Outdoor Hour Challenge Clarifications

Here are some additional clarifications about the Outdoor Hour Challenge, the blog carnival, and the newsletter. 

Outdoor Hour Challenge: 

• You can complete your nature study on any day of the week. 
• Even though we call it the Outdoor Hour Challenge, it does not need to be a complete hour of nature study. I actually encourage shorter, more frequent sessions during your week. 
• There are suggested notebook pages with each challenge but you can just as easily use a blank nature journal and create your own record of your Outdoor Hour Challenge. The notebook pages are not required.

Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival: 

• This is a monthly carnival for participants of the Outdoor Hour Challenge and not a general nature study blog carnival.
• Suggested topics are in the monthly newsletter but you are welcome to submit any blog entry showing how you completed any of the Outdoor Hour Challenges from the very first one to the current one. 
• You may also submit blog entries showing how you using the Outdoor Hour Challenge newsletter activities like the study grid, nature journal suggestions, and other printables. 
• Blog entries written in the current month are eligible. (No posts from your archives are eligible.)

Monthly Study Grid from the Newsletter: 

• There are four topics suggested in the monthly newsletter study grid. Generally they will be offered each Friday during the month in this order: Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right. For those of you who plan on sticking with the order offered on the blog that should help you out. 
• You are welcome to complete the topics in any order that makes sense to your family. As explained in the instructions, you can come back and complete a challenge as the opportunity arises even months later and then submit the entry to the blog carnival at that time.
• In months where there are five Fridays, I will consider the last Friday as a "catch up" day and there will be no new ideas presented. You can choose to do any challenge that fits your area and interest.

Remember we are starting with a fresh outlook on nature study with this new format for the Outdoor Hour Challenge. I know many of you are determined to make nature study a regular part of your homeschool week or month and that is so very encouraging to me personally. Don't be discouraged if your first attempts as getting outdoors are not picture perfect. Just getting the kids outside is the first step. Hopefully over time, as you gain confidence, it will get easier. Email me with any comments or questions and I will try to help as much as I can with encouragement and advice.

Have a great week looking for insects! We have already had trouble finding some ant subjects but we did have encountered some lacewings, moths, and butterflies. I think we will start some notebook pages with those insects and then keep our eyes out for some ants to observe.