Humpback Whale Breaching in Hawaii

How do we do nature study? We go. See nature. Live in nature. And “study” it ;) Our most recent memorable nature was watching the humpback whales breech from the beach in Hawaii. A bit out of the everyday... but it counts. Even when we didn’t carry our nature sketchbooks and draw it out ;) . . I tried the sketchbook backpack thing. True story: We all have little matching backpacks. Here’s the problem... They don’t want to draw in nature. They want to climb and jump and bend down to watch the ant and talk to their friends about what the gorilla is doing. And I don’t want to carry four backpacks because they can’t run with backpacks on. . . I gave up. At morning time sometimes they get an animal card and draw it in their book. That’s as formal as we get. . . I make an extra effort to find animal places. Wolf rescue in Yellowstone. Reindeer in a Scotland. Zoos everywhere. Binoculars for following the bald eagle on our hike. Rescue centers. Bird feeders. And so much Wild Kratts. . . Landforms? Let’s go see some. Climb a mountain and a waterfall. Identify a Wildflower. Start a rock collection. . . I’m trying to quit worrying about perfect dry brush watercolor nature sketchbooks that “everyone else” does and see what we do instead. Because they love nature. And can tell you all about it. So it must be working.