Oh what a glorious day for a nature study. I don’t imagine we will have very many more like it this season… not with snow starting to show up in the forecasts.

We have a huge Blue Spruce in our front yard. The kids love this tree. We are constantly having to remove the lower branches so it doesn’t take over the driveway which means there is this awesome hideaway under the tree. They like to build Fairy houses under there… which is how the first half of our nature study was spent.

Once a proper Fairy House was under way 😉 we did spend some time examining the tree in more detail. We talked about the difference between deciduous trees and conifers. We talked about what helps protect the needles from the winter and scraped the waxy coating off the outside of some of the needles. We talked about ways the tree protects itself when damaged and closely examined the areas where branches had been removed. We collected pine cones and compared them to the Scotch Pine Cones we collected several weeks ago.

Then we sat to draw in our journals. Fairy traced the outline of a pine cone, Bug created an elaborate fantasy scene with a Spruce tree in the middle, Pixie and I drew lots of “needles” together. Then we took advantaged of the long shadows (even close to midday) and traced the needle shadows in our books. This was yet another fun way to create a ‘leaf’ image. I see potential to play with the shadows even more over the next few weeks (or at least few days before the weather turns).

Join the Outdoor Hour Challenge #37.