Nature Study - Staying Inside

"Let them once get in touch with nature and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life." --Charlotte Mason

I think I'll stay in.

Once you’re home from your nature walk (or if you simply couldn’t drag yourselves outside for some reason!), grab your watercolors or medium of choice and some references—a photo from our walk or a picture online or in a book—and draw it, with notes!

We love bird books. 

We like to keep little nature journals, and it’s fun seeing how our record-keeping has improved through the year. Seeing what my kids observe about any given thing is always eye-opening for me (tee-hee, forgive the pun).

The robin lesson also led to learning to this classic song.

It helps me, as their teacher, hone in on what questions to ask next time to expand their observation skills, and also to see the unique perspective they each bring! Sometimes, especially when we’re sick, I’ll try and bring nature to us—refill the bird feeder (and squirrel feeder, and hummingbird feeder) and we’ll use our binoculars looking out the window. We even have an owl box with a western screech owl that we can watch in the early evening when he starts to peek out.

Our owl, #Augustustherodentslayer (check him out on Instagram!)

If none of these are available to you or if you want to study something further, the internet is full of great resources to study more about any given plant or critter! We've even benefited from applying specific episodes of Octonauts, Wild Krafts, or Magic School Bus to what we saw in our nature study!

Justice showing Valor a roly-poly. We're big into bugs.

Finally, in this and in anything, if your kid is curious about something, pursue it! That curiosity does 90% of your work for you, as a teacher. When they're already motivated, utilize it!

Happy learning!