Virtual Earth Scouts

We love to spend time exploring around here – in our backyard, in our neighborhood on nature walks. For our lesson in home and habitat, we have spent some time exploring the various creatures that live in our neighborhood, discussing what they get from their surroundings, and where they make their home. Kyri loves to dig in the dirt and find pill bugs (her favorite!), and we spent some time learning about what they eat, and where they prefer to live.

We read several wonderful books about different animals and their habitats.

I See a Kookaburra!: Discovering Animal Habitats Around the World was such a fun book – wonderful nature scenes show hints of hiding animals – can you see who is hiding on the page? When you turn the page, the scenery is gone and the animals remain, along with some interesting facts about each.

Nest, Nook, & Cranny is a book of poetry about animals in their different habitats. The book is divided into different habitats, with poems about the different habitat dwellers. I LOVED this book! It is a great poetry book for children, even if you aren’t focusing on habitat studies. Our favorite poem was about Ducks (most likely because of the “Quacks” interjected throughout the poem.

A House Is a House for Me was a fun read that illustrated how unlikely things are homes (of a sort) for so many things. It was a quick, sing-songy book, and we really enjoyed it.

Keep Looking! starts with a full picture of a house and yard in winter, and asks if you can see any inhabitants. The remainder of the book then offers close-up looks around the house and yard to show all the inhabitants that actually occupy the space. Wonderful artwork and fun to see how many animals call a (relatively) small area around one’s property home.

We spent some time on our neighborhood nature walks looking for birds’ nests. We have a lot of mourning doves around here, and managed to find some nests, including one in our front yard that has gone unnoticed.

We also have an abundance of butterflies – and we loved watching them swarm around the butterfly-attracting plants that are planted along our streets and in our neighbors’ yards.

This has become a big part of our nature walks - looking for different animals and their homes around our neighborhood.