Nature Study with Little Ones

      One of the challenging things about homeschool is doing school projects with all of your "students", even when some might be years away from being ready for any structured learning.  Here, where the little ones out number the big ones, it can some times be particularly challenging to come up with something that can interest end educate Anna, but will keep the twins busy. 

   
For this weeks nature study I wanted to do something "fallish", so I thought it would be interesting to explore bulbs in more depth, as we had just planted some in order to observe and enjoy next spring.  I had some extra daffodil bulbs that I had gotten through propagation, for Anna to examine; but.... what to do about the babies?  Well, bulbs and dirt go together, so I filled a few of their stacking cups up with dirt and tucked a few bulbs in for them to find, and they were thrilled.  Thankfully we were able to do this nature study out side! 

Abriel is intently poking her dirt, while Samuel seems more interested in broadcasting it around.  I don't think either of them noticed the bulbs hidden in the dirt, so I probably should have hidden something like acorns, which they might have had some intrest in.
                                                              


  

Anna was thrilled to see the new leaves of the daffodil already formed inside the bulb.

Samuel, fascinated by any tool, seems to be gazing with wonder through the lens.  In reality he has piled cut up bits of bulb on top of the magnifying glass. Well, I guess the point of the glass is to see things closer...

Ah yes, my budding scientist.