The Beginning of a Year Long Tree Study: Our Apple Tree

During the past few years that we’ve been participating in the Outdoor Hour Challenge at Handbook of Nature Study, I’ve been intrigued by the idea of doing a year long tree study, to really get to know a tree and be intentional about observing it in its different seasons.  I have observed the trees in my last two backyards (with our Montmorency Cherry Tree I struggled to identify and last year’s Dogwood tree ) in all of the seasons, but this year, I want to intentionally study a tree in our backyard with the kids.  Charlotte Mason herself said, “Children should also become familiar with trees at an early age. They should pick about six in the winter when the leaves are gone, perhaps an elm, a maple, a beech, etc, and watch them during the year.”

Our favorite tree in our backyard is our apple tree (of course).  So today (thought it is not winter), we started our year long study by taking our nature journals outside to the backyard, grabbing some leaves and apples from the tree, tasting the fruit, drawing the tree, leaf, and apple in our journals, and then reading a book about apples.

Climbing the tree to grab some apples and leaves to study.

The apples on our tree are small-medium sized and green.  They are mildly crisp and taste sweet.  There sure are a lot of them.

Z-urchin loves to grab apples out of the tree, take two bites, then throw them on the ground. Maybe he wants an orchard.

 

As we drew our trees, leaves, and apples in our nature journals, we discussed questions we have about the tree that we’d like to find out this year.  These questions include: What kind of apples are on our tree?  Will the leaves change color?  What color will they be?  How do we take care of our apple tree?  We wrote these questions in our journals so that we could remember to look into these things.

Our nature journals

Finally, we read the book Apples by Gail Gibbons.  We’ve read this book before- last year, when we did an apple study after going apple picking.  But it was still good to review the basic information about apples.  The book explained what happens to the apple tree from seedling to fruit bearing tree and then what it does throughout the seasons.  So when I asked the kids what they could expect from our apple tree based on this book, they explained that they thought by wintertime the apples and leaves would all fall off the branches and then in spring they expect blossoms on the branches.  We’ll be watching to see if this is true!

 

 

Outdoor Hour Challenge: Fun with Fall Colors & Textures

This week, we have spent a good deal of time outside completing our October Colors & Textures Grid from The Outdoor Hour Challenge.  We’ve enjoyed the activities and the sunny, warm, and breezy weather.

We started by finding a leaf that has more than one color.  I sent the kids on a treasure hunt to find leaves with more than one color on them and they returned with all sorts of leaves.  We found red and brown leaves, red and yellow leaves, red and green leaves, brown and yellow leaves, and green and yellow leaves.

We arranged some of the leaves we collected into a beautiful colorful leaf collage on the grass.

 

I really love those bright, shiny red leaves! Wow!

We looked around at tree trunks, searching for different colors of tree bark.  Most of the trees we saw were gray.  However, we did find some tall redwood trees- with reddish brown bark- lining the walkway at the entrance to our neighborhood park.   Finally, we saw a stark white tree with no leaves at all.  The kids had never seen- or perhaps never noticed- a white tree before and they thought it was pretty funny.  They were also very interested in a gray barked tree that had bright yellow patches of lichen all over it.  They thought that was pretty funny too.

Our nature journals reflected the interesting fall trees we found

The next day, we went to another park and after playing and running around, we got down to nature study business.  I sent the kids on another treasure hunt.  This time for smooth or soft things and rough or prickly things.  They scattered for the hunt and came back with some interesting treasures.  Some very prickly seed shell things and some very smooth seeds and acorns.  When we got back home, we used the Internet and our tree field guide to discover what these seeds were.

To our surprise (since they did not find the prickly seeds shells and the smooth brown seeds together), the prickly seed shell was the outer husk of the smooth, shiny seed we had.  Both of these belong to the California Buckeye Tree.  X-ma drew a whole diagram in his nature journal explaining the relationship of these seed shells and and seeds to the tree and to each other.  The other seeds we found looked like long tapered acorns, and were in fact the long tapered acorns of the Valley Oak Tree.

They also found something soft– the seeds of dandelions.  They definitely felt the innate impulse to blow those dandelion seeds in the breeze.

We made some bark and leaf texture rubbings for our nature journals and they both were intrigued by the leaves we collected and peered closely at them with their magnifying glass.  X-man was trying to discover what made the back of his leaf so soft.  Princess K wanted to look more closely at the brown spots on her yellow leaves.

Tree bark rubbings

Leaves up close

Finally, we found all sorts of dried leaves.  And then we gathered up as many as we could into a big pile and jumped into them!  I jumped right in with the kids and smelled the aroma of fallen leaves in the autumn and was enchanted by the experience.  Enchanted, refreshed, and renewed.  This is the beauty of nature study- exhilarating, rejuvenating fun for the whole family.

Signs of Spring

It has been fascinating this month watching the approach of spring.  Even more, I am really enjoying watching my children notice the changes.

It began with our bird watching tree in the backyard.  At the beginning of March, it was bare and brown.  Then, in the space of a day or two, white blossoms began budding all over the branches.  My children were so intrigued by the new flowers on the tree.  We talked about the coming of spring and Princess K was very excited about warmer weather.  She wants to go in the pool.  A few weeks later, the flowers were gone and the tree was full of bright green leaves.

Tree Transformation

We’ve been watching the birds fly in and out of our backyard, stopping a while for a snack from time to time.  This month, we began to notice that the sounds of birds singing and chirping has greatly increased.

After a rainy night, a walk in the park brought to our attention a couple of earthworms crawling across the sidewalk.  A few days later, we found an earthworm in the ground near our baby orange tree as I lifted up a rock that was nearby.  We looked up information about earthworms and drew them in our nature journal.  The kids were fascinated by the idea that earthworms eat dirt and cannot hear.

Investigating Earthworms

Speaking of the park, we also noticed the differences in the trees there.  They also went from bare brown branches  to fluffy white flowers.

Branches to Flowers at the Park

We also found one of the cherry blossom trees there- a gift to our city from our sister city in Japan- in full bloom.  I told Princess K as I spied it from a distance, “Oh sweetheart, I found your favorite tree!  Shall we go look at it?”  (She had not yet ever seen a cherry blossom tree.)  When we arrived at the tree, she exclaimed, “Oh Mommy, you are right!  This is my favorite tree!”  (I know my daughter all right- anything pink is her favorite.)  We looked up cherry blossom trees and read about how important they are to Japan.  They have been bred to bear no fruit, but they are absolutely lovely to look at.  They generally bloom in April.  I wonder why this one was in full bloom while all the other ones at the park were bare.

The Cherry Blossom Tree

We found some lesser periwinkles and tasted the honey flavor at the base of the flower.  This has become a favorite activity at the park for X-man.  He looks for those periwinkle flowers every time we walk there.

A honey taste in the periwinkles

We also began noticing other things in our yard changing and blooming and becoming fragrant.  The lemon tree has begun to bear fruit and roses are blooming on our rose bush again.  X-man was very excited to report that he found a beautiful yellow flower near the hose in our backyard.  We looked it up and discovered that it is called the Bermuda Buttercup.  On his journal, he titled this flower “The Mean Bermuda Buttercup.”  I am not sure why he did this- when I asked, he laughed.  That usually means that he thinks he is telling some funny joke.  In this case, however, it is appropriate since I learned that these are particularly stubborn weeds.  I don’t mind though, for now it is small and very pretty.  And my kids like it.

Our whole yard shows signs of spring

Finally, we’ve noticed that the weather is getting warmer and the bees have begun buzzing around the flowers and bushes.  Z-urchin enjoys playing in the dirt and he tried to get a look at those bees, but he is still a bit short to look over the fence.  I took pity on him and lifted him up.  We watched the bees at work among the flowers.  What lovely jobs they have to do!

Warmer weather and busy bees

We’ve added several pages to our nature journals this month.  My daughter informed me that she loves spring because it is beautiful.  I find myself in complete agreement.  Welcome, Spring, we are so glad you’re here!