Wildflowers teach various concepts (continued)

[science_spot]

Wildflowers are teaching my five year old daughter some amazing concepts.  It started with our walks this spring and early summer.  Then it continued in the prime of summer, as we continued to explore new places to find more flowers.

I had made a little book of wildflowers for my daughter, which she loved, but we soon were finding more flowers and I wasn't willing to add to the book, so we got a wildflower guide from the library, and it is like a wildflower revolution at our house now!  Everytime we see something new, my daughter and I can find the picture in the wildflower guide in order to identify it.  It is amazing how many wildflowers could be spotted in our area!

 

Some of the incredible concepts my girl is starting to ask about and understand:

Flowers don't have brains.  This led into a discussion about what brains are made of, why we have them, and what they look like.  I wish I could take her to Body Worlds, but I don't think it would hold her attention long enough and itwould be a huge teaser to me!

Bugs eat the leaves on flowers.  There are ALOT of different types of bugs.  Abby loves to catch bugs.

Bees like the flowers because they have nectar that bees use to make food (honey).  If you don't bother the bees, they won't bother you.  Bees like many different flower types.

The flowers seems to change with the season.  Some bloom all spring and summer, but some bloom just a certain time.  This fact has kept the wildflower project alive all summer long.  This is good news for the bees, because there is a huge variety of flowers all year to support a variety of bees all year.

Flowers like different environments.  Some seem to grow in rocky places, some in the water, and some in normal dirt.  Some like it sunny and some like it shady. 

Flowers turn into fruit like berries and apples.  Yum!

Flowers eventually shrivel and die if you pick them, because they need water to stay alive.  They can't usually drink water from a glass, they need their roots.

 

The Wildflower Project this year was so successful, Abby and I decided that next summer we will do a bug project.  I'll surprise her a little bit and do some flower-follow up, because she will be able to handle more details, I am sure!  And I want to make sure we remember more flower names.  We are going to finish off this project with a summary book we can keep.  I hope it will be the first of many summer projects I do with my kids.

I strongly encourage you to give this a try.  I might even make a collection of posts with summer-long project ideas for kids, and how to scale them to kids of different ages.

 

Tonya

AKA sunmoonstars

The Science Spot

 

 

[Momforhealth]

Aug. 17, 2009 at 5:09 PM

Your daughter will be a wiz in school.

My kids loved discovering during harvest season, that the flowers produce a seed.  They enjoyed finding them and saving them to add to our garden the following spring. They have taught me so much. :)