Our family went on a nature hike the other day.  It’s a beautiful time of the year to hike because it’s cooler, there’s little-to-no bugs, and the trees are changing gorgeous colors.  It was like walking through an enchanted forest!  Any minute I expected to see Galadriel stepping out on to the path (another Lord of the Rings tie-in, of course)!  Nature walks are perfect for learning the names of plants, how they reproduce, how they grow, and biotic interactions while the kids enjoy themselves the entire time.  It’s the kind of learning that does not feel like “school” – our favorite kind.

I assigned the kids one task.  That was to collect samples of plants that they would later make botanical illustrations of at home.  We took a baggie with us and collected lots of interesting stuff.  My son had sugar maple leaves in brilliant yellow and black walnuts with different layers of covering.  Both of my daughters gathered oak leaves, moss, a gnawed bone, bean pods, and a sample particularly interesting to them, lichen.  We took these specimens home, looked them up on the internet to identify them, and drew them.  Since we needed to research lichens a bit more than the rest, and because they are so interesting, I thought I would share some information on them here.

What is a Lichen?

A lichen consists of two different organisms, a fungus and an algae, living in a symbiotic relationship.  To understand what a symbiotic relationship is, go to this root word website and look up the meaning of the prefix (sym-), the root (bio), and the suffix (-sis).  Go to Dictionary.com to read several definitions of symbiosis.  There are two very good descriptions of lichens here and here.

Challenge your kids to answer these questions using the websites listed after each:

• What do the fungus and algae provide for each other?  See:  Backyard Nature and Lichens
  
• What is a photobiont and a mycobiont?  Which refers to the fungus and which refers to the algae?  See:  Photobiont and Mycobiont, Myco and Lichens.
• What is a thallus?  See:  Online Glossary and Lichen Education (see the top boxed portion of the page).
• What are the three main types of lichens?  What are the two other kinds sometimes identified?  See:  Backyard Nature
• Draw a representation of each type of lichen.  See:  Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3.  Also, see representations of each here and a gallery of images on Wikipedia.
• How do lichens reproduce?  What are the two main methods of reproduction?   See:  Lichen Reproductive Structures and Backyard Nature
• What is a bioindicator?  Why are studies of lichens important?  See:  Wikipedia and Bionet
• Finally:  What animal eats large amounts of lichens?  See:  Wonderclub

Wow, aren’t lichens amazing?!  Take a trip to a local park, nature center, or cemetary to find examples of lichens.  (That’s right – a cemetary is a great place to find lichens.  They grow well on tombstones!)  At the park or nature center, look for lichens on boulders, stone walls, and trees.  Take a sketchbook to draw some that you find.  Below are examples of my daughters’ illustrations.  Have fun!

Hailey 10 years old

Maddie 5 years old

To discuss nature studies, science, or other homeschooling topics, please visit our HMHS Discussion Forum.

Boy oh boy, we have had a full house!  As Michael had updated a short while ago, we have had friends (Jason, Chloe, and Jake) staying with us as “refugees” from New Orleans.  Their home made it through Hurricane Gustav with minor damage, thank the Lord.  They were set to leave when Hurricane Ike showed up!  This one is a very large storm, so even getting hit by the outskirts of it is going to be a bumpy ride.  Finally, on Tuesday, it appeared that Ike would mostly bypass New Orleans, so they headed home.  We were truly sad to see them go.  We have even renamed their evacuation as their “evacation” and look forward to hurricane season next year!  We enjoyed them so much.  (Lesson Plans 4 Teachers has some great links to lessons on hurricanes and Enchanted Learning has fun printables related to hurricanes as well.)

Homemade Homeschoolers is all about finding creative ways to enrich our children’s education on the homeschooling journey.  So, while our friends were here, I jumped on an opportunity!  Chloe is an artist by trade and I requested that she teach art to the kids while she was here.  She was happy to do so, and we had so much fun in the process.  For one lesson, she used the color wheel to teach primary, secondary, and complimentary colors, shading and tones.  The kids also had fun with a project at the end of the lesson.

Color Wheel Lesson for elementary grades:

• First, draw a large circle for each child (we used rolled art paper, but any large paper or poster board would work as well) and divide the circle into wedges labeled 1 through 6 (like a pie).
• Begin with wedge number 1 and have the child paint it red.  Tempera paints are the most “child friendly” type to use in these projects.  Follow with painting wedge 3 yellow and painting wedge 5 blue.  These are the primary colors.  Have the child write out the primary colors on the paper margin and dab those colors next to the names.
• For the secondary colors, have the child mix the colors used in the bordering wedges.  For example, wedge 2 would mix red from wedge 1 with yellow from wedge 3, then paint wedge 2 with the resulting orange.  Do this for wedges 4 and 6, painting them green and purple.  *Have the child do the mixing on a separate palette (we use paper plates), this is a fun part of the learning process.*  Write out the secondary colors on the margin of the paper and dab the colors next to the names as well.
• Next, explain complimentary colors as the colors opposite each other on the color wheel.  For example, yellow would be complimentary to purple, orange to blue, and red to green.  Also indicate these on the margin of the paper with dabs of those colors as visual reminders.  In this way, the child has a study guide made by themselves that can hang in an area they visit often.

Finished Color Wheel Project

Lesson on Shading and Tones:

• Shading is changing the color you start with by adding either the lighter or darker primary color next in line on the color wheel.  Take a strip of paper and color one rectangle in a primary color (ex: red).  Next, add a drop of an adjacent primary color (ex: yellow to go lighter or blue to go darker).  Mix on a pallete and paint a rectangle of this new color next to the first rectangle.  Continue by adding drops of the second color to the initial mixture and painting rectangles after mixed.  You will end up with a visual gradient of shading either going darker or lighter dependent upon the colors you use.
• To change the color tone you will follow this same procedure, except you will add drops of white for lighter tones and drops of black for darker tones.  You will end up with a visual gradient of lighter or darker tones of the original color.

Finished Shading Project

Art Project using Primary and Secondary Colors:

• Have children choose a partner.  On a large sheet of paper, each child will trace their partner’s head and shoulders.  They will then paint the features of their partner on the paper.  (For a solitary child, you can trace them and they will paint themselves.)  The only rule is this:  they can use only the primary and secondary colors on the color wheel (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) and they must use each color at least once.  They can paint seriously or have fun using their imaginations!

For more pictures of our lesson and the kids’ finished artwork, visit our new HMHS Community Refrigerator!  Feel free to add your own pictures as well.

This is very basic art and color theory, but my kids had never had lessons in it before and I know this is true for many other homeschoolers as well.  We had lots of fun and the results are hanging in the schoolroom for reference.  I think using the opportunity of Chloe being here with us turned out to be a great idea.  We all need to think of people we have contact with that may have talents they can share with our children.  Approach them and request a time for them to teach you something new, or swap times with another homeschool mom or dad!

To discuss more about Art and learning opportunities, please visit the Homemade Homeschoolers Forum.