Treks through the woods searching for wildflowers, identifying our findings, and then sketching them with watercolors made this month's nature book club, Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms book club, bloom into outdoor fun.
Treks through the woods searching for wildflowers, identifying our findings, and then sketching them with watercolors made this month's nature book club bloom into outdoor fun. #thenaturebookclub #ihsnet
Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms
Book Club Discussion
This month our book club was on the book, Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms. This picture book is about Fletcher, a Spring-time loving fox, and his friends. It is a cute story with a surprise ending. We read this book on our recent nature walk to pick wildflowers.
Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms
Book Club Snacks
Since our book club was on wildflowers, we decided to go on a picnic. We invited grandma and admired the beautiful flowers while we ate our sandwiches and drank our lemonade.
Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms
Book Club Activities
On our nature walk, we tried to identify all the wildflowers we encountered. These are some of our favorites. We garnered the help of our homeschool friend's brother to help us determine what flowers we found. This is a new learning experience for me. I had mostly referred to these as weeds, but I'm finding a new appreciation for wildflowers.
Top Left: Virginia Spring Beauty; Top Middle: Common Flea Bane; Top Right: Birdseye Speedwell; Bottom Left: Red Clover; Bottom Middle: Star of Bethlehem; Bottom Right: Ragwort
We stopped at a picnic table in the park to sketch some of our favorites with watercolor pens and paints in our sketchpads.
We came home and dried our wildflowers. We tried out a new technique in the microwave. It seemed to work ok, but I think I prefer the old-fashioned way of pressing them in a book. Here are the steps, in case you want to try it yourselves.
Step 1: Place your wildflowers in between a folded piece of construction paper.
Step 2: Fold the construction paper over like a card.
Step 3: Fold a paper towel around the construction paper card.
Step 4: Lay on the microwave plate. Find something heavy like a trivet to lay on top of the folded card.
Step 5: Decrease the microwave to 50% power and microwave for 30 seconds.
Step 6: If the flowers aren't dry enough, microwave for another 30 seconds.
Step 7: Take the flowers out of the card and use in your wildflower activities. These weren't as pretty as I would have liked, but we will keep trying to get the perfect time in the microwave.
Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms Online Book Club
We carried our fun with Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms further and created an online book club with more rabbit trails of foxes, rabbits, butterflies, blooms, and more. We added a few more fun activities and then ideas for a party school with the kids (and maybe even some friends).
Get a sneak peek at the Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms Online Nature Book Club below.
Book List
Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms
Now for the awesome Link-Up Party!
This Month's Nature Book Club theme:
Wildflowers
The Nature Book Club is brought to you by these 10 nature loving bloggers and myself who are your co-hosts! Are you following them? If you don’t want to miss anything, be sure to follow each one.
Here are the co-hosts, their choices of books, and activities for the month:
Miss Rumphius Mixed Media Art from Emily at Table Life Blog
Oregon Nature Study Quiz: Wildflower Edition from Eva at Eva Varga
Flower Fairy Peg Dolls from Cassidy at Freshly Planted
Wildflowers Unit Study & Lapbook from Tina at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Dandelion Life Cycle Learning Activities from Karyn at Teach Beside Me
Hi, I’m Dachelle. I’m a homeschooling mom of 3 in the South. I love chocolate and have been known to hide it from my children. I can often be found reading a good book (or even sometimes just an okay book) and enjoying a jar of Nutella — don’t judge. I blog, here, at HideTheChocolate.com when I’m not creating book clubs and making lists…lots and lots of lists (it’s an addiction). Learn more…
You have some of the same wildflowers that we recently spotted the Spring Beauties and Buttercups are so nice to see each Spring.
I love Buttercups! My mother has an entire field of them.
That’s a neat way to dry flowers. I’ve never heard of that!!!
It was new to us, too.
How fun! Wildflowers are beautiful and but some of them should be renamed! #LLM
Haha!! I totally agree!
Wow, so much fun! I love the pressed flowers! Love the linkup idea as well! Pinning!
Visiting from Encouraging Hearts Link up.
Blessings,
Amy
Thanks!
Being a nature lover myself, I really enjoyed your post! Kids need so much to spend time outside and what better way than a nature walk to look for wildflowers. Your activities to go along like painting and drying the flowers look like a lot of fun. I have chosen your post as my favorite and will feature it on my blog at the #LMMLinkup tomorrow. I’m sure others can benefit from your ideas to help with summer kids activities. Blessings to you!
Thank you, Gayl. I’ll look for it tomorrow!