Homeschool Nature Study: Winter Weather and Tree Silhouettes

For your winter homeschool nature study you will find it surprisingly fun to study winter weather and tree silhouettes! We used some great nature study resources in our homeschool that we will share with you!

Snow? Snow! Yes, we awoke to white. Hodgepodgedad and I had seen the big, fat flakes falling right at bedtime last night. So I knew that the next morning would be a great time for a winter weather nature study. And so, even before math, we bundled up and made tracks in the soft blanket of snow in the backyard. Because, here in the south, we don’t know how long snow will last. We have to run out and enjoy it first thing!

Homeschool Nature Study: Winter Weather and Tree Silhouettes

We noted, before we went outside, that the temperature was 26 degrees.

It was a soft, wet snow. Good for testing the new sled! Eldest boy made plans to use the sled on a hill of fall leaves later this year.

The cold pushed us back inside. After we warmed by the fire, we clicked over to the Tree Silhouette activity in our Homeschool Nature Study membership. We chose the Blind Contour activity because we were up for giggling at what we might draw when we weren’t looking  🙂

Youngest girl picked our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the front yard. She moved her chair close to the front door.

The chair also works well as a desk.

The boys picked the red bud tree in the front yard. The snow highlighted its silhouette beautifully!

Youngest thought it was fun to use the window as a desk. (I love this picture of the two of them!)

We all paused to laugh at how the blind contours turned out. The children also thought it was a challenge to not pick up the pencil to sketch the tree in the modified contour activity below the first.

Eldest girl took her shot at the blind contour with her choice, the backyard mimosa.

Hers turned out so well we all cheered! We noted that the little evergreen and the red bud were harder to draw with the way their branches form the crown of the tree. The mimosa tree curves and branches almost from the ground. An interesting difference in the type of tree silhouettes.

Then we took a few minutes to spot birds in the backyard tree. Since we came inside, many were perched on the branches waiting their turn at the bird feeder. The puffed up male cardinal looks so majestic with his red standing out against the snow.

We also saw our hermit thrush was back, as well as a carolina chickadee, sparrows and titmice. This morning we didn’t see our red-bellied woodpecker. Great practice for the Great Backyard Bird Count. (We can’t wait for the Outdoor Hour homeschool nature winter bird study because we got lots of great photos of birds last snow fall!)

Overall, our weather has been cold this February. There was one, warm, sunshiny Saturday we enjoyed outdoors. And though we have really enjoyed all there is to notice of winter, we are hopeful because of General Beauregard Lee. Gen. Lee is the resident groundhog of the south who did not see his shadow last week  🙂

Youngest girl has been tracking our weather for us with her page. We were excited to put snowflakes on the 10th!

This post was updated from the February 2011 archives because we are hopeful for snow this year!