Read pages 568-571 (Lesson #157) in the Handbook of Nature Study. Read through the suggested lesson activities and pick a few to use while in your garden looking at a larkspur (delphinium).
If you have never worked through the Outdoor Hour Challenge on Flower Parts, this would be a great supplement to your larkspur study. Use the information and links in that challenge to learn the plant part names and then start to use them in your study of flowers. This challenge is in the Garden Flowers ebook if you have a membership to the Handbook of Nature Study.
Outdoor Hour Time:
Find a flowering larkspur to observe either in your garden or at your local garden nursery. Use the suggestions from the lesson to help your child see the way an insect pollinates this beautiful flower.
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
How does the bee hold on to the flower?
Where does it thrust its tongue?
Advanced study: Make note of all the flower parts while closely looking at a larkspur blossom.
Follow-Up Activity:
Create a nature journal entry featuring the larkspur (or delphinium). There are two notebook pages included in the ebook, one for a larkspur study and one for a general summer flower study.
If you want to purchase the Summer Nature Study Continues ebook so you can follow along with all the notebooking pages, coloring pages, and subject images, you can join the Ultimate or Journey Membership Levels. See the Join Us page for complete information. Also, you can view the Summer Nature Study Continues – New Ebookannouncement page for more details.
Read pages 578-579 in the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson #160). This is a short lesson but still full of interesting tidbits about bachelor’s buttons, or cornflower.
Please note that this lesson refers you to Lesson #131 on composite flowers. You will be using the ideas in Lesson #131 to complete your Bachelor’s buttons study.
This is a perfect time of year to take a garden walk.
If you have your own flower garden, make a special point to prepare your child for a garden nature study by explaining what you will be looking for during your fifteen minutes outdoors.
If you need to visit a local flower garden, make sure to explain that you can’t always pick flowers if they belong to someone else without their permission.
Look for this week’s flower or look for plants at your garden nursery to observe.
Follow-Up Activity:
Create your nature journal entry featuring a Bachelor’s button or another garden flower you observed for this challenge. There are notebook pages in the ebook for you to use.
Advanced Study: Research the difference between annual flowers and perennials.
If you want to purchase the Summer Nature Study Continues ebook so you can follow along with all the notebooking pages, coloring pages, and subject images, you can join the Ultimate or Journey Membership Levels. See the Join Us page for complete information. Also, you can view the Summer Nature Study Continues – New Ebookannouncement page for more details.
“We often hear the fact stated that in the present day only those who know how to advertise are successful; but we have with us by every roadside, and in every field, and in the depths of the forest, many successful little advertisers, who have lived and flourished for many centuries because of their advertising. For every bright or fragrant blossom is an announcement telling abroad to all the world that sees and smells, that it is ready for business.”
These words written by Anna Botsford Comstock bring a smile to my face. This time of year we see many blossoms “advertising” that they are ready and waiting for the winged insects to visit and then carry pollen on to the next flower. The Outdoor Hour Challenges for the past month or so have focused on wildflowers and coming up at the end of May we will have some garden flower studies. These are perfect opportunities to combine a flower and insect study, sharing the relationship and benefits of this wonderful arrangement for both.
“In teaching the children this subject it is necessary that they should watch flowers and see the insects visit them. If there are flowers in the neighborhood of your schoolhouse, let the children take notes and report on the different kids of insects which they have seen visiting certain flowers. For instance, let them watch for a week, and note all the insects that visit a certain thistle, or any other convenient flower.”
This is such a simple but powerful lesson for your children to learn directly from the field. Take them outside to look at flowers and their insect visitors and then follow up with a simple nature journal entry.
Let me know how it goes for your family!
The quotes in this entry are from The Winged Pollen Carriers by Anna Botsford Comstock. I can’t find where I originally copied this quote from but I am sure it is on Google Books somewhere.
Would you like a walk through my garden? We are having an early spring in our area and with that is the bursting forth of colors and leaves of all shapes. I love the garden’s treasures and each time I take a stroll I find something to enjoy. I forced some forsythia blossoms in the house this year but nothing beats the sprays of yellow that decorate the front corner of my yard. The birds love to sit in the top of the limbs and pick out the dried blackberries that share this space in the garden.
I can never remember the name of this shrub that lines the border between my neighbor’s yard and mine. It has these amazing blossoms that attract bees by the dozens. Yes, we have bees even now in the early spring. Bees in this shrub, in the rosemary, and around the opening California lilac!
The side of the house has its usual daffodils, narcissus, and bleeding hearts all making their usual appearance at the beginning of the flower season.
The pittosporum is coming alive and soon it will have its fragrant blossoms to scent the spring air.
My candytuft is full of blossoms and insects. Look closely and you will see an insect poking into the center of a flower cluster. This must be one happy little insect. The flowerbed with this plant is slowly filling in year after year with more and more of this pretty flower.
I am thinking this is a holly hock volunteering to grow in the middle of one of my garden boxes. I don’t remember planting anything in this spot last year because of our drought conditions but it sure is springing up nice and healthy so we will leave it for awhile to see what comes later in the year.
Our day lilies are pushing up their fan-shaped leaves and will soon be shooting up some flower stalks with their pastel colored flowers to come later in the summer. It is like an old friend and I welcome its appearance.
At the end of last summer, I chopped my rose bushes back with a hard pruning. They were so pitiful and ugly then and I decided anything that happened would be better than looking at those scrawny bushes that had not endured the drought very well at all. And look! They are coming back with a pretty shape and even have buds! The way it has made a comeback makes me smile.
Do these leaves look soft and fuzzy to you? In real life they are amazingly soft and this plant is such a great choice for our dry climate. I may just need to plant a few more Jerusalem sages to fill in where other plants have completely died from lack of water. This one just keeps on going!
My wallflowers were very sad at the end of last summer but now look at how many flowers and buds there are to enjoy! I love the little teeth on the leaves and the purpleness of the buds.
The birds have once again come through with some sunflower plantings. I have about six sunflowers all growing in pots on my deck which you know I will be watering through the summer.
The zinnias have self seeded in the pots again this year and I will be adding in a few more as the spring progresses. These are some of my favorite cut flowers for my kitchen table and I hope I end up with a variety of colors to enjoy.
That is a quick tour of the garden….hope it cheers you up and inspires you to start thinking about the up-coming flower season in your part of the world.
Happy garden day!
Are you ready for your spring greens? You may want to do a “spring green” nature journal.
We were so excited to start the new series of Outdoor Hour Challenges this week with the Salvia Flower Study.We even went out and purchased a new type of salvia to begin our study with.
I was interested in researching more about salvia and the name “scarlet sage” as listed in the Handbook of Nature Study lesson.
We tried to observe a bee in our salvia but not this time. We did talk about how the bee needs to duck inside to reach the nectar wells.
Now that I am looking at these images in a large format on my computer, I can see the fuzziness of the salvia which is just like the sage we have in our front yard.
The leaves on our two different salvia plants are completely different.
Our autumn flowers have been a little slim pickins this year. But there have been some surprises around the yard, including this sunflower that came from a seed that fell from the birdfeeder right into a pot on my back deck. I wasn’t sure it was going to actually bloom but here it is!
It is gorgeous and we enjoyed watching the bees visit it…no wonder! There is so much pollen coming from this sunflower that they can actually just bathe in it as they fly in and out.
Look at that pollen!
These zinnias are from my dad’s garden…he had saved seeds from last year and sprinkled them in his flower bed a few months ago. Now, they are blooming like crazy with a variety of flowers that dazzle the eye.
He also has a bank next to his driveway that he has filled with different colors of lantana. This one is my mom’s favorite color and the hummingbirds and butterflies love it too. This is a great plant to have in your garden to attract birds and insects for observation. (Note to self…plant lantana when we can have a garden again.)
Our little explorers were more interested in watching birds this week and not going on a flower hunt. Maybe next time….
We also looked at ants this week since there was a whole nest of them under a rock we turned over to look for insects. Can you believe all the leaves that have fallen already in my backyard?
I forgot to take photos of their flower drawings but here is mine.
Here is a sketch that one of the boys did of a black widow spider. He had seen one in his garage and decided to draw it using a book I have on how to draw insects.
It was a really great week observing flowers as the autumn season starts. We will continue to keep our eye on flowers as we work through the next few flower challenges.
This Outdoor Hour Challenge is included in the new Autumn Nature Study Continues ebook. It is only one of fifteen nature study topics included along with notebook pages and coloring pages. If you have an Ultimate or Journey level membership, you will find this ebook in your library!
Outdoor Hour Challenge – Salvia Nature Study Autumn Nature Study Continues Ebook
We are starting off our new Autumn Nature Study Continues series with the study of a beautiful bee-loving plant, salvia. This is a great garden plant or one you can actually grow nicely in a pot on a patio or deck.
Please note that if you don’t have any salvia to study this week….pick another garden flower and create an “autumn flower” nature journal page instead. See the ideas listed below for some ideas on how to accomplish a simple and fun flower study with your family.
Inside Preparation Work:
Read pages 579-581 in the Handbook of Nature Study (Lesson 161). Make sure to read the Leading Thought to get the focus of your study in mind. Pick any of the suggested activities to learn more about the salvia flower.
Make sure to go to the images for Salvia at the end of the ebook. You will see a bee on a salvia flower gathering his nectar. Here is an additional short YouTube video: http://youtu.be/XSAYCKvaM8g
There are many varieties of salvia. Look at your local nursery for salvia for your garden or make plans to purchase some next spring. You can also look up your state’s native salvia plants by Googling “state name native plant salvia”. (I just purchased some salvia at my local Home Depot.)
Outdoor Hour Time:
Spend fifteen minutes this week exploring your early autumn garden. If you have some salvia (or really any flower) you can view in person, sit quietly and watch for any bees that might come to visit the flower.
Make sure to look at any flower you have access to this week, looking carefully at the structure of the flower. Note the bracts and calyx of each flower. (Other garden challenges and printables are found on the Garden Tab at the top of the website.)
Follow-Up Activity:
Pull out the Handbook of Nature Study and find the diagram on page 580 showing the blossom of the sage with the parts labeled. You will also see how the bee gets into the blossom to get the nectar.
Create a nature journal entry with a sketch of salvia and a caption.
Ebook Users: You can use the notebook page included. Younger children can use the coloring page. The advanced study notebook page will help you dig a little deeper into your study of salvia. There is also a bonus Autumn Flower Study notebook page to use with any flower your find during this challenge.
Advanced activity: Dissect a salvia flower, creating a journal page showing the flower parts labeled. Make sure to explain how a bee gathers its nectar from the salvia.
Additional Activity: Make it a fun flower study activity for your creative child! Put some garden flowers in a vase on a table along with sheets of paper, colored pencils, and magnifying lenses. Invite your child to make a sketch for their nature journal or to put on your nature table.
Join us for this series of challenges every week here on the Handbook of Nature Study. If you want to purchase the Autumn Nature Study Continues ebook so you can follow along with all the notebooking pages, coloring pages, and subject images, you can join the Ultimate or Journey Membership Levels. See the Join Us page for complete information. Also, you can view the Autumn Nature Study Continues content list on the announcement page.
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Contents of this edition of the newsletter include:
3 fall flower related articles with loads of practical ideas
Nature Table ideas from a veteran Outdoor Hour Challenge participant
Spotlight Family – The Vels
Newsletter Contest – Mystery Photo
The next month’s selections for Preschool Nature Table
BRAND NEW! Mom’s Planning Page: Use this printable page to plan your month’s nature study. There is a place to create notes to remind you of ideas you want to implement and then reminders for year-long study projects, extra topics that come up during the month, and then to send in your entries for the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. See below!
Please note that Ultimate Naturalist and Journey level members have access to members only printables each month in addition to the newsletter printables. You will need to log into your account and then go to the “Other Releases” section.
Just a random post with some First Day of June Photos for you to enjoy!
We have had a mystery plant growing along the fence line. It turns out it is a delphinium, growing this year instead of last year when I planted the seeds. I always love a good mystery plant and this one is gorgeous. I wonder what happened to the rest of the seeds from the packet…maybe they will grow next year.
Our hydrangeas are starting to bloom along the side of the house, shaded in the afternoon they just keep coming back year after year. I love a no nonsense plant that will just really take care of itself but provide copious amounts of flowers to cut and enjoy on the kitchen table. I love the shade of purple they are this year.
Many of the day lilies are already showing their blazing colors…it is so early for them to be in bloom but I will not complain.
Just another day lily…
I am hoping this is an apple year after our disappointing harvest last year. We have lots of granny smith apples growing in the backyard sunshine…dreaming a crisp tart apple come autumn!
We finally spotted an ant colony along our walking trail. I used my shoe to scoot the big rock off the top of the hole and about a million ants came scurrying out. They were rather large ants that had displaced a lot of soil to make their living quarters. It was a little late to include in last month’s Ant Study but it was still fascinating to watch them.
Here is a better image to see how much dirt/gravel they have moved out around the hole. I took a little video to give an idea of how many ants were running around the hole.
I am so looking forward to the month of June and it warmer weather and long hours of daylight. I have so much gardening to catch up on but it is a labor of love.
“The asters, like the goldenrods, begin to bloom at the tip of the branches, the flower-heads nearest the central stem blooming last. All of the asters are very sensitive, and the flower-heads usually close as soon as they are gathered.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 507
I love a good flower study! Reading in the Handbook of Nature Study I learned that the aster has both a disc flower and a ray flower…like a sunflower. Aha! I can see it now that I have slowed down to really look at this pretty flower from the aster family, a Shasta Daisy or an Ox-Eye Daisy…not sure which
We happened to be at the beautiful summer garden found at Tallac Historic Site and I was excited to find a whole range of asters to observe. We had been on a quest to find some goldenrod but settled for any flowers in the aster family we could find. (We did find some goldenrod…see last flower photo.)
Can you see the disc and ray flowers?
I think you can really see the disc flowers once the ray flowers wilt back. This daisy helps show the way the different kinds of flowers grow in this daisy flower head. Point that out to your kids the next time you see an aster.
Purple Coneflower
How about this flower in the aster family? The Purple Coneflower is one of my favorites and I grow it in my garden every year….well actually it just comes back to life in the spring so I don’t have to do too much to it.
So now come a bunch of images that show the variety that this flower family can produce. Starting with this really large yellow aster with the long ray flowers.
These were some of my favorites! I love the multi-colored flowers and the Black-eyed Susans all mixed together. I am going to make sure to plant an area of my garden with seeds like these so I can enjoy their beauty all summer long.
Drooping ray flowers really show this flower off at its best! I am going to put this one in my nature journal…watercolors or markers? Not sure yet.
Edit to add my journal—I ended up with colored pencils.
This aster was not in the garden at Tallac but was on the trail around over by Taylor Creek. There was a whole section of them blooming. I love the classic lavender and yellow color combination. This may need to go in my nature journal too.
Eureka! We finally saw some goldenrod in bloom. We had seen lots of dried up goldenrod during our hike but this was the first blooming plant we spied. The goldenrod completed our hunt for all kinds of flowers in the aster family.
NOTE: If you haven’t read the narrative section in the Handbook of Nature Study on the goldenrod plant, you are missing out. Make sure to read the Teacher’s Story for Lesson 132 before you study your goldenrod flowers.
Here we are…the intrepid aster hunters. My oldest and youngest went with me this time and it was great to have them along. They are both a lot of fun.
Mr. B took a break from flower hunting to stack some rocks and strike a pose. Like I said, always a lot of fun with these nature-loving kids.
Don’t miss out on the chance to do your own goldenrod, aster, or chrysanthemum study this month. Pop over to the challenge and print out the free Autumn Garden Nursery Mini-Book printable if you need to make this a quick and easy nature study week.
Early morning in the garden is my favorite time to stroll the boxes looking for what treasures are to be found…you are welcome to view some images from the last week. Above hangs my new birdfeeder, a gift from my husband and my gift to my backyard birds. They love this new feeder and I love that it is larger than my last one so that means less times filling it each week.
Sunflowers and morning glories are the in the main box this year and they seem to like living together. The vines creep up the poles as well as the sunflower stalks and each morning I have a new blue flower waiting for me to enjoy.
This is the Mailbox Mix from Renee’s Garden and her heirloom collection. This is a winner in my yard!
The zucchini box is full of gorgeous plants and squash this year. We planted Renee’s Garden Tricolor Mix so we have dark green, light green, and yellow squash to enjoy just about every day.
Our tomatoes are starting to produce lovely red fruit and just a few at a time so we can enjoy them in our sandwiches and salads. Tonight…bruschetta!
Our fig tree has another crop of figs to pick. I am not a fig lover but I share with my friends and family that are…they love me for sharing.
Our pear tree has just a handful of pears this year but they are beautiful to look at and hopefully tasty to eat. Our apple tree dropped its apples last month which was weird. My sister said hers did the same thing.
I love the bright orange squash flowers and apparently so do the bees in my yard.
More squash to come!
My dad and I have both found that our green beans are not producing even though we have blossoms. My dad called Renee’s Garden customer service to see if they had some tips on getting our plants to set fruit. They suggested we add some fish fertilizer which I had on the shelf. I mixed up a couple batches and fertilized all my veggies in the garden so we shall see if it helps.
Someone had emailed me asked what I use in my garden for fertilizer so here is a photo of the bottle.
This is my dad’s flower garden which I am envious of. His lantana and dahlias are amazing! Up above he has his fenced in veggie garden which is producing lots of okra, corn, zucchini, eggplant, strawberries, and peppers. I have been helping him a bit in the garden since he had a fall last week and was not moving around too well. What a joy to help him in his garden.
These are just a few of his sunflowers which are Chocolate Cherry variety from Renee’s Garden.
I better stop there…so many garden delights this time of year to share with you. Until next week and the Tuesday Garden Party.
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