We wrapped up our school year in early May and took the rest of the month for spring "field trips" to focus on learning and experiencing God's hand in creation. My hope is for memories that keep wonder and awe alive even as the kids grow beyond childhood. And to cultivate a constant awareness of the Creator's fingerprints all around us. We can know God from his creation, from nature. One particular quality of God's creation I've been meditating on has to do with repetition. You see a row of beautiful Poplar trees, and they all look pretty much the same. What is so remarkable about God's creation is that every single repeated pattern in the universe is different! Every Poplar tree, for example, is slightly different; they have different shapes and branches. Each leaf is a little bit different. The nature of creation is variety within structure. We often see two extremes in our society that I think nature can help us discern. When structure is taken away leaving only variety, you get chaos. When variety is taken away and you're left with straight structure, you get a whole row of artificial Christmas trees that are exactly the same. Parting the two seems inimical to God's design for our world. We are all human, yet out of the billions of humans on earth, each one is totally unique. We are God's creation, and we are meant to create in a way that reflects and honors Him. This idea is what really fanned a flame in me to take the time to stir the affections of my children for nature that they might see the Creator and see how to create.
Thanks to all our wonderful city of Memphis offers we didn't even have to go far from our home in the city to see some of nature's treasures.
The Nature Center offers 65 acres for roaming through three primary habitats - forests, meadows, and lakes - over three miles of trails that my boys could run for hours.
Within the Nature Center is a Backyard Wildlife Center which offers live animals, hands-on exploration, microscopic viewing, a forest boardwalk two stories high (we love this), and underwater viewing of pond fish.
Entering into the visitor center, you'll find amazing wildlife exhibits of life size animals with plenty of kinesthetic learning opportunities. Since we've been learning about identifying various birds, it was neat to see so many of them up close in the bird exhibit.
They have excellent educational signs everywhere to assist in making the most of learning opportunities throughout the various habitats.
While walking the trails, we found ample opportunity for identifying animals, flowers, leaves, and trees that we'll be able to add to our nature journal.
Another treasure in Memphis, Shelby Farms Park and Conservancy, offers 4,500 acres to explore including amenities such as the Woodland Discovery Playground, dozens of miles of trails, horseback riding, and so much more. We took advantage of a few of the trails for our nature study and then of course had to hit the playground before leaving.
We can't visit shelby farms without a few pieces of bread in tote for the ducks.
The boys found a toad hiding inside an old tree stump.
They wanted to know what the underside of a lily pad looked like, so before I could blink, they had grabbed one out of the pond and flipped it over.
Going back to my own childhood, it was time to teach them how to taste nectar from a honeysuckle.
A visit to the horse stables
Woodland Discovery Playground
Picking strawberries at Shelby Farms gave us a fun hands-on lesson in agriculture.
This 96 acre property offers a variety of gardens that give an in-depth look at flowers, trees, and plants. In addition to loving My Big Backyard, an imaginative play area for jumping, splashing, digging, creating, and discovering the outdoors, the boys can't leave without taking a hike over little creek bridges through the Wildflower Woodland. What can I say, they love the woods!
Reviewing bird identification in My Big Backyard
During this "field trip," I offered up a deal. For every tree, flower, plant, or animal that they could identify, I would give them a penny. I would have probably upped it to a nickel if they had hesitated, but they took off on a tear pointing out their finds along with "That's one! That's two" etc. They proudly ended up earning between 15 and 20 cents each.
We found beautiful new wildflowers to identify later.
The Vaughan Backyard
We've started a new hobby - bird watching!
I had asked a dear couple from our church who I knew enjoyed bird watching for some tips on getting started, and they surprised us with a bird feeder!
I discovered the free iBird Lite Guide to Birds app, and the coolest feature is hearing each bird's song and call. I was amazed out how unique each sound is and baffled out how I ever could have thought birds all sounded mostly the same. The app also beautifully illustrates 64 species of birds. The boys finally have an excuse to "play" on my phone.
I checked out several identification field guides from the library but found Birds, Nests, and Eggs by Mel Boring to be the best for our age range. It includes a few crafts, is easy to read, and highlights the most common birds.
Nature Journal
The boys collective nature journal is nothing fancy; it's a work in progress as I'm learning along with them. It includes pressed leaves and flowers, some which we've identified and some which still need to be identified, photos of animals and plants too big to press, and any supplemental notebooking pages or drawings they have done. It's not uncommon now for them to run up to me, open their hands, and say, "Mom, can you press this or take a picture of it?"
I agreed to take pictures of super cool sticks for the journal.
My precious grandmother gave the older boys their own old school cameras to document their outdoor summer discoveries and travels. She included a package of actual rolls of film that you put inside the camera! It takes a week for the film to be shipped off and developed, and the cost for development and the specific battery for the cameras was a bit surprising. I couldn't remember how to work the cameras, so we went to get some help at a Walgreens photo center. We'll see how the first go round turn out.
LOVE and appreciate her so much!!
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