Lesson 144: The Dandelion, Lesson 131: The Composite Flower, & Lesson 188: The Dogwood
Some will find it more comfortable to draw and paint outside and others will prefer to bring their finds inside to sketch at a table. I think that the younger boys simply are too distracted outside to be able to pay close enough attention to their specimens.
Today we brought three flowers inside to paint. Two flowers are old friends as we have studied them before: the dandelion and the Purple Dead Nettle. 
We had already learned that the dandelion is a composite flower in the Aster/Sunflower Family.
A composite flower is a collection of many flowers gathered together in one flower. We had noted these things in our nature journals before. But today the youngest enjoyed looking at the "lion's tooth" leaves, and another noticed the curly bracts under the flower head. It is helpful to know these terms before they are needed so that you can use them correctly from the start.
We had already learned that the dandelion is a composite flower in the Aster/Sunflower Family.
A composite flower is a collection of many flowers gathered together in one flower. We had noted these things in our nature journals before. But today the youngest enjoyed looking at the "lion's tooth" leaves, and another noticed the curly bracts under the flower head. It is helpful to know these terms before they are needed so that you can use them correctly from the start.
The Purple Dead Nettle is very abundant here, so much so that the fields turn a purple color. My father had always incorrectly called it "Heather" when I was a child, so that is what I had always called it before we had identified it through our nature study.As a member of the Mint Family, it has square stalks, opposite leaves and tiny purple flowers. The bottom leaves are green, but they become increasingly tinged with purple until the crown leaves which are almost totally purple.
Our new study was the Dogwood. Whenever, while on a nature walk, something is noticed by a child, I then read about it in the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock. It is there where I often learn the terms I will need to use to talk about the finds. Dogwood flowers, being flowers of trees, have woody stems. 
They also have opposite leaves and showy bracts. What we think of as the petals are actually bracts and the flowers are really the centers, and are like the composite flowers in that they are several flowers clumped together in the center, each with four of their own petals, and
"four chubby, greenish yellow anther set on filaments which lift them up between the petals; at the center of it all is the tiny green pistil." HNS, p. 681
