Early Spring Grid – Printable from the March 2012 Newsletter
Look in the Newsletter Archives for this Outdoor Hour Challenge.
No matter where you live and what early spring looks like in your world, it should be a perfect time to start getting back outdoors regularly each week as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge. Members here on the Handbook of Nature Study have always said that spring is their favorite time to do nature study with their children.
Join us this week for an easy nature study idea!
The activities in the Early Spring Grid (March 2012 Newsletter) are simple enough for most of us to complete without a lot of extra planning or work.
Print this page out and cut out the grid to adhere in your nature journal. As you finish each suggested activity, cross off the box (or shade it in with colored pencils).
Here is an example of how to include the grid in your nature journal.
Another suggestion is to post the Early Spring Grid on your refrigerator with a magnet. This will be a reminder to do a few spring related nature activities as you go through the month of March.
The newsletter archive is available to all members.
To purchase an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership, click on over to the Join Us page at any time. You can use the discount code NATURE5 to receive $5 off your Ultimate Naturalist Library membership.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months working on a new ebook for all of us to use in creating a backyard habitat designed to attract birds, bees, and butterflies. I’ve heard from so many of my readers that they think their backyard space is boring or nothing out of the ordinary. So this week, I’m going to challenge you all to get outside and prove yourselves wrong!
Last year’s garden was filled with lots of living things.
Every space has something to observe, and the list below will help you start thinking differently about whatever your outdoor space is currently looking like at the beginning of spring. As part of the process in creating a backyard habitat, the first step is to make an assessment of what you already have and then decide how you can improve it. Challenge your children to check off as many things as they can from the list below.
Flowers (garden or in a pot): petals, pollen, roots, leaves, stem, fragrance, shapes, colors, seeds
We need to train our eyes and hearts to be open to the opportunities that arise in our everyday travels.
I’m anticipating the new backyard habitat ebook to be in the Ultimate Naturalist Library for members by the end of April 2021. Exciting times coming for you and your family as you start the process of creating a backyard habitat to use for nature study and so much more!
Members have access to the Garden Flowers and Crops ebook in their library. This is also a fantastic resource for learning about gardening along with your children.
We’ll be using the Herb Nature Study ebook later this summer for our weekly Outdoor Hour Challenges. If you have access now, you can get a jump start by reading through the book and planning a few herbs to grow for your nature study time.
Spring Ebooks from the Ultimate Naturalist Library!
Getting outside with our children has been the sanity saving activity we all needed this past year. As spring approaches, have you considered adding a little nature study into your weekly routine? I’ve heard from families that they were reluctant to start a nature study plan, stating that they thought it would restrict their freedom to focus on one topic. But, they found that having a focus each week actually helped them to stay regular at getting outside and it helped them be better at taking a few minutes to learn about an object they encountered, even if it wasn’t the original aim for getting outdoors.
The key is to make a regular habit of getting outside and taking note of things that interest your family.
If you’re looking for a more “free form” style of nature study, I invite you to read this post from my archives: Focus and Consistency
Spring is a fantastic time to start a season of nature study. Please see the ebooks listed below along with their specific topics. Consider working through an ebook or you can pick and choose subjects from any of the ebooks. Without a lot of extra effort, you can customize your spring nature study by picking your favorite topics from any of the ebooks listed.
Spring Nature Study Continues
Did you know this ebook also contains art and music appreciation?
The Ultimate Naturalist Library currently has 26 ebooks covering hundreds of topics. There are 76 newsletters in the archives and dozens of printables available too!
Please click over to see all the benefits of a membership here on the Handbook of Nature Study.
Right now, I’m offering a super discount just to get you started.
Use the discount code SPRINGFUN to receive $10 off an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership! The discount code will expire on 3/27/2021.
The current library contains 26 ebooks covering hundreds of topics. There are 76 newsletters in the library and dozens of printables in addition to the ebooks!
“The flowers of the bleeding heart are beautiful jewel-like pendants arranged along the stem according to their age; the mature flower, ready to shed its petals, is near the main stem while the tiny unopened bud is hung at the very top, where new buds are constantly being formed during a long season of bloom.”
Handbook of Nature Study
Anna Botsford Comstock placed the bleeding heart in the garden flowers section of the Handbook of Nature Study. But many of us live in areas where we can also find bleeding hearts as a blooming native (wildflower) plant. The Pacific bleeding heart is found in your field guide under the name Dicentra Formosa.
Hint: It can be found both as a garden plant and as a native plant in many areas.
In this violets nature study, learn how to identify violets plus enjoy suggestions for your outdoor homeschool nature study. Follow up activities include nature journaling pages for labeling flower parts and resources for how to grow violets.
Outdoor Hour ChallengeViolets Nature Study
I love violets! In the summer, we have thousands of them that come up all over the yard. They are in the flower beds, in the lawn, and even between the pavers of our walkway! I love their happy colors and I’m anxious to see them again once the season changes.
Most of our violets are transplants from a friend that have gone wild and reseeded themselves. But, we do have one native violet that grows as a wildflower along the edges of our property. It is the goosefoot violet and it’s yellow.
I need to be careful when I’m weeding along the fence because I could easily weed them right out of the flower bed. Learning their leaf shape, a distinctive “goose print” shape, has helped me to let them be when I’m cleaning out the weeds. Plus, it helps me remember its name! The goosefoot violet is one of our spring ephemerals and signals us that spring is on its way, making it a very welcome flower when we see it starting to bloom.
I think Anna Botsford Comstock had a love for violets as well. When you read the violets nature study lesson in the Handbook of Nature Study you can hear her appreciation for their form and beauty. She does mention the fact that not all violets are fragrant. This was a surprise to me because our violets in California all had that distinctive violet perfume fragrance. The goosefoot violet has no fragrance at all. Turns out, Anna was helpful in giving us some valuable information in order to correctly identify the wild violets.
Homeschool Nature Study Members: View the original challenge in Homeschool Nature Study membership in the Winter Course.
Make sure to check your local field guide to see which violets are native and then be on the lookout for some to observe in your nature study. As suggested in the challenge, look for “johnny jump ups” in your garden nursery as a substitute for wild violets.
Learn About Wildflowers in Homeschool Nature Study Membership
Annual members can download and use any of the wildflower challenges from the three sets of Wildflower curriculum available in the Member’s Library.
You will find hundreds of homeschool nature studies plus all the Outdoor Hour Challenges in our Homeschool Nature Study membership. There are 25+ continuing courses with matching Outdoor Hour curriculum that will bring the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool! In addition, there is an interactive monthly calendar with daily nature study prompt – all at your fingertips!
This is the season for planning your garden whether it’s a flower garden or a vegetable garden. Anticipating the colorful flowers, the delicious tasting fruits, and the many hours of happily tending the garden is more than half the fun in my opinion. Paging through seed catalogs or scrolling your favorite gardening sites online can fill your cold winter days with pleasant thoughts of things to come.
I’ve already started my garden planning for the year and put in my seed order to Renee’s Garden Seeds. If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you already know that I love this seed company. I always have great results from their products and they are my go to place to purchase seeds for the garden.
Because of our short growing season here in Central Oregon (less than 60 days), our garden is mostly flowers now and not veggies. But, I have decided to try a green bean and broccoli raab crop this year as an experiment. I will keep you posted on our results.
Cinnamon Sun Sunflowers – I’m excited to try a new color of sunflowers in this year’s garden.
Chocolate Daisy – This is an old favorite that I want to try this year in our new garden box. (It does have the fragrance of chocolate!)
I am eagerly awaiting their arrival! It will be a while before I can actually plant them, but I can dream about the warm summer afternoons in the garden while I wait.
Maybe you would like to start dreaming and planning for your summer flower garden nature studies. I have completely updated my chart of garden flower topics from the Handbook of Nature Study. Each flower has an Outdoor Hour Challenge associated with it on the website and an ebook with notebook pages to use for your study. Use the links in the chart to decide on which flowers you will study this summer!
Ultimate Naturalist Library members have access to all the ebooks required. If you’d like to purchase an annual membership, click the link above and then use the discount code NATURE5 to receive $5 off your membership.
All memberships are valid for one year after your purchase. The library of ebooks, the newsletters, and all the printables will be only a few clicks away.
For those of you following the Ambleside Online nature schedule, the spring topic is garden flowers and weeds. Please feel free to combine your nature study with the Outdoor Hour Challenges found in the archives.
I cannot tell you how excited I am that we’re continuing with our early spring wildflower studies! Although we don’t have any wildflowers blooming yet in Central Oregon, I know that making a pre-study of any topic makes it more likely I’ll recognize that subject in the future when we do see it on our travels.
Don’t forget to use the Plant Family notebooking pages that are in the Member’s Library to enhance study of any wildflower you encounter.
Note: Violets are in the violet plant family and bleeding hearts, Dutchman’s breeches, and squirrel corn are in the poppy family).
3/5/2021 – Violet Nature Study
3/12/2021 – Bleeding Hearts Nature Study
3/19/2021 – Dutchman’s Breeches and Squirrel Corn Nature Study
3/26/2021 – Early Spring Grid Nature Study
New Printables in the Members Library
Leaf Veins Observation and Drawing notebook page: Once the spring leaves start to emerge, collect a few to draw on this notebook page. Research the vein patterns to help your children go a little deeper in their study of leaves and plants.
March Quick Observations notebook page: You still may be experiencing colder temperatures so a quick walk may be a great start to your spring nature study. Use this new notebook page to make simple and quick observations of 1 plant, 1 tree, 1 bird, and 1 unusual or extraordinary thing you discover on your weekly nature walks. I created two versions of the page for you to choose from depending on your family’s interests and ages.
Click the graphic above to view the complete list of printables available as part of an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership.
Members also have access to the Nature Planner pages in their library. Print out this month’s page and use it to stimulate your weekly nature study time.
If you’d like to have access to the member’s printables and the newsletter archive, I invite you to join with an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership. Your membership will be valid for one year from the date of purchase. Click the graphic above to see the many benefits of an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership.
The Outdoor Hour Challenges this month are from the Winter Nature Study Continues ebook.
“There should be from first to last a steady growth in the intelligence of the child as to the places where certain plants grow. He finds hepaticas and trilliums in the woods, daisies and buttercups in the sunny fields, mullein on the dry hillsides, cattails in the swamp, and water lilies floating on the pond. This may all be taught by simply asking the pupils questions relating to the soil and the special conditions of the locality where they found the flowers they bring to school. ” Handbook of Nature Study, page 458
Oh, the joy of wandering the woods in search of spring wildflowers. When I lived in California, March was the real start of our spring wildflower season. Here in Central Oregon it starts much later, so I’m dreaming of wildflower season! My daughter who still lives in California will be sending me photos for sure!
Use this week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge to learn more about hepatica using the Handbook of Nature Study as well as the links and videos in the original challenge linked below.
Alternate Study Idea: Look for the Spring Beauty if you live in the western United States.
The very early spring is a time to anticipate the coming of the spring ephemerals, those wildflowers that mark the ending of winter and the start of spring. (Read more about Spring Ephemerals in my archives.) This challenge will prepare you for getting out in the woods and parks to spot early wildflowers like bloodroot.
Please use the information in the original Outdoor Hour Challenge to learn more about bloodroot, including links and videos. In addition, I found this awesome new link for you to read for you study: The Ephemeral Beauty of Bloodroot.
The scarlet saucer is easy to recognize and you can make it a fungus hunt to capture your child’s interest. Use the information in the original challenge to learn more about the scarlet saucer or if you want to make it a broader study of fungus, members can download the March 2013 newsletter for a fungus grid study and some coloring pages.
If you have access to the Winter Nature Study Continues ebook, there are two notebook pages to choose from for your nature journal.
Alternate activity: Look for the Fungi Photo hunt printable in the Member’s Library.
To purchase an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership, click on over to the Join Us page at any time.
You can use the discount code NATURE5 to receive $5 off your Ultimate Naturalist Library membership.
If you have access to the Winter Nature Study Continues ebook, there are two notebook pages to choose from for your nature journal.