Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Outdoor Hour Challenge #37


This outdoor hour challenge was on spruces. We happen to have a very tall blue spruce at the church just across the street from us. On our way over there, we talked about conifers and pines, which we studied about a month ago. I was surprised and pleased with how much princess remembered. Here's what our tree looked like...

We observed the general shape of the tree and the fact that the branches slopped downward, almost touching the ground. Princess tried to get in to do a bark rubbing, but the branches were so close, she couldn't get to the trunk. We decided that this was to help keep the tree warm in the witner. We also picked a few needles and talked about their shape. I wanted to have princess observe the cones close up still on the tree, but the only ones left on the tree were on the highest branches. So we picked one up off the ground. Once as home we put the cone in water to see if it would close up. This is the cone before the water...

This is the cone after being in the water for 20 min...
Pretty cool huh? At home, we entered our finds into our nature journal and also wrote a few observations. Here they are...

Once again, we enjoyed our nature study. I'm really glad that we have added this to our week!

2 comments:

Barb said...

What a beautiful tree. We don't have many native spruces in our area but because of the unique shape, we have spotted a few as we drive along.

I find the cones very interesting.

Great journals, as always. :)

Thanks for sharing your link,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Christin said...

Wonderful study and beautiful notebook pages! I didn't know the pine cones did that in water - so nice to learn from each other!
www.homeschoolblogger.com/christin