I have been a bit apprehensive (ok, very apprehensive) about teaching nature study. Usually the teacher is supposed to know something about her topic! But I am discovering that learning alongside my children is perfectly ok. Tonight we read this book called “The Big Dipper.” The big dipper is one constellation that I CAN spot without help! This book took that basic skill a step further. It showed how the big dipper looks one way during the summer, but looks different during the other seasons. It taught the names of each of the stars in the big dipper (Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak and Dubhe… in case you’re wondering!) It showed how to how to identify the North Star using the Big Dipper as a point of reference and then showed that the North Star is one of the stars that make up the small dipper! It also showed that the big and little dippers are part of larger constellations. Two days ago I had no idea how to identify the north star and the Little Dipper. Now I will never forget! Look how clearly the illustrations explain this:
Now here’s the neat part. Last night was the night of the Perseid Meteor shower so of course we went outside for a star gazing party! Immediately, after having read “The Big Dipper” only once, my Little Duckling spotted the Big Dipper in the sky!
We saw several meteors… one in particular that was too big to miss!!! Most were fast and burnt out quickly. If you blinked you might miss it! But one streaked straight across the sky, right in front of us! How cool is that?!
This morning we followed-up by making pages for our nature journals. This is just star stickers on black construction paper, labeled with a white crayon:
(The white dotted line shows how to identify the North Star using the Big Dipper as a point of reference. It was in the book, so of course the children wanted it on their paper, too!)
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