We have spent the past two weeks learning about desert plants here in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. I am not embarrassed to say that I didn’t know many of the names of some plants, like the century plant, ironwood, the organ pipe cactus, and the hedgehog cactus, because some of my friends and family who have lived here for years don’t know the names of specific plants. Isn’t it easy to not notice the plants around you and wonder what they are called? I saw them, but I thought they were some type of cactus…all of them. I did that for about ten years. How did I learn the names of desert plants? I did what any homeschool mom would do. I read a bunch of picture books about desert plants.
Picture Books
We read a handful of picture books about desert plants that contained interesting information. Some of them also included information about the desert animals. It was kind of hard to find good picture books just about the plants, but the ones I did find share information about various plants such as prickly pears, barrel cactus, and the brittlebush. I will start with my favorite first, Roxaboxen, which is not a nonfiction text filled with information about desert plants, but rather tells a charming story of kids and their imaginative play in the Sonoran Desert. The illustrations contain desert plants. We had fun identifying prickly pear and the ocotillo. Personally, I wondered how they played with the ocotillo branches, but nevertheless, it’s a great book to read. It’s also illustrated by Barbara Cooney. That alone should make you want to buy it right now!
Roxaboxen by Alice McLearran, illustrated by Barbara Cooney
A Walk in the Desert by Rebecca L. Johnson
photographs of desert plants, plus animals.
Tumble by Adriana Hernandez Bergstrom
A Desert Scrapbook: Dawn to Dusk in the Sonoran Desert by Virginia Wright-Frierson
Welcome to the Sea of Sand by Jane Nolan
Tree Identification and Nature Walk
We walked down our street with our clipboards and pencils and identified the trees as went along. Once we found a mesquite on the edge of our subdivision neighborhood, we went up and touched the bark, examined the leaves, and looked at the flowers, which apparently become the seedpods. Did you know that the seedpods can be ground into fine flour used for baking? More on that later.
My kids described the bark and then did leaf rubbings with the leaves. We did the same with a palo verde tree except that the leaf rubbing didn’t work great since the palo verde is flowering right now. Unfortunately, we have neither of those trees in our backyard. If you are not in Phoenix, the palo verde trees bloom with bright yellow flowers in April. They are so pretty and springy feeling. The flowers get everywhere though. The Ironwood bloom purple flowers later in April. I never really noticed them in the past, but I will this spring.
Artwork
I ordered charcoal paints and for drawing plants. We opened some picture books about desert plants and drew pictures of all the plants we had learned about – Joshua trees, yuccas, prickly pears, boojums, and mesquite trees. I love it when something simple is very educational. Also, isn’t it fun when your kids get to that age when you can display cool things that they make? Whatever my kids make I think is amazing no matter their age, but it’s great to see them draw pictures that are full of color and look like the object they say it is.
Later, they wrote in their nature journals about what they learned this week. My six-year old still needs me to help him write. He tells me what to write, and then I write it down for him. Then, if he’s up for it, he adds a few sentences himself.
Mesquite Muffins
Like I said earlier, the seedpods from the mesquite trees can be ground into a very fine flour called mesquite powder. I bought some from Amazon. It wasn’t cheap, but I was curious to know what this mesquite powder was all about. It turns out that the mesquite powder is a superfood (so says the label). I don’t know if that’s true, but it definitely gave the muffins a different sweet taste.
I found an apple mesquite muffin recipe from the Los Angeles Times, but of course, I adapted it because after I got some of the ingredients mixed up, I realized that I didn’t have an apple. I normally have lots of apples! I used applesauce instead, and they tasted delicious! I will write a post about my altered mesquite muffin recipe soon.
This was a fun unit – learning about life in the Sonoran Desert and reading picture books about desert plants. Before this, I was using a different science curriculum, and my kids haven’t even noticed that I ditched it. They like this a lot better.
Carly from DesertHomeschoolDays.com
