Outdoor Hour Challenge No. 7

Nathaniel in the Park

I'm still hoping to keep up with the Outdoor Hour challenges from the Handbook of Nature Study blog, although no doubt it'll continue to be a bit sporadic over the summer. One day I'll be able to keep to my weekly schedule!

We have been spending lots of time outdoors, though, even if it hasn't been purposefully focused on Nature Study. Nathaniel and I spend a lot of time in the park while the girls are at their preschool group in town. I'm sure that's one of the reasons he's such a peaceful child!

Wild Flowers from our Neighbourhood

Even though our focus has been trees, we still love looking out for and indentifying the wild flowers we come across. The girls love picking posies too! Here's a collection of wild flowers we picked on a 20 minute walk around our neighbourhood with some local children. We found pineapple weed, and they loved crushing it between their fingers to smell the pineapple scent. We also had fun with the catkins from the walnut trees, which looked just like bit green caterpillars all over the floor.

So, off we go with Outdoor Hour Challenge No. 7. While I love the idea of the field guides, I think I'd like to wait a year or so until the children are able to fill in some of the details themselves. I'm very aware that I tend to be doing most of the input into the family nature diary at the moment! Anyway, I picked a new tree focus and dutifully read up about Apple Trees in the Handbook of Nature Study. Here's my blog post for what I learned.

Studying one of our Apple Trees

Armed with lots of information, I settled the girls outside in our garden next to one of our apple trees, and we had a really good time examining various parts of the tree.  We looked at the blossom and talked about how the apples would grow. We examined a couple of apples (from the supermarket) and could see where the calyx-cup used to be. I then cut open one apple length-wise and the other cross-wise, and the girls loved seeing the star shape in the latter.

Sophie's Drawing of Apple Blossom

We then had a go at drawing. Charis drew a picture of a girl holding an apple, and Sophie drew a picture of the apple blossom to put in our family nature diary, complete with bee coming to get the pollen.

All in all it was a really lovely nature lesson. We all learned a lot, and the girls seemed to enjoy it, so that's encouraging.