Fall focus on trees

After some deliberation I have decided to focus our nature study on trees for the fall. I was torn between focusing on something in particular, or just continuing to explore whatever interested us at the moment.

I have been hesistant to specialize in one area. I have enjoyed looking at anything and everything with the kids for the last 6 months. I wanted to develop their observation skills and their enthusiasm for nature and provide them with a general knowledge base to start building on. At this point though, I think it would be helpful to us all if we delved a little deeper into one subject, and developed a greater understanding of one aspect of the natural world we are exploring.

I thought trees would be a good initial focus area for a number of reasons. They are large and easy to find. They don't move when you're looking at them. The kids won't need any special skills like being able to use binoculars. The leaves will be changing colours soon. They are relatively easy to identify (unlike our brief foray into lichens). We have learned the names of a few trees already, so we're not starting something from scratch.

So, what will this look like? This doesn't mean that we will look at nothing but trees on our nature hikes. I will probably try to point out some aspect of trees on each hike, but then we'll continue on our merry way of exploring and examining whatever crosses our path.

I will ask that the Nuthatch's weekly nature notebook entries have something to do with trees. I'll still follow his lead to some extent, but I would like to start looking at deciduous trees while they still have leaves. We can always look at the conifers in the winter. We also have some firewood in the garage that we can take out to look at the structure of the rings and the bark. And it is apple picking season, that will be a great place to start as well.

The Bluejay on our apple picking trip last year. He even ate the apple cores!

I have put the Handbook of Nature Study next to my bed for a bit of evening reading. I read a section and then try to casually point out some things to the kids as we are hiking. They usually come up with their own things they are interested in. The Handbook has a large section on apple trees and a part about how to do leaf prints.

We were camping this past weekend and I informed the Nuthatch that we were going to study trees. He found some sap oozing out of a tree and we talked about how it is like the blood of a tree, and it comes out of the tree where the bark has been injured. Here is his photo of the sap:

That's our plan for this term's nature study. I'll continue to post on trees as we progress through the term. The Bluejay seems to think that 'Lichen tree' is a type of tree, so perhaps we'll try to clear that up first.

Update:

I've discovered that the Handbook of Nature Study blog is also looking at trees this fall. Here's the link for the first Outdoor Hour Challenge about trees. This is a great source of information if you are looking for ideas for studying trees.

Here are my posts of the tree activities we have done so far:

Apple Cross-section

Parts of a Tree

Structure of Roots