The children and I were so excited to get started back up on our Outdoor Challenges, provided by Barb at her Handbook of Nature Study blog!  We will not be attempting to catch up on all of the challenges, but we definitely wanted to complete the Summer tree study.

Back at the beginning of May the kids adopted two trees in our backyard to follow through the four seasons.  Our Spring tree study can be found here.  Hannah adopted a Pignut Hickory tree and Alex adopted some type of Oak tree, we believe it is a Northern Red Oak.  I'm finding that tree identification is definitely more of a challenge than I prefer!

So for our nature walk time yesterday morning, we spent it getting further acquainted with our trees.  It was so nice to observe them all dressed up in their summer attire.

View of Leaves on Alex's Tree

"I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines. - Henry David Thoreau

We started out our observation by first looking at our spring tree photos and then tried to make a list of the differences we saw.  They both noticed the same things:  the leaves were much larger and more full; the trees had the appearance of being larger and we discussed that was probably due to the leaves being so thick on the trees; more growth around the bottom of the trees such as moss, plants, wildflowers, and Hannah's tree was generous in giving us leaves and pignuts to observe.

Hannah's Pignut Hickory Tree

 Pignut Hickory Leaves and Nuts

She also observed the very noticeable poison ivy growing up the trunk!

View up Top of the Pignut Hickory

This is a close-up picture of the bark of the Pignut Hickory.  She took a magnifying glass and observed lots of little critters running upon it.

This is a photo of Alex's Red Oak.  It's hard to see in the photo, but it's the one directly in the middle.

View up Top of Northern Red Oak

They also both measured the width of the trunk of their trees.  Hannah's measured 34" around, and Alex's was 44.5" around.

While we were out there we also went searching for a tree that had some damage on it to do some observation.  It didn't take long to find one.

We used an activity I found in Nature in a Nutshell for Kids, by Jean Potter and discussed the factors that can be responsible for tree damage.  These factors are weather conditions, fires, people, and animals.  Then we learned that when a tree is damged, it first leaks sap from the wound opening, much like we do when we bleed.  And then, in most cases, a callus quickly forms at the edges which keeps the sap from oozing out.  Sounds like us too.  If the edges are jagged, the opening may never close completely and large wounds form permanent scars on the surface.  You can see these as knots in the tree's bark.  We tried to make our own conclusions about what may have happened to this tree (the above and below photo are the same tree, it has suffered some significant damage).

Here are few more things we observed while we were out on our walks today and yesterday.

Alex is holding a cicada nymph shell.  Cicadas are Alex's favorite insect!  So this was a grand discovery!

A dead tree knocked down by the severe storm we had the previous night.

Two new wildflowers were discovered yesterday.  You can read about that in my previous entry or click here.  And today we discovered yet another new one!  They certainly do love the rain we've had!  I must update my slideshow!

Hairy Hawkweed

Today, the kids both completed nature journal entries for their tree studies.  Hannah was the only one who wanted me to share hers. :)

She also completed one from our nature walk today.

Tomorrow I have a very NEAT arts and music project which will tie in quite well with our nature walk we will take in the morning.  Stay tuned!  Here's a preview:  what do Georgia O'Keefe, watercolors, summer nature, flowers, and Antonio Vivaldi have in common?