'Tis that time of year when the sap begins to flow in the trees. We studied maple syrup this week and had a great time as well as learned a lot. (Unit study from homeschoolshare) We decided to try something new and make just one lapbook. It worked out well, and I felt like we did more learning and less "mom trying to help both boys at the same time cut, glue and write".
Starting inside the book, we looked at what a Maple tree looked like, the life cycle of a maple tree and the symmetry of different parts of the tree.
Nicolas's tree on the left and Alex's on the right. We labeled the canopy of leaves, branches, trunk, roots, seed and leaf.
Alex did the sprout and seed, and Nicolas did the bud and leaf. (He had a little help with the leaf, but the bud all by himself.)
We moved on then to what trees could be tapped. We looked each tree up in the Audobon book of trees and learned just a little about each one.
Sycamore - one of largest hardwoods
Box Elder - also called the ash leaf maple
Buckeye - Ohio state tree
Sugar maple - colorful in the fall and used most for maple syrup
Red maple - Pioneers made ink from this tree
Silver maple - named because the backs of the leaves are silvery; very brittle tree
We looked at where maple syrup is produced and what tools are used for tapping. When we talked about the actual process of making maple syrup and read some books from the library about it. We also talked about what temperature it had to be outside for the sap to flow, then we charted the temperature.
We did the snow experiment, because we just happened to get some snow during the week. On the left, Nicolas colored how many inches of snow we had in a canning jar, then the middle each boy guessed how much water it would be when the snow melted (Red is Alex's guess, blue Nicolas's). Then on the far right, Alex colored in how much water we actually had when it was melted.
When we went grocery shopping, we bought real maple syrup and made pancakes the next day for lunch. We tried to make Jack Wax - a candy made from hot maple syrup poured into the snow where it hardens like a taffy. It didn't work for us, so I'm pretty sure we did something wrong! Nicolas did a copywork of a poem (well, all he could fit on the paper.)
You can probably go in Mom/Dad's woods and find the taps still in the trees that Grandpa use to tap for syrup. Or at least you might see where the holes were. Did you tell them that Great Grandpa Small use to tap for maple syrup?
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