I explained here some about Thomas Elpel's book Botany in a Day. This book is a wonderful resource to have if you are studying Botany with your family. This morning, we began our quest to learn the seven most common families of plants that Elpel claims will enable us to know over 45, 000 different species.
We are using the sister book to Botany in a Day which is called Shanleya's Quest. This book is a child's version of Botany in a Day, introducing the seven plant families by way of a fairy tale. The main character Shanleya travels in a canoe from island to island in the sea. Each island is inhabited by one plant family and a "guardian". Some of the guardians are good and some bad. (The bad guardians inhabit islands on which poisonous plants grow, thus teaching the kids which plant families contain poisonous species.) Each guardian is illustrated in a way that enables the child to remember the characteristics of the plant family that is inhabiting the island.
Today we met the Mint guardian who has a square stalk, opposing leaves and is aromatic. The illustration is quite cute. The guardian has a peppermint stick for a walking cane, wears a hat of bee balm flower and has limbs that are square. Learning this plant family will help us to identify 3,500 American plant species.
Here is Benjamin's drawing based the characteristics of the mint family.
We ventured outside and collected specimens from around the yard that fit the Mint Family description. While fall has definitely arrived in our area of the country, we still have some plants thriving under the cover of autumn leaves. All of the plants went to seed weeks ago but they are still able to be identified easily. Here is Ben's collection.
All these have now been pressed and will be included in the children's botany notebooks.
Here is Christopher after collecting his samples. He had lots of fun and is really enjoying Shanleya's Quest.
Here are Christopher's samples.
I also included this printout in the children's botany notebooks.
*One small note about both of Elpel's books. He has theories about how all plants evolved over the course of millions of years. I mention this because I know that some families are open to reading books that contain evolutionary ideas and verbage and others are not. Botany in a Day has one chapter devoted to this topic but the remaining parts of the book are plant identification and characteristics. Shanleya's Quest is written in fairy tale form but includes perspective on how the earth was formed from an evolutionist's viewpoint (anthromorphizing the sun and moon as talking co-creators). The creation of the world is presented in fable form but I wanted you to be aware of it nonetheless. Our family has thoroughly enjoyed both books and has found them to be an invaluable resource for our Botany adventure.
Plans for tomorrow include:
Sketching the mint "guardian"
Making candied mint leaves
Harvesting the remaining herbs from our herb garden and drying them for winter
