Outdoor Hour Challenge #29: Sunflowers

Wow, when we first planted our sunflower seeds it seemed to take so long for them to grow, and now it's all over. :(  But it was quite a fun process and I know the kids learned some stuff and I super enjoyed watching them do so.  Only 4 of our big seeds actually grew, but those 4 plants were awesome.  We had plenty more of the smaller variety sprout and in fact they are still going strong (despite me not really tending to them much in the past few weeks.)

An early pic as one was beginning to bloom.

On the same day the smaller varieties already had blossoms.

A few weeks later, in full bloom, complete with bee.

My favorite flower holder. :)

Oh, the horror!  Anna Botsford Comstock, look away!!  This is my oldest ds, hacking into the dried up remains of one of the large sunflower heads.

He dug around until he got to this.  He said he liked the little pattern in it.  My teacher's heart skipped a beat.

We actually did follow the process outlined in the Handbook for examining the sunflower and broke it down into several parts as seen above.  My favorite is the little floret on the left.

Ds2's journal. My observances. 

Ds3 and ds4 did not get to participate in today's challenge.  Both have the croup, ds3 has a double ear infection and ds4 has one ear infection.  They are on their meds and on the mend, but poor ds3 gets dizzy when he is upright.  I'm sure we will all be able to join in for the next challenge (unless they pass this on to the rest of us, which is what you know will happen, but one can hope.) :)