Green Hour Challenge #6
I just realized this was still in my drafts folder instead of published. I feel like such a slacker. At least Wordpress lets me backdate so I can pretend it was up on time. *grins*
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This week’s challenge was to start a collection of things found in nature. My oldest has already been obsessed with collections of all kinds lately, since he discovered an older cousin collected action figures. Now anything he picks up in the yard, on the side of the road, at the park, etc… becomes part of his “collection”. So why not put it to good use?
I’ve wanted to give my boys a nature table but have been holding off. Between crazed cats that run around the house and a toddler that can’t keep his hands to himself I’ve been worried about what exactly might happen to anything left out. So we improvised. I found an old basket that would work well for holding things and let him put anything that caught his eye in the basket. Anything at all. The collection turned into a fun little game, looking for specific things that he thought needed to be in it.
We’ve got a couple rocks from the yard, a bunch of what I believe is False Garlic, a German Iris, some leaves off the rose bush, and some leaves from the Dog Wood tree. He had also picked a ton of Gray-green Wood Sorrel that are all over the yard, but they had already shriveled before I got the picture.
Aside from the nature basket we learned about German Irises this week. I had planned to do moss since it was something he was fascinated with, but at the last minute he started asking me about “those big purple flowers” so we took it from there. It was a lot of fun taking the flower apart to inspect the inner workings, and trying to label the pieces and what they do. I think that was challenging enough for me this week.
The best part was camping out in front of the flowers and watching for visitors. We had bees, a wasp, several butterflies, and gnats all coming to the flower patch. I was hoping for some ladybugs but I think it might still be a bit too early in the year.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I love your nature basket! So great and you can change it as the seasons go along. It looks like you took some time to look up your flower names too…excellent.
Thank you so much for sharing your post,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom