Wildflower Study Resources

Posted by Cindy on August 31, 2009

Here are the wildflower resources we used over the past month of nature study.

Ending our Month Spent with Wildflowers

Posted by Cindy on August 28, 2009

I admit that wildflowers are quite possibly my favorite of all nature studies.  I’m always in awe of God’s creativeness, beauty and majesty through such delicate little things like wildflowers.  I’m also amazed at how each season presents me with new flowers that I’ve never noticed before – each with awesome characteristics that are different from any other flower.

A field of wildflowers can move me, while a single wildflower observed closely makes me marvel at the constant, yet diverse design that makes a flower a flower.  And to think that wildflowers are “planted by God” reminds me that He cares about me enough to bring me flowers!

Last week, we took a very up-close and personal look at wildflowers through comparisons and dissection.  There was no long nature walk involved – only long enough to collect several flower samples to bring back inside.  Since the yard wasn’t off limits for picking, the kiddos brought in a couple of flowers that aren’t considered wild.  No matter, it made for a great opportunity to discuss the difference between the two!

The first activity was to compare two completely different flowers for similarities and differences.  This is another of the notebooking pages that comes with the Wonderful Wildflowers NaturExplorers unit.

The second activity was flower dissection to identify all the parts of a flower.

We own a very old dissection kit that made the dissection not only easy, but exciting for the kids.

We were able to see the ovules (eggs) in the ovary on this hollyhock (not a wildflower).

Eli always gets in on the action!

The third activity was drawing the cross-section of a flower and labeling all the parts.

And the final activity was to complete a watercolor still-life of wildflowers.  We have been studying Cezanne, who painted several still-life works, so this tied art and nature study together quite well.  And to get composer study in the mix, we listened to a CD of Chopin (our composer of the month.)

“Wildflowers in the Rain”

Wildflower Studies

Posted by Cindy on August 19, 2009

After the scavenger hunt, each of the big kids had to go in search of one flower that was new to them to bring back to the blanket.  They had to identify it and write down various characteristics and information on a notebooking page.

As usual, we had such a lovely time basking in God’s creation!  You can find the notebooking pages we used (and more), plus TONS of wildflower activity ideas in the NaturExplorers unit Wonderful Wildflowers.

1st Day of Summer Wildflower Walk

Posted by Cindy on June 21, 2008

It has been a beautiful start to summer in Central KY!  Over the past few days, we’ve noticed many new wildflowers blooming on our farm.  Since we live down a little gravel road and have to either walk or drive about 1/4 mile to the mailbox, I thought we’d take a wildflower walk and see what God has placed before us on this start to a new season.

Here’s a glimpse of our road.  We only took pictures of things we could see without wandering too far off the road.

Here are many of the wildflowers we saw.  Almost 1/3 of my pictures were blurry because I tried to snap the shot too close to the flower.  I probably didn’t even take pictures of another 1/3 of what we saw.  God is amazing!

Of course, where there are wild flowers, there are butterflies.  We saw tons of them in all shapes, sizes and colors.

I couldn’t resist adding a picture of garden #1.  We’ve harvested cabbage and broccoli already.  The green beans will be ready in the next day or two.  As you can see in the slide show above, the wild blackberries are coming on, too.  I think tomorrow after church will be a blackberry walk!

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