Nature Club: Wilderness Survival

The latest Homeschool Nature Club meeting that we attended has been about wilderness survival. They discussed basic wilderness and safety survival tips.

Discussing wilderness safety and survival tips.

 Next, they split in to groups and made shelters.

Testing the shelter.

For the last activity, they made an emergency kit out of a Altoids tin. 

Making an emergency kit out of Altoids tins.

Kaylee's new emergency kit.

Her kit contains: Bandaids, a whistle/compass, matches, a fire starter (cottonballs rubbed in Vaseline), and a garbage bag (not shown.)

They also made emergency sunglasses. They used duct tape and string. They put two pieces of duct tape together (sticky sides together), then cut holes for eyes and the string. 

Cutting out the eye holes in her duct tape sunglasses.

Emergency sunglasses all finished. 

Nature Club: Making Bird Feeders

Last Fall, we joined a homeschool nature club. Kaylee has really enjoyed it. It's inexpensive, it's fun, and it meets once a month. Perfect for us.

During a recent nature club meeting, the project was to make a bird feeder. We went on a bird watching walk on a trail. The group spotted some birds and turkey scat and scratch marks. Then, they made bird feeders to take home.

Going for a nature walk to look for birds. 

Kaylee is making a hole in the toilet paper roll to make her bird feeder. 

The finished bird feeder. It's really cute. Eventually, something carried the whole thing away. I'm going to assume it was a squirrel...

Nature Club: Animal Tracks

In our nature club we learned about animal tracking. First, our group walked near the waters edge and looked for tracks. Unfortunately, it had rained a lot and it was really muddy. At least one of the children in our club walked thorough mud and their shoe got stuck. But, it made tracks easy to spot.

The children were told to mark the tracks that they find with a yellow flag. Then, they mixed plaster of paris and poured it into the print. Kaylee found a set of nice clear tracks. 

Kaylee marked the tracks she found with a yellow flag. 

She found a nice set of tracks. 

After the plaster was mixed, Kaylee poured it into the tracks and then smoothed it out with a craft stick. 

Pouring in the plaster.

Smoothing the plaster. 

While the plaster dried we went inside for a lesson on tracking. We were given a guide to some of the most common tracks found in our area. 

Trying to determine what happened by looking at the tracks.

Kaylee's prints turned out very nice. We learned that these are raccoon tracks. 

Canoeing

We joined our local Homeschool Nature Club. I am so glad we did! There have been so many neat things we have done with the club. The very first thing we did this season was go canoeing. My husband, Aaron, took the afternoon off of work to take Kaylee canoeing because I knew my stomach couldn't handle an hour long canoe trip.

Aaron and Kaylee ready for their canoeing lesson. 

After a short lesson on canoeing safety and technique they boarded the canoes. 

Ready to go! 

I waited on the dock and they went around the bend and I could no longer see them. The guide pointed out different wildlife during the trip. Kaylee had a great time! She says she wants to canoe again. Homeschooling has given us so many opportunities. 

Look closely. They are WAY out there on the other side.