Nature Study Resources

Just a quick post to highlight a few nature study resources that we have found to be helpful or interesting.

I have enjoyed the following book this fall.  It is written largely as a narrative and is filled with numerous sketches from the authors nature walks with her own children.  She also has a blog that I had actually run across awhile back - only recently connecting it to her as the author of this book.

Link to book
http://www.rfwp.com/series/nature-study-by-laurel-dodge#book-nature-study-for-the-whole-family

Link to blog
http://naturestudyforthewholefamily.blogspot.com/

Also, here is a link that we have found very helpful in identifying birds.  It has definitely gone into our 'Bookmarks'.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birding/backyard-bird-identifier/

Finally, here is a link to an article that I first ran across several years ago.  It hit me like a ton of bricks then and I find that I like to (need to!) re-read it every so often.  :)  It just backs up the 'aha' moment that I seem to have every single year (will I never learn??).  In fact, Jonathan did his best work yet on his nature study page when I just got completely out of his way, let him go off to the pond dam alone with no 'instruction'.  He came back excited about what he had seen, looked up all the information himself and had a sketching done before I even got back home.  Read this article... it is a good one.  :)
http://www.homeschoolingboys.com/hsboys/articles/10.html