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wildflower unit study?


Mama2two
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--Field guides to identify wildflowers

The newest one that I like the best is this one from the Otter Side of Nature. Item #0106. There are many places you can find field guides similar to this one.

 

http://www.ottersideofnature.com/cgi-bin/csvsearch.pl?mydatabase=db4&mytemplate=tp4&order_by=Item_No=abc

 

--Books: See if your library has either of these.

America's Prairies and Grasslands: Guide to Plants and Animals by Marianne D. Wallace

 

Wildflowers, Blooms, and Blossoms by Diane Burns (Take-Along Guide Series of books)

 

--Field trip to local nature center or nature event and discussion with rangers.

 

--No study of Wildflowers would be complete without a discussion of Ladybird Johnson and her project to beautify America's highways and interstates. I can't find anything at our library, but maybe you can find enough online.

 

http://www.wildflower.org/

 

--Look for online websites to help identify what you have found. Type in "Identify Wildflowers" into Google. I have had mixed success with these websites.

 

--There is also surely an app for identifying wildflowers, but I am not familiar with apps. I don't have a fancy phone; I don't even text!

 

--Nature Journal: Have kids draw a picture of something at least once a week. It may be a leaf, or a flower of a wildflower or other outside plant at this time. You may need to say that everyone needs to draw something different (one person draw flower, one draw leaf, one draw insect on the plant).

 

There are websites and blogs that can give you more info about having your kids Nature Journal as part of homeschooling.

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We love, love, love these nature studies by Shining Dawn Books!

 

I have used the Wildflower one and it's great, too! These really could be used as a full blown unit study, too.

 

I have never heard of these ones before but they look wonderful. have you tried the erosion one? it looks like it would be perfect to put with our study of soil we are doing next.

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Well, I have a wildflower project for you. We did this when I taught 7th grade. The kids had to make a wildflower collection. The collected, pressed and then mounted their flowers. Then, they identified them - common name, genus/species. Then, they had to make a sketch. One girl made beautiful water color pictures. She could have framed and sold them. The collections were just beautiful. However, we did have some problems. Mainly, the legality of picking them. IMO, wildflowers are the flowers of weeds. In state/national parks it's illegal to pick them. Fine. But how about by the side of the road? Or on a ditch bank? In our neck of the woods many farmers mow or spray for these plants, but one of my students got in trouble by a sheriff (fortunately just a warning) for picking the flowers of these weeds by the side of a country road. I coulcnn't believe it.

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If you take a photo of a flower (or plant, animal, insect, mushroom, bird, etc.) and submit it to Project Noah (app from iTunes store), someone usually will identify it. I've even had comments about my photos with other possibilities that it could have been and reasons why this identification was chosen over that one. It's been fascinating! Ds12 loves to go on nature walks now and shoot photos for Project Noah.

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Well, I have a wildflower project for you. We did this when I taught 7th grade. The kids had to make a wildflower collection. The collected, pressed and then mounted their flowers. Then, they identified them - common name, genus/species. Then, they had to make a sketch. One girl made beautiful water color pictures. She could have framed and sold them. The collections were just beautiful. However, we did have some problems. Mainly, the legality of picking them. IMO, wildflowers are the flowers of weeds. In state/national parks it's illegal to pick them. Fine. But how about by the side of the road? Or on a ditch bank? In our neck of the woods many farmers mow or spray for these plants, but one of my students got in trouble by a sheriff (fortunately just a warning) for picking the flowers of these weeds by the side of a country road. I coulcnn't believe it.

 

This is exactly what I amplanning, but like you need to make sure I can find places to pick!

 

Got the Shining Dawn unit study, plan to use it as my guide. going to do some basic botany review as part of it, we are starting next week.

 

These are the topics I am thinking. Each week we will read on the topic and do some type of experiment. In addition all summer long we will do nature walks with the goal to ID/draw and collect the ones we can collect.

 

  • Taxonomy and flower families-- make flower wall for bulletin board
  • Parts of the Flower
  • Pollinators- use microscope to look at pollen (get caterpillars)
  • How flowers are arranged on stem
  • Different Shapes of flowers
  • Types of seeds
  • Plant adaptation

  • Plant cell anatomy- use microscope
  • Photosynthesis
  • Types of roots

 

Would love any more input or thoughts

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This is exactly what I amplanning, but like you need to make sure I can find places to pick!

 

 

 

And that's the dumb part of the whole idea of "wild flowers". I can understand the whole national/state park thing about not picking them there. But, what I don't understand is, why is it illegal to pick.... say fiddleneck, or mustard, or shepherd's purse (which there are advertisements on the radio for pesticides that get rid of that in your fields)? I consider those wildflowers. Yet, if they are not on federal or state land, why is it illegal to pick them? Especially if you can pick them in your own back yard and the farmer can mow them down in his fields. Why can't you pick them by the side of the road? That just bugs me! It makes no sense whatsoever.

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