special science study

Our family is about half way through the Burgess Flower book for special study in science and nature study.  We read a chapter each week, and I pick 2 new flowers from the chapter to study,  usually Peter Rabbit has discovered these flowers in the Dear Old Briar Patch” for my children 2 dd, 12 and ds 10, color while I read.  They each have a picture of the technical flower in its true color, so they can correctly color them.  They put both their coloring and actually pictures into their nature notebooks with their oral or written narration near to the pictures.  So, our nature walks and notebooks have helped to reference and id these wonderful flowers.  When a flower is found on our nature walk that has been studied, we carefully press it,and  put it in the notebook near its picture mate.

We did the same thing with the Burgess Bird book.  The difference is we document location and date sighted bird.  We add any interesting detective evidence, egg shells from nest, feathers, a sketch of tree saw it in, use of binoculars to get up close glances and see if we can attract more with feeders and/or special nesting houses.  The description in the flower and bird books along with the download of the colored Google image copies helps with the identification when on our walks.

All the work we have done during winter is going to be like a treasure hunt for us this spring and summer.  The Burgess books are Nature Lore and we plan to take 3 years to complete the whole of flowers, birds and seashores.  Excellent resources.  Don’t miss out!

p.s.  I made a year long list of each weeks flower study and asked my mother  if she’d  find the images and realistic color pages to go along with them.  She did an amazing job!  I often ask her to do these  kinds of jobs for me and she tells me she enjoys it, as she is a retired school teacher.  Do you have someone that could help you in this way?

Martha