Outdoor Hour Challenge –Garden Flowers #1

We’re starting to work through the Garden Flower and Plants ebook this week! If you own this ebook or have access to it in your Ultimate Naturalist Library, you’ll want to get it out and read the first few pages that outline how the ten week series of garden challenges work together.  These can be done in any order that makes sense to your family. The ebook has planning pages as you choose, observe, and then learn more about each garden flower you study.

If you would like to purchase a membership so you have all of the challenges at your fingertips and the custom notebooking pages too, click over to read all the details and download a sample: Garden Flower and Plant Challenges.

Garden Flower Nature Study – Read the Handbook of Nature Study Pages 453-456 (Section titled: How to Begin the Study of Flowers and Their Flowers)

Link to the Archive Outdoor Hour Challenge – Focus on Garden Flowers #1

This challenge has a lot of suggested activities for your family to begin a flower study starting from the seeds all the way to blossom. Page through the Handbook of Nature Study section on garden flowers and see if there are any topics of interest. But, the most important thing is to choose at least one flower to get started with this week.

You may want to take a field trip to the garden nursery to look at the seed packets. My kids always got super excited when they actually picked their own seeds and then anticipated the flowering garden that would eventually be a reality.

“The only right way to begin a plant study with young children is through awakening their interest in and love for flowers.” Anna Botsford Comstock

After you choose your seeds, make sure to draw each seed in your nature journal, labeling the flower’s name. I find it so interesting to see all the different shapes, sizes, and colors of seeds from flowers. If you’re using the ebook, there will be an upcoming challenge for taking a closer look at seeds.

Back in 2009, our family completed a bunch of garden flower studies using the Garden Flower and Plants ebook. Here’s a list of the flowers with links to my blog entries once we finished, hopefully it will inspire your family to create a list of flowers and then study them one at a time as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge.
Violet
Tulip
California Poppy
Petunias
Mullein
Bleeding Heart
Bachelor’s Buttons
Sweet Peas

What flowers do you want to study this spring?

If you’re a member here on the Handbook of Nature Study website, you can also download and use the April 2016 newsletter for more garden seed nature study ideas.