Garden Mural Project, part 1: A Field of Sunflowers

This project is a great spring activity to do with preschool, kindergarten or mixed age groups. Students of all elementary grades can benefit from this study. You only need to raise your expectations on how much they can learn and remember and how well they can express what they have learned. They can write their own narrations, for example.

This portion should take a preschool or kindergarten student two weeks to complete.

Mural: Obtain a very large piece of paper or tape several pieces together in order to get a wall-sized mural. Have your student paint the background brown on the lower half for the ground level and blue on the upper half for sky. 

Nature Walk: Weather permitting, take a nature walk with your student each day. It is beneficial for you to read the first part of Anna Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study, The Teaching of Nature-Study, if you have no experience in nature study and its goals. For your first nature walk, have your student just spend time outside and allow him to play in the dirt and point out the blue sky to him. Once inside, have him sketch his experience outside with the earth and sky. For all his nature journal entries, he may choose to just sketch or he may want to include some observations with the sketches. If he is able to write these observations himself, he may, but this is also a good opportunity to have him narrate verbally while you write these down for him on the page.

“...the teacher should have in mind clearly the names of the parts which she wishes to teach...When talking with the pupils about flowers let her use these names naturally...-Handbook of Nature Study, page 456

A Field of Flowers: Learn about the parts of flowers while making the blossoms from paper plates and stems, leaves and other parts from colored construction paper. 

Prepare for this project by gathering together plain white paper plates, tan and green construction paper and sunflower orange-yellow paint. Your student will paint the paper plate with the yellow paint. Then he can glue a tan circle made from construction paper in the center of the plate and glue strips of green construction paper to form the stem. Lastly, he can glue green leaves onto the stems. You must determine in advance whether you need to cut these parts out for him in advance or whether he should cut them out himself. It all depends of the development of the child and what you are working on with him. It is no less his project if you have to cut the parts out for him and he glues them together.

As you are working with the student, making the flower, casually use the correct terms for the parts of the flower. (See Anna Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study, pages 456-457 for details on how to do this.)

Seed Germination: In advance, purchase some sunflower and some bean seeds. You will also need a plastic cup, some potting soil, a glass jar, paper towels and water.

Have them observe the seeds, perhaps with a magnifying glass. Have him compare and contrast the seeds and sketch his observations in his nature journal, including his narrations, if desired.

Next. have him push sheets of paper towel, one at at time, into the glass jar. Once full, add water to wet the paper towels, making sure to dump out the excess water. This will allow more room for additional paper towels, which you can pack in the middle to soak up any excess water and will make sure that the seeds will stay in place.  Now have your student place the seeds in the jar between the wet towels and the glass of the jar. Have him draw this in his science journal. He can view the development of the seed and journal this during the weeks to come.

Have your student plant sunflower seeds in plastic cups of soil. Have your student observe and sketch the plant's development regularly in his science journal. Be sure to include the dates. 

Nature Walk: During this week's nature walk, look for some garden flowers in your own yard or neighborhood. You only need to spend 15-20 minutes on this nature walk. Compare and contrast the flowers that you see. Begin to use the correct labels for plant parts that you have learned. Give your student an opportunity to make a journal entry after each nature walk.

Additional Resources:

• Handbook of Nature Study, Anna Comstock
• Handbook of Nature Study Blog: Growing Sunflowers

Botany: The Seven Most Common Families of Plants +1, Lesson 8: BONUS: The Rose Family

Rose from Mrs. Gorsuch's Garden

Although we have covered the seven most common families, which was our goal, but I couldn't leave our summer botany study without a look at the Rose Family because this family contains more than 3,000 species! So, consider this a bonus eighth family to study.

The blossoms of true roses have five sepals and five petals plus a number of stamens and pistils. Flowers with lots stamens, like some from the Rose family, can be bred so that they have fewer stamens, but more petals. The extra petals are bred from the stamens! That is why most of the Roses we are used to seeing have much more than 5 petals and fewer stamens. Members of the Rose family, however that grow in the wild will have 5 petals and a number of stamens. 

Most of the fruits we eat belong to subfamilies of the Rose Family. Rose hips, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries are all fruits of the Rose Family. We began our study of this family by looking at our roses and then locating a rosehip and tasting a piece of one. Rosehips are full of vitamin C.

Plums are also a subfamily of the Rose family and their branch (pardon the pun) includes plums, peaches, nectarines, cherries and apricots. All of the fruits in the Plum branch have a seam down the side and a hard pit within. 

Apples also are a subfamily of the Rose Family and includes apples, pears and many berries. We have studied strawberries in the past.

The fruit from apples and pears form beneath the flowers. The five pointed star at the base of these fruits is formed by the sepals that used to be around the blossom.

Botany: The Seven Most Common Plant Families, part 7: The Aster Family and Composite Flowers

“Many of the most beautiful of the autumn flowers belong to the Compositae, a family of such complicated flower arrangement that it is very difficult for the child or the beginner in botany to comprehend it; and yet, when once understood, the composite scheme is very simple and beautiful, and is repeated over and over in flowers of very different appearance……The large garden sunflower is the teacher’s ally to illustrate to the children the story of the composites.” -Anna Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, page 574

The Aster family is the last stop on our quest to learn the seven most common plant families. This family is also sometimes called the Sunflower family. Asters are a composite flower which means that one flowerhead is composed of many smaller flowers. The smaller flowers are really five fused petals surrounding a pistil and stamens. The petals surrounding the disc are called Ray Flowers and these are each are a complete flower as well. Each tiny flower produces its own seed. 

"Can you see that what you call the flower consists of many flowers set together like a beautiful mosaic? Those at the center are called disc flowers; those around the edges ray flowers."-Anna Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, page 503

Some other common flowers in the Aster/Sunflower family include Black-eyed Susan, Asters, Dandelion, Marigolds, Zinnia, Chamomile, and Chrysanthemums. They are all easy to spot because of their distinctive shape.

"Many plants have their flowers set close together and thus make a mass of color, like the geraniums or the clovers. But there are other plants where there are different kinds of flowers in one head, those at the center doing a certain kind of work for the production of seed, and those around the edges doing another kind of work." 

-Anna Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, page 503

If you examine them and you can actually see the tiny individual flowers in the center disc, along with the Ray flowers protruding petal like from the outside. The interesting thing about the Dandelion is that it is a composite flower, but it is unique in that it is all ray flowers and does not have the center of disk flowers. 

(All photos are from a botany study will did in 2008.)

Botany: The Seven Most Common Plant Families, Part 6: The Mallow Family and a recipe for Homemade Marshmallows

June 2008
The Hibiscus is a member of the Mallow family.

 

You know you have a member of the Mallow family when you find a funnel shaped flower with 5 separate petals and a distinctive column of stamens surrounding the pistil. There are also 3-5 partially united sepals. If you crush any part of the plant from this family and rub it between your fingers and you will notice a slimy substance or texture, called mucilaginous in botany terms. Okra, for example, is in this family. Harrington Harmonies has a wonderful notebooking page for Mallows that you might want to use.

It is this family that the treat we know as Marshmallows come from. Confectioners in early 19th century France made the innovation of whipping up the marshmallow sap and sweetening it, to make a confection similar to modern marshmallow. The confection was made locally, however, by the owners of small sweet shops. They would extract the sap from the mallow plant's root, and whip it themselves. The candy was very popular, but its manufacture was labour-intensive. In the late 19th century, French manufacturers thought of using egg whites or gelatin, combined with modified corn starch, to create the chewy base. 

For fun, you might want to make a batch of homemade marshmallows. Since this recipe uses gelatin and cornstarch, it really has nothing to do with the plant family, except that your students might associate the plant family and the confection if they make them while you are studying this family.

Homemade Marshmallows

Put 3 envelopes of unflavored gelatin and a 1/2 cup of water in your mixer's bowl and let "bloom" for 10 minutes. Meanwhile add 2 cups of sugar, 2/3 cup of white corn syrup and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil 1 minute. Turn on mixer and drizzle boiling syrup into the mixer's bowl. Turn mixer up and add 1/4 teaspoon salt. Turn mixer on the highest setting you can without losing the contents of the bowl. When it fluffs around the sides, stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Turn back on high and continue mixing until the volume stops increasing. (This whole process should take from 8-12 minutes.)

Add 1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract and mix in. Add coloring now, if you wish. Pour into baking dish and smooth with a spatula. Coat a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with butter and powdered sugar. Cool overnight.

In the morning, invert the baking dish over a cutting board coated with powdered sugar.

Cut into squares of the desired size.

Dredge squares in powdered sugar until not sticky. Keep in an airtight container until ready to use.

Botany: The Seven Most Common Families of Plants, Lesson 5: The Parsley Family and Plant Stems

We have been continuing our summer quest of learning the seven most common families of plants with the Parsley family. The Parsley family is identified by its often hollow stalk, flower with five petals, five stamen and compound umbels on stems radiating from a single point at the end of the stalk. 

An umbel is a group of stems that come out from a single point in the stem and look like an upside-down umbrella. The compound umbels which are the distinctive feature of the parsley family have flowers that radiate out in an umbel shape from the end of each of the points that end the first umbel. 

We are familiar with many members of this family, including carrots, (in fact this family is sometimes referred to as the carrot family) Queen Anne's Lace (which is also called wild carrot), celery, cumin, anise, dill, fennel, parsnips and, of course, parsley. 

We have looked at the hollow tubes in a stalk of celery an we put the stalk in a cup of water colored blue so that we could see the hollow tubes better. 

In a few days, when they see coloring in the celery stalks, you can talk about how the hollow tubes are prominent in the parsley family but that all plants have these "veins" and are called xylem in their stems, and that the xylem take water and minerals from the roots to other parts of the plant. You can also tell them that there are other tubes in plant stems called Phloem, which take the sugars, the plant's "food" created during the process of photosynthesis, to other parts of the plant.

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This family of plants is also important to learn because the two deadliest plants in America belong in its ranks: 

Poison Hemlock and Water Hemlock.

The Queen Anne's Lace, because it is so prevalent in the wild (at least in our area) is a good choice of plant to gather to study this family.

"When the flowers wither and the fruits begin to form, every one of the little umbels turns toward the center, its stalk curving over so that the outside umbels reach over and close the whole flower-head; and the thread-like bracts at the base reach up as if they, too, were in the family councils, and must do their slender duty in helping to make the fading flowers into a little, tightfisted clump."

-Handbook of Nature Study, p.543

In this bunch of Queen Anne's Lace we can see the small, but mature flowers, the fruit clusters beginning to form and one which has already become a "bird's nest."

"Queen Anne's Lace is a weed which came to us from Europe and flourishes better here than on its native soil. It has beautiful blossoms set in clusters and it matures many seeds which it manages to plant successfully." -HNS, p.544

Our Queen Anne's Lace pictures from our nature study journals.

The Queen Anne's Lace flower is such a lovely composite flower, with each of the flower cluster making up many florets. A composite flower is a collection of many flowers gathered together in one flower. If you look closely enough you can see that each tiny floret has five petals and if you get a magnifying glass, you should be able to see five tiny stamens. Imagine all the seeds it must produce! Because of the hollow stems, it is also a good plant to place in colored water, which will color the white blossoms.

Botany: The Seven Most Common Families of Plants, Lesson 4: The Lilly Family and Leaf Rubbings

June 2008

This week in our botany studies, we focused on the Lilly family, which gave us a great opportunity to practice what we had just learned about Monocots and Dicots. Remember some of the ways in which we can tell these different divisions?

June 2008

Number of flower parts: The Lily has 3 sepals and 3 petals (although some say they have 6 petals) and a pistil with a 3-parted stigma and since Moncots tend to have parts that are divisible by three, this indicates that they are Monocots.

Leaf veins: In monocots, there are usually a number of major leaf veins which run parallel the length of the leaf and Lillies show this very clearly. You can see them in the leaf rubbings in the sketch at the top of this post.

Members of the Lilly family can be identified as flowers in parts of three and that the sepals and petals are identical. Most people would say that the Lilly has six petals but botanists make a distinction between the identical sepals and petals. 

June 2008

Starting from the outside of the flower, you can count towards the inside and see that there are three sepals, that look identical to the petals, but form and outside layer. Going in from there, you can see the three inside petals and then you can find the stamens and pistil inside. Lillies have six stamens, although some may be lacking anthers. The tip of the pistil is called the "stigma" and is noticeably in three parts. The family that you are most likely to confuse the Lilly with is the Iris family and the way you can tell them apart is that the Iris family has only three stamens.

Quentin narrating what he has learned about pollination in June of 2008.

Since the parts of the flower are so prominent in the Lilly family, it might be a good time to go over the process of pollination, if you haven't already. It can be a simple explanation about how a flower is pollinated by insects accidentally getting pollen on them from the stamen when the seek nectar or pollen (bees collect pollen on "pollen bags" on their legs) and some of the pollen rubs off on the pistil of the next flower they visit, pollinating the flower.

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June 2008

Go on a nature hike and see if you can find some Lillies. In addition to sketching a flower for the nature journal, you could also do a leaf rubbing as a way of going over the differences between the leaves of Monocots and Dicots. Collect some leaves from the Lilly you find, and collect some leaves from other plants which are not Monocots.

September 2009

To make crayon rubbings, place the leaves under a sheet of thin paper. Regular copypaper works fine. Using the side, rub a crayon across the areas where the leaves are. This will leave an imprint of the vein patterns.

Botany: The Seven Most Common Families of Plants, Lesson 3: The Pea Family

"The sweet pea has some of its leaflets changed to tendrils which hold it to the trellis. Its flower is like that of the clover, the upper petal forming the banner, the two side petals the wings, and the two united lower petals the keel which protects the stamens and pistil."

-Anna Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, page 589

We learned about the family in our botany studies, which is characterized by its irregularly shaped flower containing five petals: a banner, two wings and a keel (which is comprised of two petals that look like one).

The Pea Family also produces pea-like pods that open along two seams and often have pinnate (opposite) leaves. We don't have any peas growing in the garden and we have never been able to find any blooming members of the family in our neighborhood except the clover. I have invited the boys, in the past, to find clover in the backyard and to bring some inside to sketch, and when they did, they found White Clover.

July 2009

The clover's petals are hard to identify as a banner-wings-keel because they are so long and thin, but looking at the clover closely, they noticed that the flower is made up of many small flowers, each with their own calyx. Several years ago, Katie examined some clover thoroughly and was able to draw the flower as it looks from far away and then a cut-out that shows the flower pattern.

July 2009

 "The white clover has creeping stems. Its flowers depend upon the bees for their pollination and the bees depend upon the white clover blossoms for honey." Handbook of Nature Study, p.597

Sam noticed several years ago, when we studied white clover, that the bees were swarming the clover one day but not so much the next. We had learned the previous year, when we studied bees, that bees choose a different flower each day to get the nectar from, so this made sense.

July 2009

They also noticed that the flowers are not all just white. The leaves, too, are not just a single green, but several shades and some even had hues of red in them. Other members of the Pea Family include lupine, most beans and legumes and alfalfa.

Dissecting a Lima bean that we soaked overnight; June 2008.

Flowering plants have been divided into two major groups, or classes,: the Dicots and the Monocots. Since one of the main divisions between Monocots and Dicots has to do with their seeds, you can look at the differences by soaking a corn seed and pea seed or bean seed in water overnight and then comparing the two. The pea or bean, being a dicot, breaks into two parts and the corn seed, being a monocot does not. If you decided to sprout the two different types of seeds you can further see the differences when the cotyledons develop. Cotyledons are the "seed leaves" produced by the embryo .The number of cotyledons found in the embryo is the actual basis for distinguishing the two classes of angiosperms, and is the source of the names Monocotyledonae ("one cotyledon") and Dicotyledonae ("two cotyledons"). The cotyledons serve to absorb nutrients packaged in the seed, until the seedling is able to produce its first true leaves and begin photosynthesis.

Other ways of determining a dicot from a monocot include:

Number of flower parts: If you count the number of petals, stamens, or other floral parts, you will find that monocot flowers tend to have a number of parts that is divisible by three, usually three or six. Dicot flowers on the other hand, tend to have parts in multiples of four or five. This character is not always reliable, however, and is not easy to use in some flowers with reduced or numerous parts.

Leaf veins: In monocots, there are usually a number of major leaf veins which run parallel the length of the leaf; in dicots, there are usually numerous auxillary veins which reticulate between the major ones. 

Stem vascular arrangement: Vascular tissue occurs in long strands called vascular bundles. These bundles are arranged within the stem of dicots to form a cylinder, appearing as a ring of spots when you cut across the stem. In monocots, these bundles appear scattered through the stem, with more of the bundles located toward the stem periphery than in the center. 

Those are the basic ways to determine the difference between Monocots and Dicots. There are other ways to tell them apart, such as pollen structure and root development.

Why is it helpful to know the differences between them? Again, it is easier to look a plant up if you can determine which category it falls in. Plant Field Guides are written by botanists, so it is helpful to be able to think like a botanist, if you want to find things in Field Guides.

Botany: The Seven Most Common Families of Plants, Lesson 2: The Mustard Family and Parts of a Flower

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For our second botany lesson this summer, continuing our quest to study the seven most common families of plants using Thomas Elpel's Botany in a Day, we looked at the Mustard Family, which is identified by its four green sepals, 

four petals, six stamen; four tall and two short 

and one center pistil. This required us to learn about the parts of flowers and their terms.

Learning the Parts of a Flower

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This is a good time to do a flower dissection. We learned that the male flower part can be remembered because they are called stamen or "stay men." We also learned that when identifying a plant, one should work from the outside in...first the sepals, then petals and lastly the stamen and pistil.

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The Mustard Family includes many plants found in your garden such as radishes, turnips, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and kale. If you have any of these growing in your garden, you can look for the Mustard family's distinctive characteristics. 

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The difficulty here is that the flowers are very tiny and are therefore much more difficult to see than in the more distinctive flowers such as the above hibiscus, which is why it is good to learn the flower parts with a flower in which it is easy to see the parts first.

Making Your Own Mustard

Commercial mustard is made from the seeds of the black mustard plant combined with vinegar.

A good project to go with the Mustard family is to made your own mustard. We have made it before, (all of the pictures are from when we made mustard in 2008) and when you first taste it, it is very hot, but it should mellow after it ages for about two weeks.

English Pub Mustard
1 Cup dry mustard
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tea. salt
1/4 tea. turmeric
1/2 cup flat beer or ale
Mix dry ingredients in food processor or blender With machine running, add beer through the feed tube in a slow and steady stream. Blend until smooth and creamy, stopping the machine to scrape down the sides. Transfer to a jar with a tight fitting lid. Age in a cool dry place for 2 weeks. Store in the refrigerator.