Nasturtiums just starting to sprout in the flower garden
We had fun looking for different shaped leaves in our yard this week during our Outdoor Hour time. Once you get started you begin to see so many varieties of shapes and sizes. This entry is sort of my photo nature journal entry for this week. My son worked on drawing his leaves in his journal and you can find it below.
Hydrangea leaves have a fantastic vein pattern.
The fig leaves are really big this year.
Mimosa leaves are feathery and soft.
This is the catalpa tree leaves that are really big and so colorful in the fall.
I have about twenty more photos but I will stop there. I tend to get a little enthusiastic when we are in the middle of nature study. 🙂
Here is my son’s journal entry for you to enjoy.
He came up with his own way of drawing the leaves which I will share with you. He takes the leaf and traces the outline and then he fills in the details with his pencils. It is a compromise between free-hand drawing and rubbing and it really gives great results.
This week’s challenge has several layers. The task oriented part of the challenge is to learn the proper names of the leaf parts and to collect leaves to press for your nature journal. The less task oriented part of the challenge is accomplished as you sit in your garden area. It could be either your garden or a near-by park’s garden. The challenge is to sit quietly. This is a refreshing activity to adults and children alike. There is nothing like sitting and experiencing all the green things growing up around you.
“Out in this, God’s beautiful world, there is everything waiting to heal lacerated nerves, to strengthen tired muscles, to please and content the soul that is torn to shreds with duty and care.”Handbook of Nature Study, page 3.
I know, I know. This is probably the most difficult part of nature study for most of you with young families. Believe me, I have had four busy, talkative, curious children and three of them are boys so I understand. This is not something that comes easily for most young ones but it is something they can learn in very small doses. My best advice is to keep your expectations realistic. How about 10-30 seconds? Make it a game to see who can be quiet the longest. Or something that works for our family even now that the boys are older is to give them a number of things they should listen for. You could go according to the child’s age and ask them to listen for six things if they are six. You can vary this idea to suit your family. The main point is to try a little bit each time you are out for your nature study time.
Here is a video showing some tips for drawing leaves in your nature journal and also how to press the leaves in your cardboard press.
Outdoor Challenge #17 Learning the Leaf Parts
1. View the illustration in the Handbook of Nature Study on page 456-A leaf with parts named. This information is for you as the parent/nature guide so you will have the proper names for each part of the leaf. Try to use these labels when you are out looking at leaves during your nature time.
You can view more information about leaf part names, leaf shape names, and leaf arrangement examples at this link: Wildflower Leaf Types
http://www.paulnoll.com/Oregon/Wildflower/Flora/leaf-info-choices.html
2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to look for various sizes and shapes of leaves. Collect a few leaves to press in your press. An additional challenge this week is to sit quietly for a minute or maybe two in a garden area and observe the sights, sounds, and smells. Are there any insects to watch? Can you spot a bird flying overhead? Do you hear a bee buzzing? Is the weather warm or hot?
3. Add any new garden flowers to your list in your nature journal.
4. This week you can draw some leaves in your nature journal. As you draw your leaves, make sure to use the proper names for each part of the leaf so your child will begin to learn the vocabulary in a natural way. You can encourage your child to sketch some garden flowers in their journal again this week. Record your flower seeds growth and/or record your sunflowers growth for the week. You might choose to make leaf rubbings rather than draw leaves.
5. Add leaves or additional flowers to your press. Pressed flowers can be put into your nature journal.
This challenge is part of my Garden Flowers ebook. This ebook has ten garden related challenges that will walk you through a study of garden flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study. In addition to the challenges already written, there will be more photos, nature journal examples, book lists, and totally new notebook pages designed to go with each of the Garden Flower Challenges.
Here are last year’s sunflowers starting to bloom. This year we are going to have quite a few more to share with you but last year these ended up producing an amazing amount of seeds for the birds.
For this challenge we were to plant our sunflower seeds but since we did it early in anticipation of the challenge, we are already enjoying the fruits of our labor.
We have some that are getting to be about a foot high already. I planted a mix of seeds so and in this garden bed they are all short so they won’t cover my window where I sit at my desk and look out.
I think they will look like these from a few years ago and will be multi-colored.
I sent both boys out with their nature journals to sketch some of the sunflower seedlings and here are their entries along with mine.
I think it is interesting to note how we each have our own style of recording things in our journals.
One chose to draw a more “scientific” style drawing looking at it from the side-view. One son chose to draw it by standing and looking down at it showing the leaves. Then there is my journal where I attempt to take in one whole garden box with the beans, the rudbeckia, the marigolds, the weeds, and the sunflowers.
Well, that is how we accomplished our Outdoor Hour Challenge #16. By the end of the summer we will have quite a few sunflowers to observe and draw and share with the birds.
“Many of the most beautiful of the autumn flowers belong to the Compositae, a family of such complicated flower arrangement that it is very difficult for the child or the beginner in botany to comprehend it; and yet, when once understood, the composite scheme is very simple and beautiful, and is repeated over and over in flowers of very different appearance……The large garden sunflower is the teacher’s ally to illustrate to the children the story of the composites.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 574
This week I am going to challenge you to start some sunflower seeds growing in your garden or in a pot. If you need some sunflower seeds to plant, take another outing to the garden nursery to let your child pick a packet of their own. The idea behind starting the seeds is to provide a “laboratory” for your child to observe and learn in all summer long. Even if you just plant the seeds in a pot and watch them grow on your front porch, this is a valuable activity. If you don’t have a sunny spot in your yard, ask a friend or relative if you could plant a few seeds somewhere in their yard. Be creative. Sunflowers take about 12 weeks to mature, depending on the variety you choose.
1. Read the Handbook of Nature Study pages 574-576-The Sunflower.
Find a sunny spot in your yard or on your porch to plant your sunflower seeds. These seeds will eventually sprout and grow and provide a late summer challenge all of its own. These sunflower plants can be subjects for your nature journal as well. After the seeds have matured, you will have something for the birds to enjoy. Follow the instructions on the seed packet and get your seeds growing this week. Make sure to keep your seeds moist as they germinate.
2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to look for some garden flowers in your own area. If you already have some of your own garden flowers blooming, pick one to identify and see if it is listed in the Handbook of Nature Study.
3. Add any new garden flowers to your list in your nature journal.
4. Provide an opportunity for a nature journal entry. Practice your flower drawing skills that you worked on in challenge number 15. Record your flower seeds’ growth and/or record your sunflowers growth for the week. You may wish to sketch your sunflower seeds before you plant them, looking at them carefully with a magnifying glass.
5. Continue making field guide cards for your garden flowers.
6. Add flowers to your press from you nature time.
This challenge is part of my Garden Flowers ebook. This ebook has ten garden related challenges that will walk you through a study of garden flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study. In addition to the challenges already written, there will be more photos, nature journal examples, book lists, and totally new notebook pages designed to go with each of the Garden Flower Challenges.
“The making of drawings to illustrate what is observed should be encouraged. A graphic drawing is far better than a long description of a natural object.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 13
As your family makes progress with their nature journals, you will find that there is a desire to start making things look a little more realistic. I thought we would take this week to challenge ourselves to practice drawing flowers with some help with internet tutorials.
Please remember that the nature journal is not the place to give drawing instruction but you could use the tutorials during your art time and then gently remind your children when it comes time for a nature journal that they can incorporate some of their new drawing skills if the opportunity arises.
I would suggest that if you have younger children, take a few minutes to educate yourself first and then share with them little hints as they try to draw garden flowers. This is a perfect opportunity for you to model positive behavior about your own sketches, showing how to make your nature journal an expression of what you found interesting during the Green Hour. If your children are a little older and you are comfortable with them following the tutorials on their own, the link below is perfect for them.
Make sure to bookmark this tutorial page for future reference. You could use the lessons as you progress through the next few weeks during your art or sketching time as a way of learning the techniques of drawing flowers in your nature journal. If you start with this challenge and draw at least one flower in your nature journal every week until the garden focus is over, you will have five flower sketches completed. Wouldn’t that be great? Remember no one else needs to see your drawings….we would love it if you would share but you can keep them private too.
“The book should be considered the personal property of the child and should never be criticized by the teacher except as a matter of encouragement; for the spirit in which the notes are made is more important than the information they cover.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 13
I guarantee you if you start working in your nature journal, your children will be more comfortable drawing in theirs too.
“As soon as a child is old enough, he should keep his own nature notebook for his enjoyment. Every day’s walk will give something interesting to add-three squirrels playing in a tree, a bluejay flying across a field, a caterpillar crawling up a bush, a snail eating a cabbage leaf, a spider suddenly dropping from a thread to the ground, where he found ivy and how it was growing and what plants were growing with it, and how ivy manages to climb…..The skill of drawing may be addressed in some other way, but not in his nature notebook, that should be for him to fill as he sees fit.” Charlotte Mason volume 1, page 54-55
Outdoor Hour Challenge #15
How to Draw Lesson-Flowers
1. Read pages 13-15 in the Handbook of Nature Study-The Field Notebook. This will refresh your memory about what is the purpose and aim of the nature journal.
“Nature-study offers the best means of bridging the gap that lies between the kindergarten child who makes drawings because he loves to and is impelled to from within, and the pupil in the grades who is obliged to draw what the teacher places before him.”Handbook of Nature Study, page 17
Keep all this information in your mind as you gently go about your nature study time and then encourage journal drawing.
2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to look for some garden flowers that you can draw in your nature journal. The object this week is to find something that sparks your child’s interest and that he desires to record in his journal. If it is a flower, great. If it is something else like a spider or a bird, allow them to draw that instead.
Here are a couple of my favorite how to draw flower books that you will love!
Please note these are Amazon.com affiliate links to products I have used and loved!
3. Give an opportunity for a nature journal entry, work on drawing another garden flower in your nature journal. If you are growing seeds, use this time to record their growth perhaps measuring and recording the plants height or counting the number of leaves it has so far. All of these subjects make great additions to the nature journal.
4. Add any new flowers to your list of garden flowers. If you are making field guide cards for your garden flowers, add another card this week.
5. Add any flowers you collected to your flower press. We have found you can add another sheet of paper and another cardboard sheet to the mix and you will have a multi-layer press. Check on your flowers from last week and see if they are ready to go into your nature journal. See challenge 14 for more information.
This challenge is part of my Garden Flowers ebook. This ebook has ten garden related challenges that will walk you through a study of garden flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study. In addition to the challenges already written, there will be more photos, nature journal examples, book lists, and totally new notebook pages designed to go with each of the Garden Flower Challenges.
This week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge for us was very enjoyable. Our flower garden is just bursting with color and with garden flowers as our focus we decided to read and observe a special kind of flower, the composite.
“Many plants have their flowers set close together and thus make a mass of color, like the geraniums or the clovers. But there are other plants where there are different kinds of flowers in one head, those at the center doing a certain kind of work for the production of seed, and those around the edges doing another kind of work.”
“Can you see that what you call the flower consists of many flowers set together like a beautiful mosaic? Those at the center are called disc flowers; those around the edges ray flowers.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 503
We had a great time studying these flowers and now we are going to be looking closer when we see a new flower to see if we can tell if it is a composite or not.
Here are some of our flowers that we observed.
Close up of a pink gilardia…can you see the anthers?
Yellow gilardias
Tickseed or corepesis
Pin cushion flowers where you can really see the flower parts
Pink cosmos, first one of the season
Close up of the different kinds of flowers making up the composite. Can you see the disc flowers and the ray flowers?
My son’s nature journal entry.
We then put the flowers in our press. I am planning on making a flower calendar to make a record of flowers blooming in our yard for each month of the year. This will be a beautiful way to document our flower study throughout the year by pressing some flowers blooming in each month, pressing them, and then affixing them to card stock with the month neatly labeled on each page. I will share our first month’s page when these are ready to be added.
Another great week in our garden. My son and I both learned something new and enjoyed our time outdoors with a focus and purpose.
We have so many garden flowers blooming right now that it is hard to pick one to draw for our nature journal….too many choices. Not a bad problem but still not enough time to do all that we want to.
Here is my son’s day lily drawing.
Here is my azalea drawing.
We have had fun looking closely at all the flower parts and deciding how each insect is attracted to each particular flower.
That was our formal nature study this week….we have spent parts of every afternoon in the garden watering, weeding, and putting in more seeds and seedlings. Now that the hot weather has hit, we will see them come to life. The sunflowers are growing so fast I think you could sit and watch them get taller.
We will be putting some flowers in the press this week and I will share a fun project that I found to do with them in my next Outdoor Hour post.
Here is an entry from challenge #12 that I wanted to share with you. I love this idea and I am going to be doing it in my garden over the weekend. Chocolate on My Cranium’s Challenge #12 -Focus on Flowers
Make sure to scroll down to the photo with the kids and the wheelbarrow!
I thought I would share a little of our family’s gardening history in our Outdoor Hour post this week. We have always been a gardening sort of family and the kids have grown up with their hands in the dirt. Each child has had their own garden box and when spring rolls around they get busy planting.
This is my youngest son working in his garden in 2001….that would have made him five years old. I think the look on his face says it all.
This year he has planted a zuchinni, some spinach, and is now going to add some dill and some violoas to his box. He has herbs from last year growing…chives, oregano, and basil I think.
We went to Home Depot to look for some new things and he wanted something colorful and he wanted seeds so we found some on this really big rack of seed packets. He also picked out a pepper called “garden salsa” and this one he wanted as a seedling. I picked up some morning glories after being inspired by Jenn and I also picked out some coleus seeds for my pot on my back deck.
Our nature study this week has been filled with observing each morning the signs of a skunk in our backyard. Here is what it looks like. They make swirly holes looking for grubs and other tasty treats. I am so glad they are doing this in the unlandscaped side of our yard and not in the grass….yet.
Can you believe how busy these guys are looking for things to eat? Here is my son’s drawing for his nature journal of a striped skunk.
We had another relaxed Outdoor Hour week with a little time each day in the garden and observing birds and reptiles in our backyard. We did have one really sad incident. The baby blue jays that we had in a nest near our window were taken by some bird and then the nest was damaged so there are no longer any babies for us to observe. It has been hard on everyone to watch the “circle of life” drama this week.
I hope that everyone else has an enjoyable week for their Outdoor Hour. Remember, you do not have to focus on garden flowers if you are into another focus or you have something else in mind for your family.
For this challenge we were to choose a tree to study for a year, observing it in each season to notice the changes. My son and I used the Tree Study sheet to prompt our observations but in the Handbook of Nature Study on page 625 there is a section on “Spring Work” to use with your own tree.
My son has suddenly taken an interest in basketball and is bouncing a ball in every spare moment. I tore him away yesterday afternoon to have him to pick his tree and do a quick observation. He picked one of the sweet gum trees that we have growing just off our back deck. We have four of these trees planted as a shade break for the hot summer afternoons. They are perfect for shading us for the late summer sun and then they loose all their leaves in the winter and allow the sun to hit our house in the winter to make it light and cheery. They also turn the most magnificent colors in the autumn and make the view out our back windows very colorful and enjoyable to look at….I can see them as I wash dishes at the kitchen sink. they are not native to our area but they are very popular as tree plantings in neighborhoods and in yards for shade and their beauty.
So here is a copy of his notebook page for his journal. I am going to slip it into a sheet protector and hopefully the leaf will survive for the year that we have ahead. At least we will have the scan of the page so we can compare on the computer if we need to.
