We celebrate the arrival of summer in May by our annual Wildflower Hunt. My kids love the "natural" scavenger hunt, and they look forward to it each year. The first thing that you need to do to take your kids on a wildflower hunt is pick a place for your hunt. You may remember seeing a place in the past that has some beautiful wildflowers growing, and, if not, you can start watching as the warm weather approaches. We have a spot that is along a creek and also has a large field nearby. I was very surprised the first year at how many different types of flowers that we found once we really started looking, so don't place too much importance on finding just the "perfect" place.

The next thing that you will need is a wildflower guide. I would suggest one that is specific to your area so that you won't get confused looking at flowers that grow in a completely different part of the country. Another feature of a good guide is nice, colorful pictures. Especially when you are going with the little ones, the brighter the pictures the better. I also like the fact that our guide has detailed times of the year and specific areas (like meadows or near water) that the flowers grow.

One other thing to have with you is a way to mark the flowers that you have found. We have used sticky notes in the past, but I have discovered that I like marking the date on the actual page of the flower when we find it. This makes it fun after the hunt to see if we found any new ones this year.

Of course, the last obvious thing to bring is your camera since there will undoubtedly be some wonderful photo opps!

Happy Wildflower Hunting!

Submitted by Candace Krieger