This past weekend, my husband had the idea of documenting our favorite trees on the property. So, Sunday afternoon we went on a ramble and each of us picked out favorite tree and took pictures with it. We also had to share why it was our favorite tree - I thought the girls' answers would be a fun thing to look back on in the future. As this blog is as much a place for me to document some of our family's activities as well as a place to share fun science things to do, I thought I would share.
If you want to do this, its helpful to have a way to identify the trees. There are several good pocket guides (I like any of the Peterson ones) as well as apps (such as from the National Audubon Society). I had a few other resources listed in our seed hunt activity from last fall and recently found the Tree Leaf Key from About.com which does a pretty good job describing the characteristics of the different leaves. Another thing you can do is visit a local arboretum, park or college campus that has identified and labelled many of the trees for you. It would be great fun to document your child in front of their favorite tree each year to see how each has grown over the years.
