjoyed eachothers company.

We all really enjoyed ourselves. The boys enjoyed gathering up acorns and using them as "bombs". T-Rex found a little "sleeping" snail in the dirt...

and on our way back to the car we found this, what appears to be a dog skull or possibly and more excitedly maybe a Coyote skull or something altogether different, we haven't examined it much since we got home.

Nature study is obviously not going to be any kind of a problem in our communion with Charlotte Mason and I knew that already. I am excited about the learning experiences that are going to be found in this aspect of the CM method, we have already learned so much and it has already brought so much to our school room.

The Green Hour, Challenge #2

So we didn't stay in our back yard this week we decided to venture out there and go to a near by park. It was an absolutely oddly gorgeous day, 80 degrees! We were outside all day long, after my miserable visit to the dentist.

Now relax and join us in our Nature Walk highlights:

This was a funny little guy, he unexpectidly jumped on Superman into the water. He surprised us all. We lost him for a minute in the water but soon found him snuggled up under a rock. I moved it and he allowed us to snap a few pictures of him. We found out he was a Plain Leopard Frog, very cool!

A hole! What the imagination can think of when one sees a hole in the ground!

Superman speculated that lightning struck this tree causing the split down the middle of it, as for all the holes in it, he is stumped.

Interesting and a little scary was to find a large cage out in the trees, some sort of trap we all concluded. T-Rex and Superman assumed to catch the wandering Lions, Dragons and Hippopotami.

These, whatever they were, hurt.

Here are Superman's Hairy White Flowers.

The thorny tree that lead us into a discussion about the crown of thorns that Jesus wore.

Clover with purple marks in the middle of each leaf, we searched for a 4 leafer but left empty handed.

A cluster of berries on a bare bush.

A slippery slope into the mud shed a few tears from T-Rex.

On our drive down our street I noticed some blossums and thought Superman would enjoy looking at their faces. I reminded him of the closed flower, Daffadil, we saw last week and showed him what they look like when they are opened:

And then on the way back to our house he accidently disturbed a big hill of ants with his foot and we watched as they frantically searched about in the devastation:

We had a truly amazing experience in our Nature Walk today! After we finally got home I began dinner and encouraged the boys to journal about their nature walk:

Superman's Journal is above and Momma's is below, I am working on helping T-Rex with one of his own. He has a journal but I am trying to assist him.

At dinner we all discussed our words of description.

Our 1 word to express what we "heard" on our nature walk: tweet, splash and snap.

Our 2 words to express what we "saw" on our nature walk: berry tree, underwater frog and thorny tree.

Our 3 words to express what we "felt" on our nature walk: White hairy flower, inclined uncomfortable bench and rusty old branch.

I leave you with a picture of my handsome boys and myself together after our excursion!

Green Hour Challenges can be found at Heart of Harmony! Thanks Barb, you are an awesome encouragement!