Sunflowers in our garden...

Sunflowers on a rainy day

The patch of sunflowers we planted in our garden this year are big and beautiful.  I was excited when I saw the July Newsletter this month.  One of the topics included for nature study was sunflowers.  So today the littles and I decided it was time for some more nature study.  We took a walk out into the garden to observe our sunflowers.  We used all of our senses...feel...smell...see...taste...hear.

We felt the stalks and leaves and the the boys thought they felt rough.

We smelled the flowers...they have a very slight smell...fresh...it seems

We could see the sunflowers towering above.  We measured one over 9ft tall

The boys quickly wanted to know if that's how tall Goliath was...as they pretended to be David.

thanks for taking mommy's picture Bo

and our newest little enjoyed her first nature study

We tasted sunflower seeds...yummy.

We could hear bees buzzing all around as we examined the sunflowers.  The littles counted 10 bees on our sunflowers.

We came inside and began journaling our sunflowers study.  We learned that sunflowers are composite flowers.

composite-a family of flowers with a head composed of many florets.

We examined the sunflower with a magnifying glass and saw the hundreds of tiny florets.

We completed our nature study pages and eagerly awaited our art lesson...

After lunch we used our oil pastels to draw beautiful sunflowers...

Miss LouLou used the chalk pastels...but I was very proud of her sunflower.  She usually says I can't do it right and doesn't even give it an attempt.  Today she tried her best and it turned out beautifully.

The boys used oil pastels and we followed this tutorial.

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals.  Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident;  others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the holly-hock.  -Henry Ward Beecher