Erin Dean

Hello and welcome to the June lessons on nature and the outdoors!

It’s already June; can you believe it?!

This month we’re going to look at owls. I’m going to have just one study topic this month, but whether you’re in a warm climate this time of year or one that is cooling or still cool, there are likely going to be owls in the wilds around you.

If there are no owls around you but you’d still like to join in, you can follow an owl family on this webcam instead.

Some books you might like to borrow from the library this month (these are the Amazon affiliate links to help you find them if your library doesn’t have them):

Owl Puke, The Book by Jane Hammerslough—informative and very entertaining!

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen—fiction, and a wonderful story for younger children!

Owls by Gail Gibbons—packed full of information about owls, including habitats and environmental hazards.

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell—another fictional story, with beautiful images and a gentle story about three young owls who wake one night to find their mother gone.

We’ll be dissecting owl pellets in week 3 of this owl study (the week of June 17) and I strongly recommend that you order a sterilized owl pellet kit now so that you can join in. It takes understanding of an owl’s diet to a whole new level—and it’s not as gross as you might imagine!

It’s unrelated to nature study, but younger children might love this Owl art project from Fun Family Crafts, too.

See you each week this month as we study owls!

Erin

Go to this month’s lessons.

Go to the Nature/Outdoors Lesson Archives.

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Erin (Eddie) Dean has been homeschooling her bright, high-energy, and loquacious children for almost nine years. The children are 5, 12, and 20 (graduate) and can almost always be found side by side, often with foam swords, video camera, or both. She’s a lifelong hiker and roamer and married to Simon, a very supportive computer programmer/business analyst, kayak enthusiast, and husband who shares her love of all things outdoors—and is blind to messes. Erin’s background includes accounting, developing children’s programs for a large community center, and more years of wrangling other people’s children than she likes to admit.

 

When she’s not here, she can be found at her blog The Usual Mayhem. There, she shows the good, the bad, and the chaos of one homeschooling family, and shares her love of nature with anyone who’s foolhardy enough to step through the door.