Outdoor Hour Challenge--Winter sky and stars

There's a great blog called Handbook of nature study, and we have decided to join Barb in her Winter Outdoor Hour Challenges.  I am so excited to get out more, and even more excited that we didn't have to wait until Spring!  It is possible to get out there in the winter, and look at nature, and it's still amazing.  These outdoor hour challenges are very inspiring, and we hope to do as many as possible.

We did our first Outdoor Hour Challenge tonight.  The challenge was to go out at night and look at the winter sky and stars.  My kids were so excited when I told them that we were going to go outside and take our blankets and pillows and look at the night sky!  

We mostly just looked at the moon, and the stars that were visible weren't very many.  But, there were enough for Miss A8 to make up some constellations of her own, she even named them.

This is the best picture I could get of the moon while dealing with my 1 year old.

 

Both A8 and A3 looking up at the sky with their binoculars.

 

Mr. A3 folding his little binoculars up.

Miss A8 making her first drawing of the moon.

 

Then she decided she wanted to add some star constellations (made up ones).

 

Here was our surroundings while we were star gazing (good thing it was dark so you couldn't see how messy our backyard really is :-)

 

Okay, this just made me laugh really hard.  My sweet boy Mr. A3 decided he wanted a snack, so he goes back inside and comes out with 3 cold hot dogs.  Note that he does like his hot dogs cold, we all cringed a little, but he was happy!

 

Miss A8 eating her banana snack.

 

Sorry it's sideways, but here is Miss A8's winter nature journal page with all her drawings of what she saw.  Notice that there is one not-made-up constellation.  She correctly drew "Cassiopeia", and labeled it in the bottom right corner.  She knows that one!

Home schooling one day at a time--as long as it takes

Desiree