Party of Five: Outdoor Hour Challenge #36--Autumn Tree Study

Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord.

For he is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.

He shall judge the world with righteousness,

And the peoples with His truth.

~Psalm 96:12-13

We're still in the early stages of our Outdoor Hour studies, but skipping around is working out okay since trees are plentiful and easy to study right now.

This is our first seasonal tree study, and we couldn't agree on one tree to study together. :) SO, we're doing two, both from our front yard so they will be easy to enjoy this winter too...Sweet Pea has chosen the large old double oak tree that has graced the front corner of our lot since long before the neighborhood was built up. Cupcake chose our favorite maple, the launching pad for all our birds to visit our feeder. It is a relatively new tree my parents bought within the last 15 years or so. (we bought the house from them and together we built an in-law apt. so we could stay here together!)

Sweet Pea's with her oak, which she named Suzy!

The bark on this oak is deeply furrowed, moreso than this photo captures.

The leaves are just now finally changing to yellows and browns.

Sweet Pea held on tight to a branch so we could get a photo of the buds at the end of a long branch.

Sweet Pea joked that now that the tree is named and being studied by us, perhaps her grandfather (my dad) won't dislike it so much. :) It sure does dump a lot of acorns on the driveway!!

Cupcake poses next to her choice of tree, the maple, now named Lucy. :)

It is easy to see that the bark on this tree is much smoother than the oak. It has slight cracks but feels fairly smooth to touch.The leaves on this maple are just now changing to yellows & browns and falling off.This tree has a single bud at the end and very pretty red coloring.

The girls really enjoyed this activity! When we came in, we took some time to make new leaf rubbings for their new trees...we tried crayon today and my own version of stamping, just for fun. We also experimented with tree sketching using the Guide to Tree Sketching which was linked from Barbara's Outdoor Hour website. For the first time ever, the girls enjoyed drawing trees that looked like actual, bonafide, real life TREES! :) They were very happy with the results.