Hiking highlights, early-mid April

The sunrise is creeping closer to our usual waking time, and for this I am thankful. These days, by the time I'm up and enjoying a cup of coffee light is streaming in through our slider doors, invigorating the spirit. On days when there's sun, that is. 

It's still early yet, but in anticipation our migrating friends, we've moved science to the out of doors again, watching buds slowly bloom out. We know from past observation about how long it takes for different travelling birds to arrive after the buds begin to show. Some are hardier than others, willing to face a frost for first dibs on baby greenery. Others stay snug in their winter homes until their meals, and their warmth, are more assured.

So far this year, most of what we've seen are our winter residents, those who will soon head north for cooler climes, and our most constant, year-round friends. But we're patient, and we're willing to keep heading out in search of our returning denizens, and the rarer sightings of those just passing through.

Black-capped Chickadee (year-round)


Northern Flicker (year-round)


Blue-gray Gnat-catcher (summer)


Eastern Towhee (summer)

American Coot (summer)

Golden-crowned Kinglet (winter)

Finding peace

I have been in the habit for many years now of telling people that our schedule is pretty easy to work around. We homeschool, so we're home, which makes us flexible, right? Just the other day I was scheduling an appointment and told the woman on the phone that I was pretty open, only Friday wouldn't work. How about Monday, she asked, but then I worried about having enough time for school with choir looming in the evening, so she offered Tuesday, but that's my running day, followed by evening meetings and theater . . . three options later and we'd finally settled on a time that might work, with some adjustment on my part. As I was hanging up I apologized for being the most difficult flexible person of her day. Thankfully she laughed, but I was aghast to realize that somewhere between toddler and upper elementary things had become complicated.

It's just a truth, this busy-ness that comes with the business of life, especially when you blend three people and all their required and requested activities, and especially, especially at certain times of year. Spring, for instance, when everyone prepares to mark the end of another school year with presentations and performances galore. For the past few weeks our every day has been filled with (fun!) (exciting!) (enriching!) activities that have kept us, if not always on the go, then at least getting ready or preparing for the going. Theater, then choir, then theater again, and homeschool group classes, with theater there. Calvin has two different stage plays in his pocket right now, plus three choir concerts on the calendar, then add to that Jon's off hours students and my meeting schedule. 

And I have been craving a bit of peace. Silence in this otherwise cacophonous world.

Last year we dropped our science curriculum in the spring in favor of a more in the world approach. We hiked a lot, identifying plants, trees, and mammal tracks, identifying birds, and learning more about what spring rebirth really means. It was so wonderful that this year I planned an even greater freedom, and scheduled many of Calvin's school subjects to be finished before or go on hiatus during the month or two of the spring awakening. We started that lighter schedule this week, as temperatures warmed again, coaxing buds from trees and migrating birds into our midst.

We hiked at least briefly every day this week, sometimes in multiple layers to keep the chill at bay, but we were rewarded with sunshine, glimpses of bright green, an inner peace that only nature can give, and a surprising amount of new energy for many other things that require our time every day.

American Robin

Brown Creeper

Blue Jay


American Tree Sparrow

Yellow-Rumped Warbler

American Coot

Brown-headed Cowbird (female)

Eastern Phoebe

American Robin

Northern Shoveler

Greenfield Village field trip

One event in early October was a trip to Greenfield Village with our homeschool group. Field trips for our group are somewhat of a free-for-all: take advantage of group rates the group arranges, but get there whenever and see whatever you want, the schedule is up to you. A lot like homeschooling in general, really. It was a beautiful, warm day. We started earlier than most of the other families, but found the others shortly after lunch time for fun with friends.

4H Youth Show 2015

Our homeschooling group, the one we gather with once a week, sometimes more, to pool our energies and gather in enough numbers to take classes and go on field trips, is ostensibly a 4H club. I, ostensibly, am their 4H club leader. In our group that's not a big job. Most of our members don't even seem to know that they belong to a 4H club, so that makes my job easy. But over the two years I've had the job, I've slowly gotten to know the 4H machine better and better, and most of what I've learned is really great.

First, while most people when they hear 4H think cows, pigs, and sheep (oh my!), there's really a lot more to the group than that. 4H is really just a state run umbrella group for all kinds of clubs. As the parent group, 4H provides registration assistance, insurance, and even sometimes monetary support to the clubs that pay their nominal dues. So there are all kinds of clubs under the 4H umbrella, including dog training clubs or word working clubs in addition to the standard young farmer or horse clubs. There's our rather substantial homeschooling club, for instance, and at least one other club that resembles more a boy scout type assembly than a farm hand guild. It takes all kinds, and the varieties are far reaching.

Second, once you've paid your dues through your own parent club (for us that's our homeschooling group), you may participate in any other 4H club or activity for which you are otherwise elligible. The door is wide open! Come check it all out! Both this and last year, Calvin participated in our local 4H archery club, where, for just $1 per Tuesday evening, he got to borrow their equipment and their expertise for two hours of archery fun. They also offer classes or workshops throughout the year. Next year we're thinking about taking part in the photography workshops. And the 4H mother office is considering adding some fine arts classes or clubs, including creative writing, theater, and music. I know he'd love that.

The 4H year is wrapped up late every July, just before the August last hurrah vacations and the beginning of a new school year. The wrap up consists of a week of activities that show off what the kids have learned or accomplished during the year. There is a day of still project showing (those being anying that does not include livestock in some way), a variety of contests and competitions throughout the week (some including livestock, some not), and a final fun day of tournaments and silly races. Calvin showed woodowrking, photography, poetry, and educational wildlife notebooks as still projects this year. He participated in the make something out of foam scraps challenge, and competed in the archery tournament. He also got a little crazy in the end of the week olympic game challenge. We ate ice cream, got face (or arm) paint, hung out with a lot of friends, and, yes, saw the obligatory cows, chickens, horses, etc. Oh, and rabbit agility. Can't miss rabbit agility.

Science in the field

Two more hikes for us this week...so far. This is our new science plan for the next season or two. And there's a science behind that decision, too. I have weekly calendars to keep our school journey on track. I actually started using them about five years ago when we were just getting started with the Five in a Row plan. At the time they were more about art projects than schooling, but they grew and changed quite a bit through the months, and then the years, going from a list of possible craft projects, to a list of books to read and chores to get done, and ultimately to a pretty detailed list of the homschooling things we tackled during a day.

I use the calendar not only for keeping track of where we are going what we plan to do in a week, but also as a means of recording what we have done. On the back side of every calendar I keep a sort of daily journal, tracking the amount of time we spend on subjects, the total amount of time we spent schooling during the week, and even the overall attitude we both have about them.

My initial goal in keeping the calendar and journal was to have, should Michigan homeschoolers ever be held accountable, a record of time spent on school and its subjects. But the calendar had a secondary, unforseen but fortuitous, benefit as well. Having all those details about time spent and, especially, our tempers and focus during that time, gave me a larger perspective that has been very, very helpful in tracking our study trends.

And spring, year after year, has been a terrible time for us to keep to a regular homeschool schedule.

Our usual schedule includes reading, researching, and writing, but in the spring we both struggle to sit long enough to do any of these things. Looking back at my notes ("no focus today!", "sooo grouchy about math!") this was obvious. So this year we formulated a new plan. Beginning with the warming of the earth, we are leaving behind our science books (never text books, always living learning books, but still books), and are entering the field to learn about the earth from the earth. We are still keeping to our other subjects, but on a diminshed schedule, allowing us to really focus on that outdoor science stuff right now: at least two hikes a week, more when we can. During this time we are keeping track of the progression of the spring awakening by visiting our favorite preserve weekly. And we are going to record the species we find during the bird migration. We are relating all of it to species identification, adaptations and evolution, the geology of the earth, and the general science of life. Biology, from several different aspects.

It's an exciting new project for us, and it's off to a great start.

This week, back at the Scio Woods Preserve, the frogs were much quieter, but the birds were much more active. We took a packed lunch and ate it at the pond with a Great Blue Heron, a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk, and a Belted Kingfisher. Later, we saw just about every woodpecker imaginable in our area, and noted an increased number of insects, which coincided with an increased number of snakes and butterflies. We also discussed the difficulty of identifying species in the field. In fact, with better pictures this week we were able to re-ID a species we saw first last week, but blurry pictures of other species provided a different kind of challenge.

My favorite part, though, as much as I love all the birds and the quiet of the woods, was the time spent visiting with my growing son. Sure, we visit all the time—discussion is a big part of our homeschooling plan—but this was a different kind of conversing, a sort of sharing of ideas and excitement, and that added a special warmth to the already bright spring day.

These are actually pictures from both of our mid-week hike days so far, including Scio Woods Preserve on April 14, and Dolph Nature Area and DeVine Nature Preserve on April 15.

Red-tailed Hawk, juvenile

Great Blue Heron

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

American Robin

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker talking to a Downey Woodpecker

Mourning Cloak

April 15, Dolph Nature Area

Common Garter, red morph

Turkey Vulture

Gray Squirrel, black morph

Red-winged Blackbird (in a not so graceful position)

Beaver evidence!

Eastern Phoebe

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

And how about some ID challenges? Not all of the bird pictures I post are in great focus. Have you ever tried to catch a moving target with a long range telephoto lens? To catch some of the birds, the extra zoom is necessary, but with the lens fully extended every shake of the camera shows, and the birds don't hold still long. So sometimes a blury shot is the best we can do, but usually it's better than nothing, even if it's truly a blury mess. We spotted a bird this weekend that I was sure was a unique sparrow, one I've seen at the same park in the past. The size was about right, and the basic color was the same, but once I got the extremely blury photo in front of me, a distinction appeared—instead of a small yellow stripe on either side of his head, this bird's entire top head was yellow. Putting together what we knew we had seen with the blury photo and a migration pattern timetable, we identified our mystery bird as a Golden-crowned Kinglet. So a blury photo is better than no photo at all.

Here are some "outtakes" that we worked with this week:

Here is our Golden-crowned Kinglet. It is one of several blury shots of this little guy that helped us figure him out.

This Belted Kingfisher is pretty easy to identify here, but still not the best species picture we could ask for.

Without both a front and a side shot this handsome fella is hard to ID. Last week all we had was a shot of his back and we named him a Veery, but with this blury yet convincing full frontal, we've decided he's either a Wood Thrush or Hermit Thrush.