Sun Prints

As I have said again, and again,(and again), one of the things I LOVE about homeschooling is being able to be outside and take advantage of beautiful weather. Since we do live in OHIO and gorgeous days are few and far between (usually) we absolutely have to get out when the sun in shining.
My point... we have tons of sit down work with the curriculum we are using so my goal has always been to break up our school at home days with some outdoor "schoolwork". This morning was beautiful so we spent the early morning hours on a nature walk in our yard and woods gathering materials for our sun prints. This project is SO easy! I have seen it several times online, wanted to try it, and I finally got my act together. You must do it on a day that the sun will be out all day so today was perfect.
The kids had to find different shaped leaves, flowers, sticks, and whatever else caught their eye to tape onto brightly colored construction paper (we found out later the more vibrant the color the better end result.) After taping their treasures onto paper we simply put the papers outside and let the glorious sunshine do all the work.
It's amazing how faded the papers got in just 6-7 hours (a little scary to think about what the sun is doing to our skin, get your sunscreen out people!!).
The kids had fun with this! We talked about hypothesis, variables, identified the different flowers and leaves that they found, and discussed the sun's effect on everyday objects. They learned a little and didn't even know. That's the best kind of education right??

See the difference in color from about 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The pictures don't do the prints justice.

Emma looks happy with her results.