Winter Wednesday Week 1

We've had to postpone our Outdoor Challenges for a few months while winter's here, so instead we're working through the Winter Wednesday challenges on the Handbook of Nature Study blog.

This week we were supposed to look out for winter colours on our nature walk. It was a beautifully sunny day, with blue skies, but at minus 9 degrees Celsius it was just a little too cold for Charis, who cried and whined practically the whole time, while I ran round as quickly as I could taking photos of our trees for our tree study and looking out for things of colour. Fortunately Sophie enjoyed it, and Nathaniel was asleep the whole time in his pushchair. Sadly we found that one of our willow trees had fallen down and was broken into pieces. It was a really beautiful tree.

We tried really hard to spot some red berries but we couldn't see any. Instead there were greens on the fir trees, brown bark, a brown squirrel, blue sky, yellow sun, sparkly silvery snow, and some colourful birds - a green and red woodpecker, a great tit with a yellow tummy, and a brown and black female chaffinch. Later, at home, Sophie and Charis (who'd cheered up by then) filled in their colour charts:

Sophie's chart

At home we also started a winter window sill garden. We planted the tops of a carrot, a beetroot and (what I think is) a swede, and I also planted some basil and kale. The girls were quite excited about this. We're looking forward to seeing what's going to happen.

Outside we refilled the bird feeder and positioned it within sight of our schoolroom window. We know we have chaffinches and great tits in our garden, but I don't hold high hopes of seeing many birds because our dog Pepper keeps barking and chasing them away! Anyway, I feel a bit more hopeful about what we can focus our attentions on in our nature study times during these cold, winter months, when it's so hard to get all three kids outside for more than 30 mins or so at a time (not to mention the 30 mins it takes to get all three of them into snowsuits, boots, hats, scarves and gloves)!