Today we began our adventures with Exploring Nature With Children!
It is so exciting to know that so many families across the world are joining with us!
Week one’s focus is seeds, so we took a walk to our local park.
We found heaps of different seeds!
We looked things up
And we returned home to work in our nature journals.
Big girl’s journal:
Little girl’s journal:
My journal:
Please do share what your family have been studying in nature, either in the comments, or come along & post in the Exploring Nature With Children FaceBook page. We have a weekly thread devoted to our explore-along.
Hi Lynn
We got geared up with bags and containers ready for collecting and set off on one of our favourite walks. The weather has turned really autumnal this last week so looking for seeds felt very appropriate. We came home with pockets bulging after spotting lots of different types of seeds, including blackberries, sloes, thistledown, ash keys, rosehips, wild parsnip, yellow flag iris and Reed mace.
We were also lucky enough to be able to have a really good investigation of a beautiful mature oak which grows in the centre of a field, we could go and look as the crop had been harvested but the land not worked over yet.
We also have an observation to follow up, we saw two herons fly over one was calling loudly something we haven’t witnessed before, as it is rather late in the season we assumed the vocal heron was chasing the other out of its territory.
The seeds were duly sorted on arriving home and we looked up the ones weren’t sure about but we are yet to write it up in the journal. Most of the seeds have ended up on the nature table and we have made plans to go blackberrying and sloe collecting as I have a recipe for sloe sweeties.
It was wonderful to have a focus for our walk as quite often walks take a very long time as everything is investigated and we end up rushing the last bit and ending up overtired. The seed hunting kept us moving nicely.
We are looking forward to the next challenge.
Best wishes
Jenny
Jenny, how beautiful! Thank you for sharing. There is so much to be found, isn’t there? I would love to hear your recipe for sloe sweeties, if you have a moment 🙂
Hi Lynn,
Love your nature journals by the way, beautiful drawings your girls have a keen eye for observation.
Wild plum sweetmeats, are basically a fruit leather or cheese, it takes long slow cooking but you don’t have to stone the sloes first. You can also use bullace if you can get any.
1.4 kg sloes
300ml water
1kg sugar plus extra for dusting
Cook sloes in water until very very soft, sieve to remove stones. Add puree to a clean heavy based pan with the sugar. Cook until it forms a thick puree, stir very frequently. When the puree comes away from the sides of the pan it is ready to pour into a shallow tin. Cut into small squares when cool and dust with sugar, keep in an airtight container.
I can’t remember where I got this from but I have made it a few times and it always goes down well, worth all the effort at least once.
Good luck try not to burn the pan like I did once, its a pig to clean!
Jenny
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your recipe, Jenny. I really want to give this a try 🙂
Jenny, please may I share your recipe on my FB page?
Hi Lynn
I don’t see why not, it is not actually my recipe but it is very general and there are lots of similar ones out there.
I wish I could remember where I got it from, it was from a far away place long ago from which I have only distant memories called Before Children 😉
Jenny
Thank you Jenny 🙂
I didn’t know about this – thanks for sharing! And great timing because I ALMOST forgot to do our nature walk today!
My pleasure!
I have to add another comment! This Ebook is amazing! I already purchased it and started printing it out. My son wasn’t exactly up to looking for seeds today….but I selected a few items as we walked down our driveway and lane and talked about them as he played with his very long stick. We came back and I left him outdoors as I put our baggy of seeds on the counter (to discuss more tomorrow) and he came flying in the door with a …. well… seed of some sort. I think it’s a nut of some kind from a tree. We will have to figure it out sometime this week! What a beautiful guide that I am sure will help us enormously as we learn what nature study is all about this year!
Thank you so much!
It is lovely to hear that your son was so excited about his nature treasure 🙂
Do keep me posted on your studies.
Just seeing this but happy to say we have been following along in a similar vein this week and last.
My preschooler and toddler went on a seed hunt around the neighborhood with out diy sticky paper seed catchers in hand.
We’ve also been journaling the local wildflower.
Lots of talk about the change of seasons and the signs we are seeing all around!
That sounds so lovely, Jessica! Thank you for sharing.