Even though it’s been cold, wet, snowy, and icy, we ventured out to the local state park to walk along the river. We didn’t get very far because with my new hips, I didn’t want to take a chance of slipping on the ice. But, it felt good to be out in the fresh air looking at trees once again. I miss my long river walks!
Winter is the perfect time to focus on tree bark and see the beauty of each tree’s particular bark. It reminded me of a number of years ago when we studied trees in our family and my son and I decided that not all tree bark is brown. In fact, my son noted that most tree bark is more gray than brown. In the case of our ponderosa pines, the bark is more reddish than brown.
As we were observing the bark of this ponderosa pine, we also noted the colorful and interesting lichen growing there. The bright green lichen is my favorite!
Just a reminder: Be open to nature topics in addition to the week’s subject when you’re taking your outdoor time. We started off looking at tree bark but didn’t pass by the opportunity to enjoy the lichen.
So did your family do a bark pattern study? It’s a simple nature study activity that you can do even in the winter time.
If you’re completing the Outdoor Hour Challenge for Winter Trees, you can add a bark pattern study along with that one. See the Winter Tree challenge here: Looking at Trees in Winter.
If you’re a member here on the Handbook of Nature Study, the notebook page shown above is available to use in your nature journal.
The benefits of having a membership here on the Handbook of Nature Study make it a great value for your homeschooling, nature-loving family. There are 21 ebooks available for downloading, over 120 printable notebook pages and activities, and 76 newsletters. New printables are added every month and there are 4 new ebooks set to publish in the next year.
If you would like to have nature study ideas and printables available for immediate downloading, please consider an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership.
Use the discount code NATURE5 for $5 off an Ultimate membership.