After reading Nancy Elizabeth Wallace's Leaves! Leaves! Leaves!, the younger children wanted to head out on another "leaf walk". Since I wanted to make this nature walk at least a little different than last week's, I decided we'd explore all the different types of tree bark, on our green space. We've discovered that the type of bark a tree has, is an important clue for identifying what type of a tree it is.
So, we went from tree to tree, observing, touching, peeling (just a little), and making crayon rubbings of the bark.
We also made a quick crayon rubbing of one leaf, from each tree, to help us remember which bark rubbing, was which.Later today, I hope to print out some pages (click here, to find them) from the Green Education Foundation, designed to cut, and paste the rubbings onto, for the children to create their own bark, and leaf books.
For those of you who have had difficulty with making crayon leaf rubbings with your children, we found using a large, completely peeled, somewhat soft, crayon, with a good hard surface underneath, worked the best, for little hands. My older children prefer to use pencils, but with the younger children (ages 4-7) we used one of our homemade, purple crayons from last summer.
For more fun with science, check out this week's Science Sunday link-up, at Adventures in Mommydom.
It's great to be a homeschooler.
Oh good idea on the homemade crayons. Yet more incentive for me to make my own crayons.
ReplyDeleteVery cool!
ReplyDeleteThis is very cool. I need to remember to do things like this before Autumn around here.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips.
ReplyDeleteI have to do this soon. I think I'll make some crayons first!
I've been wanting to make some homemade crayons, too. We've done leaf rubbings but haven't tried bark.
ReplyDeleteHow fun and thanks for the tips on the crayons. We definitely plan some leaf walks here too - our leaves usually change color in October.
ReplyDelete