June 13: Weed Your Garden Day

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Here’s an activity kids can do with weeds:

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Weeds

Materials:

• plant/weed guide book
• small bags
• paper
• writing and drawing instruments
• crayons without paper for rubbings

Directions:

1. Find weeds growing around your program area.
2. Collect them to bring inside and compare.
3. Check your local library or the Internet for plant guides to see if you can identify the weeds.
4. See if you can find out how different weeds may be useful. For example, dandelions were brought to the United States from Europe for salads, soups, and as a coffee substitute.
5. Children can also draw the different weeds or try to do rubbings with them.

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Source(s): 100 Nature Activities for Kids (Activity F2). Adapted from Kathleen Carroll’s A Guide to Great Field Trips (Zephyr Press, 2007)

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Check out the full June calendar. It includes floating holidays, specialty weeks, and specialty months.

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Book: 100 Nature Activities for Kids

These activities focus on rocks, leaves, plants, animals, and other aspects of the outdoors. On many of the projects, kids can observe and experiment. Some activities bring in an art element while others, such as the camping activities, lend themselves to dramatic play. These 100 activities have been compiled and edited with school-agers (5-12 years old) in mind, but can be adapted to other ages.. Catalog number: NTBK0515; Price: $9.95 Also available from Amazon.com.