This week’s challenge is  Sweet Peas – Vine Study.  Vines to be specific, vine plants – and learning how they grow.  Jon planted some peas in the window in March.  They are growing on the back porch now. The boys and I took a walk around the yard this week looking for plants that we thought were vines.  Today, we printed the Handbook of Nature Study Spring e-book Notebooking Pages to learn about the types of vines, and to pick an individual plant to learn about.

Vines and Other Climbing Plants

Plants with Tendrils

Peas and Grapes

Plants that Twine

Morning Glory, Honeysuckle, Clematis
We have an abundance of Honeysuckle and Morning Glory. 
The bush above is about 8 or more feet thick of Honeysuckle.
It twines itself around the power wires, any bush and the fences. These might be Bindweed, however it is still in the Morning Glory family.

Scramblers

Salmon Berry, Black Berry, Raspberries, Roses
We learned it uses the thorns to grab onto items to climb and with the scramblers, like the Rose, it will help if I tie it to the fence to train it where to go. I have tied them to posts to give them a shape – I will go put some ties on the fence to guide it to zig zag back and forth.

Plants with Adhesive Pads

Once we cut them at the base, the ivy dies. In the photo below,
you can see it will choke out the Red Alder trees, or anything it can get around.

Ivy
This is another one we learned about.  Adhesive with Pads was the description of the vine. It made sense when we thought about it sticking to surfaces to climb. Jon immediately thought of the ivy on the wall and fences. We have walked by these, cut them down, pulled them off of structures – and have never thought to use the description – Adhesive. Cool.

Unknown – We have these growing up the poles of the garden. Last year they got really thick. I was too cold to go check this afternoon – but I’m pretty sure they climb without tendrils and wrap around the lines hanging from the deck. Anyone?

Wrapping it up –

The boys were not in a journaling mood, but they did have a good time learning about the different types of vines. We have a sheet called Stem Study with Vines.  The boys were able to add descriptive vocabulary to their observations. Drooping Stem, Alternate Leaves, Climbing Stem, Twining Stem, Etc.  I love having the e-book for the Spring Study to have such great resources. We love the links to YouTube videos showing stop motion growth.  We had a fun wrap up time this afternoon at the table!