The Art of the Owl

Oh, how I've missed our nature studies.  With a change in our curriculum in January, I wanted to take some time to adjust to a few new things at a time.  Now that we are on a roll, I am ready to work some planned nature study back into our routine.  What a treat to spend the month with owls.
Yes, owls.  Barb at the Handbook of Nature Study actually had a month of bird study planned with just a week's focus on owls.  But I wanted to take our time with owls. 
I had no problem finding resources - from All About Alabama Birds and our Birds Fandex to Jim Arnosky's All About Owls and other library finds.  And then there's the wonderful Art Projects for Kids where I found ideas on owl art. 

E's night-time Great Horned Owl

Z's handsome Great Horned Owl

My squashed Great one

 Alas, the grande finale to our month was a real-live owl release.  On Sunday night (Feb 24th), the Auburn Forest Ecology Preserve and the Auburn Raptor Rehabilitation Center released an owl back into the forest.  Though one of the drawbacks of any owl study is that it is very difficult to ever observe an owl, the owl release was an amazing opportunity.  We drove nearly an hour to the Preserve, but it was well worth it.  Here is the very short video of the actual release.

I'm sorry that this video does not capture how amazing this event was.  The owl, a Barred Owl, actually did not fly very far at first.  He landed on a nearby branch and then gradually flew from branch to branch taking in his surroundings before finally flying off about 10 minutes after his release.  

We are not quite done with our owl adventure.  I bought owl pellets for us to dissect.  I have always wanted to do that.  I'm not much of a dissector, if you will, but this should be manageable since we won't be cutting into an animal.  Right?

Here he is turning his head to look around his new home.

Here he is almost ready to leave us for good. 

   

Our Egyptian Boats

In January, I made the switch to a new curriculum for us - My Father's World.  
For the past two weeks, we have been exploring Ancient Egypt and have enjoyed some fun activities while there.  Last week, we tried writing our names in hieroglyphics on sugar cookies; fun, but definitely more of a process than a product.
This week, we tried our hands at Ancient Egyptian Boats.
We're using the book Make it Work! Ancient Egypt.

   We didn't exactly follow this book's suggestion for making our own reed boat as it was rather complicated.  Instead, we followed the MFW suggestion for using cardboard.  While the MFW writers suggested cutting out corrugated cardboard layers, I thought I'd save some hand muscles and time by using old cereal boxes.  We had plenty of them, and they are easier on the scissors and fingers than thicker cardboard. 
I love that all of our boats were different.   Look.

This is art our way - messy, serious, and fun, too!

Z's finished boat.  He made both upper and lower decks with a trap door (which you can kind of see on the upper right deck) to catch pirates. 

E's finished boat.  She made a special canopy so the animals would have shade. 

Here are all three of our boats decked out with some Ancient Egypt figures from the Ancient Egypt Toob, as well as some non-ancient cats and other animals. 

 The best part?  The kids are now playing together with their boats and figures.  Now, that's what I consider a successful day.