Gambel's Oak

Outdoor Hour Challenge - Autumn Series- Oaks & Acorns

We have a favorite park nearby that has a small forest of Gambel Oak Trees (also known as Scrub Oaks or Rocky Mtn White Oaks). We are always picking up acorns, leaves, and bark strips, so we had plenty at home to examine, but that didn't stop us from making another trip to the park to explore.

Gambel Oak Leaf

We wanted to try making the ink leaf prints, but found all of our ink pads were dry (apparently its been a long time since we stamped!), so we used markers instead. This was a little bit trickier- we had to quickly color the back of the leaves and flip it over before the marker started to dry. It was harder for my kids, but they enjoyed making prints on everything, including their shirts. Hurray for washable markers!!

I happened to have my iron out (my attempt at multi-tasking ended up in a burnt piece of fabric-whoops), so we also pressed some leaves between wax paper. In addition to these instructions, I also suggest using leaves that have had a chance to dry so there is less moisture between the wax paper- the ones that worked best for us were a couple weeks old and I had kept them ander a couple books so they were flat.

While we were at the park I had the kids make bark rubbings, and they also decided to try leaf rubbings at home.

Gambel Oak Bark Many of the trees were covered in orange and yellow lichen. Gambel Oak Acorn
I cracked a couple open to see the inside, and this inspired my son to crack open the rest. We tasted the acorns as well, but they were really bitter. I'm guess that is because of the tannic acid, which can be poisonous in large quantities.You should have seen the kitchen counter- wax paper, journals, leaves, acorns, acorn caps and shell pieces, sticks, bark strips, markers, crayons, colored pencils, fabric- let's just say we were trying to cram a lot of projects in while the little 2 were napping. We really enjoyed this nature study and the time we had to be creative.