Tuesday, October 16, 2012

In the Wonderful Days of Goldenrod

Goldenrod field
Once we discovered what--the beautiful, tall, showy yellow flowers showing up everywhere in our area--were, we wanted to incorporate them into our nature study. Conveniently, they are covered in HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY, starting on page 503. Mrs. Comstock started off the lesson with a
very interesting story that draws in young naturalists. She described goldenrod as people dressed in yellow, living in villages. Each has a job to do. They have tiny green front steps. What could this thing be?

I posed this riddle to my kids one night at bedtime. They played 20 Questions until they figured it out. Then they said we HAD to study it.

I found a few poems online about goldenrod and read them to the children the first morning of our two day study.

Their favorite turned out to be In the Days of Goldenrod by Lucy Maud Montgomery. My son even set the words to music and used them as his writing assignment for the day. In part, they say:

       What beauty mates with the passing year.
       The days that are fleetest are still the sweetest,
       And life is near to the heart of God,
       And the peace of heaven to earth is given
       In this wonderful time of the golden-rod.

I re-read this poem to them on the second day. I would love for them to memorize it.

We took a little drive and found goldenrod growing literally everywhere. We found a nice quiet place and stopped. We drew our own images of goldenrod using Handbook of Nature Study blog's printable goldenrod page.



Our drawings:
My son's goldenrod picture. It was done in colored pencil
and doesn't show up very well. 

My goldenrod picture. Pencil is my favorite medium. 

My middle daughter's goldenrod picture with a towering
pine tree to the left and over the top. 
My youngest, 2, also drew a picture that looks like all 2 year old drawings. But she seemed to get what goldenrod was.

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Posted by Cristy at 3:04 PM
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5 comments:

  1. I'm working on learning flowers, but am still quite a novice. I've never seen goldenrod that I know of. It is quite lovely and it sounds like the lesson was a hit!

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    1. I am quite a novice about wildflowers, too. I do a little better with the ones you can purchase from the store. (Of course they often have tags.:)

      Several of the books we borrowed from the library said that there are over 50 types of goldenrod in the US. So look around. Yours might look a little different than ours. You might see it if you are looking for it.

      I know I would have never noticed it had it not been part of our science curriculum to find a wildflower in bloom.

      I sure am glad that it was part of our curriculum. The kids will always know what it is now, I think.

      As an aside, we found some that bloomed in bright sunlight and some that bloomed in mostly shady areas. We found some with no scent whatsoever, some with a very faint scent and some with this heady aroma that almost made you want to eat it. It was a really sweet smell. One of the library books said that the different scents indicated different types of goldenrod. Neat!

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  3. I am so glad you substituted your goldenrod for your autumn study...perfect! I remember when we originally did this challenge we thought we had goldenrod in our neighborhood but it turns out it is something called "rabbit brush" which looks similar. I feel like I am always learning and relearning when it comes to identifying things.
    Here is a link:
    http://tedmuller.us/Outdoor/Wildflowers/Rabbitbrush.htm
    See how we made our mistake?

    Anyway, great entry, great study, and thank you for sharing with the OHC.

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  4. The goldenrod study was such a treasure for our family. My kids all recognize goldenrod when they see it now. They watch for it as we drive down the road. (And find it in many places.)

    I went back and read all your old posts and links from this post: http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com/2009/10/outdoor-hour-challenge-autumn-series.html
    I learned so much from you and all those who participated in it in 2009.

    I do see how you could mix them up. Many things in nature require careful observation to determine the differences. I think that careful observation is one of the things we teach our children and learn for ourselves through nature study.

    And once you do know the difference you own that knowledge.

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