I've been taking nature walks with the kids since before they could walk and encouraging them to observe the world around them. Last week we did our first "formal" nature study, on wildflowers. Here's what we did..
Since children tend to describe flowers only by their color, I decided to pick four different wildflowers from behind our house which were all yellow (there was also Goldenrod, but it was being pressed when I remembered to take the picture). Then I invited the kids to describe how they were different from each other. We observed the shape of the flower, counted the petals, looked at the shape and size of the leaves, etc.. I showed the children how to use an online wildflower guide to identify each flower based on those characteristics. They were pretty excited when we'd find a match and would yell "That's it! That's it!" at the pictures.
Each girl chose a flower to sketch. I love how much time they spent concentrating on this activity and how they actually drew what they were observing (versus drawing what they think a flower should look like).
I have a feeling that this is the first of many nature studies for my young naturalists!
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