Designs of Nature - Winter Weeds

Focus: Winter weeds beautify the landscape with their variety of colors, shapes, and structures. They are stalwart remnants of last summer's flowers, carrying the seeds for future plants.

Puppets (Mother, Polly, Burdock Weed (real), Milkweed (real), Queen Anne's Lace (real))

Materials Checklist
Puppet Show (puppets, script, burdock weed, milkweed, Queen Anne's lace, tape, burdock bur, milkweed seeds)
Card Partners (two identical sets of winter weeds or seed heads mounted on cards, hand lenses, wildflower and weed field guides)
Winter Weed Walk (Winter Weed Walk cards, hand lenses, pencils, clipboards, optional map of search area, surveyor's tape, Card Partners weed cards)
Snow Bouquet (collection of winter weeds, clippers or scissors, white cloth, craft dough (recipe in Hands-On Nature))
Weed Poems (variety of winter weeds, paper bags or other hiding devices, florist's clay, pencils, paper)

Supplemental Reference Materials (Slide show scripts: Grades K-2, Grades 3-6, Poison Ivy Information, Winter Weeds, Terms and Illustrations, Winter Weed Walk cards)

Additional Reading/Resources
Pods: Wildflowers and Weeds in Their Final Beauty, by Jane Embertson, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1979.
Weeds in Winter, by Lauren Brown, W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 1976.

ELF Notes - Template for newsletter on Winter Weeds
* Word document * pdf file

For Younger Children
Many of the activities in VINS's new Small Wonders book can be used in ELF, too. To find appropriate activities for children aged 3-6, click here.

Teaching Suggestions
One volunteer came dressed up with burdocks stuck all over her. Be careful with the burdock, though; the teachers and custodians may prefer you leave it outside!

Puppet Show
You'll want to only blow one or two milkweed seeds as part of the puppet show, and not too far, in order to avoid some chaos in the audience.

Card Partners
For older children, provide magazine photo or field guide illustration of each weed in summer for all the weeds on the cards. Tape these to the blackboard and write the 2-word code from cards and plant's common name underneath picture. Once pairs think they have a match, they look at the back of the cards to see what 2-word combination their cards make. Match to correct picture and then introduce weed to class – in its winter and summer form!

Winter Weed Walk
In the city, discuss where the kids think they might find weed specimens in their urban landscape. Weeds like disturbed soil, so construction sites, along roadways and railroad tracks and other areas that are not regularly mown are great weed sites but may not be safe or accessible on a short walk. Weeds springing up at the yard's edge or along a fence line, foundation or in sidewalk cracks demonstrate their hardiness and resilience. Note that the same plant that's called a weed in the city is a wildflower a few miles out of town.

Snow Bouquet
These can be made into wall hangings if the craft dough is pressed flat and weeds are arranged vertically. Use a pencil to poke a hole through the base so it can hang on a nail.

Additional Resources
Roberts, June Carver. Season of Promise: Wild Plants in Winter (Northeastern US). Ohio University Press, 1993.

Learning Goals

Concepts/Ideas

• Winter weeds are the remnants of summer wildflowers; they are rugged, resilient plants that stand up through harsh weather until they crumble from exposure or are buried by snow.
• Winter weed 'skeletons' show the arrangement of the leaves and flowers they once held. Designed to last through the winter, these plants have extra time to disperse their seeds.
• The dried flowers of winter weeds reveal the intricate structures that cradle the seeds. These structures are all designed to protect and release the plant's seeds when ripe and ready.
• Winter weeds may provide seeds for birds, homes for wintering insects, and food and building materials for small mammals.

Vocabulary: weeds, seeds, seed dispersal (definitions)

Skills

• Active listening to identify some of the common characteristics of winter weeds.
• Using a hand lens to make detailed observations of some common weeds.
• Observing and making record of the variety of winter weeds growing outdoors.
• Creating a three dimensional model to display the varied colors and shapes of winter weeds.
• Creatively expressing observations and impressions about winter weeds by composing a poem.

Grade Expectations:
Grades PK-K (S30, S38) Winter weeds are the remains of last summer's living plants. Remaining dried stalks hold seeds that will grow into new plants in the coming spring and summer. There are many shapes, colors and sizes of winter weeds.

Grades 1-2 (S30, S31) Some kinds of plants die in the winter after producing seeds. Their dried remains hold seeds that may be carried by animals or winter wind to places where the will grow the next spring and summer.

Grades 3-4 (S30, S38, S39) Winter weeds are the remains of flowering plants that have completed their life cycle in one growing season. There are many types of winter weeds; they may be grouped according to similarity in structure.

Grades 5-6 (S31, S38) Each type of plant has a mechanism for dispersing seed. Winter weeds may be classified and identified by specific structural characteristics.

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