Nature Walk:Spring

Our spring tour in the County Farm Park was lead by Kelsey. She took us into the woods to learn about all the wonderful flowers blooming on the forest floor. We saw:

Wild Geranium

Trillium

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Mayapple

We learned an important skill for walking in the woods:
 how to identify poison ivy.

Poison Ivy

Next we learned to identify another important plant: jewelweed. If you squish up this plant and rub it on your skin, it will help relieve the itch of poison ivy and bug bites.

Jewelweed just starting to grow

What jewelweed will look
like when mature

Bloodroot

The flower of the bloodroot plant is an early blooming spring flower so we only were able to see a picture of the flower.  We did find the plant and learned that years ago the people of Michigan, used the plant as a dye.

Bloodroot dye on Kelsey's finger

A natural progression in a discussion about flowers is to discuss pollinators, which Kelsey did. After looking at various animals that help the pollination process, the children pretended to be bees out collecting pollen to take back to the hive.

Many types of bees

Waiting by the "hive" for a "bee" to return

"Bees "filling their sacks with "nectar" and returning to the "hive".