Day 5 – Busting Out with Buds!

Now that spring is officially here, we are seeing more and more interesting things happening in our yard and neighborhood. While my pictures don’t do them justice, we have seen more and more flowers blooming, buds opening to reveal tiny leaves, and more and more colors to brighten our days. My daughter is fascinated by the little tiny leaves that are starting to emerge, so we decided to spend a day just looking at the buds on the trees. The tiny little red buds on the red maples and the buds underneath the beautiful pink flowers of the magnolias. We also made some predictions for when the different trees would get their leaves, with the trees that get more sun the front runners. We have also been watching some of the flower buds burst as well.

Some other fun things to do with buds this spring:

• Citizen Science can be a great way to get your kids observing nature and contributing to science. Project Budburst(a project of the Chicago Botanical Gardens) has lots of great information for multiple ages.
• Keep a journal with dates for when the trees start to leaf out! If you don’t know what type of tree it is, try using iNaturalist to figure it out. Or for younger kids, try giving each tree a name or descriptor, such as big lollipop tree or just Bob or Sally.
• Buds are great to look at and come in different sizes, shapes and colors. This can be a great thing for young kids just to observe the differences, and for older kids to measure, describe and draw.

This beautiful Magnolia sports iconic fuzzy buds. Have students look at the buds and describe them, then touch them. How do the buds feel? Were they softer than other buds? Remember to be gentle!