Parts of a flower

 

The bumble bees are out and on the prowl around our deck so it must be time to dust off the botany booklets!  They went a little dormant after the Parts of a Leaf booklet in the fall.  I was so excited to be able to use some of the materials I spent hours making.  Plus it was my first month into homeschooling and with us jumping into that boat a little late in the summer, I was glad to feel like we were being productive. 

My camera is on the fritz so I hope these pics from my iPad aren't too blurry.  We (ok I) chose the easiest of the booklets to dive into.  Parts of a Flower.  How hard can it be to find pretty flowers in the springtime??  Well.....it proved to be a little trickier at first than I had anticipated.  (We did need to go to the store later in the day so my fall back was going to be store bought flowers to dissect.)  Thankfully God provided an abundance of choices for us on our walk.  The kids and I combined recess with a scavenger hunt for flowers.  The day was beautiful and we were quite successful, even finding a few flowers with pistils.



 

Kui seemed to really enjoy this work.  She also loved the fact that I didn't send her out in the backyard searching for flowers because that's where all of the bumblebees are.  She was quite happy to have us join her on her exploration.  However, the boys were more excited about the walking sticks they found.

 

 

 

Overall, I think we did a fairly decent job with the first booklet.  We did struggle to find the nectary, but we decided on it in the end.  (Shhh....don't tell her that I am not even sure what the nectary is!  I play it off well, wink wink)

 

We will soon dig into the other components which involve parts of the pistil, etc.  Kui doesn't know it yet, but we might just have to encounter the bumble bees in the backyard soon!