I decided early this summer that Ben would study botany for science this school year. I had intended to have Christopher doing something different but I gave up that idea and went with the same science and history for both boys. It has saved a lot of time and frustration. I am simply requiring more of Ben than I do of Christopher, based on their ages.
I ended up buying a few books that I could use throughout the year for various parts of the botany study. They are all listed in my left hand sidebar. Apologia's Exploring Creation with Botany is a nice overview text, written directly to the child. We are using it as a spine and are going through the chapters slowly. There is a lot of information in each chapter but we are reading them bit by bit to make them more digestible.
When we begin to study plant families more deeply and specifically, Botany in a Day will be used extensively. It is a wonderful resource. Written at an adult reading level, I think most high school students would be able to use it independently. It also can be simplified for teaching younger children the identifying characteristics of each plant family. The author keeps a website of more than five hundred flower photographs here.
He also offers the following free online pages that come directly from the Botany in a Day book.
You'll see that Elpel uses clearly drawn black line illustrations to show the various differences between the family of plants. He breaks them down into the seven most common families: mustard, mint, parsley, pea, lily, mallow and aster. According to the author, by learning these seven families and their characteristics, a person can positively identify over 45,000 plants.
I will be teaching the main family differences to the younger children such as the mints having square stems. Ben and I will explore further some of the more detailed characteristics.
The younger kids have been using the Botany downloads from Montessori for Everyone. I have ordered many downloads from Montessori for Everyone in the past. They are an easy and affordable way to add some hands on learning to your homeschool.
Chris and Mary like to color and label the cards while Ben has drawn and traced a number of them to coincide with what he is doing in the Apologia book. I will upload any work they do to the botany sidebar throughout the school year.
Today, we soaked and dissected bean seeds to identify the cotyledons, radicle, testa, highlum, embryo and plumule. We learned that beans were found in King Tut's tomb. They were planted and grew into healthy bean plants though the seeds were thousands of years old.
I am always amazed at what I learn as a homeschooling mother/teacher. I have never studied botany as either a child or as an adult but I am enjoying it immensely. It is fun to teach your child something new but it is even more fun to discover something new together.
Here is Ben's page of the parts of a seed.
A little sidenote:
It has been so good for me is this year to let go of my need to present only "perfect" artwork/tablework on this blog. I had perfectionistic tendencies that I worked hard to throw out the window this year. It has been very freeing for me to present an idea and quality materials and just let them work. In the past, I would only post photos of things that were "just right". Sometimes they use White-Out, sometimes they do not write as neatly as they could but they are learning, and so am I. It is all part of the growing process. :)
