Wonderful Wednesday – Jewelweed

I told you I invested in the Ultimate Naturalist Membership Level at this blog about nature studies. I am going through this year trying it out, seeing how it all fits in with our goals. I know I want my kids to learn as much as possible from nature: rocks, plants, animals, insects – they are all important.

We received so many ebooks and notebooking pages, it is quite possible we will spend years going through these materials. But, for now, it is one weekly lesson at a time.

Boy and girl studying jewelweed

Watching a youtube video about jewelweed, just before working on their notebooking page.

Last week, we looked at jewelweed. The week before that, it was catfish. While we did not get to go fishing for a catfish, or observe one in a river, we watched the suggested nature videos from youtube. It is a bit disappointing when you cannot study your subject up close and personal. 

So I was glad when, on one of my walks through my neighborhood, I spotted jewelweed and lots of it.

Boy and girl looking at jewelweed plants

Looking at jewelweed on the side of our road

It was so delightful to show it to my kids – as I brought some home. They loved looking at it. We worked through the text in Handbook of Nature Study and then through the suggested videos. It really is like a curriculum. And you don’t have to have a membership with this blog, either.

In her generosity, this blogger shares these lessons with all her readers every Friday, on her blog. It’s just that you don’t get the coloring or notebooking pages which come with the membership. Sometimes there are other worksheets, like organizational and goal setting sheets.

Girl looks at jewelweed plants

My daughter stooped low to look at jewelweed plants closely.

It just so happened that a few days before, an insect had managed to bite me on one of my fingers. The itching was unbearable. When I read that jewelweed works not only against poison ivy but also against any kind of insect bite or skin irritation, I quickly rubbed some of the juice from the stem on my bite. Would you believe the itching stopped in five minutes and the bite dried up in a couple of days with no need for more hydrocortizone cream?

My husband said, “I have lived here all my life, I have gone by that plant every year, never knowing its name or what it can do.” I felt good this city girl from Europe could show him something new in his backyard.

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