Wondering about the summer nature study book, Discover Nature at Sundown? This helpful review includes a fantastic idea (and free printable!) for families to take a nature walk in the evenings.
Discover Nature at Sundown: Family Summer Nature Study
Discover Nature at Sundown by Elizabeth P. Lawlor is a book that our family has used for many years. When my children were younger, we would pull it off the shelf every summer to use as a reference and as a source of nature study ideas.
Our Summer Nature Study Curriculum features Discover Nature at Sundown and its topics, which you can find referenced below (Summer Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges).
Main Topics in Discover Nature at Sundown
Here are some of the many topics you can enjoy in your summer nature study:
owls
frogs
moths
fireflies
bats
opossums
raccoons
and skunks
There’s a little something for everyone’s taste! Dissect an owl pellet, try to entice moths to your nature hike, chase a firefly, listen for crickets, or hunt for traces of raccoons and opossums. My strategy was always to complete an entire in-depth study from this book each summer. Over time, your family will have covered a lot of interesting topics in a relaxed and enjoyable way.
Great Ideas for Summer Nature Journaling
For those of you that keep nature journals, you’ll be happy to note that the illustrations and charts are all very well done and our family would often copy them into our nature journals for future reference. The black and white line drawings are simple enough to inspire even the most reluctant nature journaler.
The ideas in this book will help you use your senses during your nature study to learn more about each of the topics. These skills are so useful in all scientific study but especially so for nature study. Plus, using all your senses is lots of fun! The book will help you with ideas for honing these skills and explain how we can enhance our natural senses.
Take a Sunset Nature Walk – A Fun Way to Work on Using Our Senses
Summer evenings are a cooler time of day for getting outside with your children. The after dinner hours are still light enough that taking a nature walk is a possibility.
You could go on a dinner picnic at a lake and then take a long walk in the evening air. There will still be plenty of things to observe, including a delightful sunset, the chirping of crickets, the song of the robin, the breeze in the treetops, and the buzz of mosquitoes.
Your nature walk doesn’t need to be a long one and you can adjust the time of day and length to fit your particular family. For a first outing, plan on 15-20 minutes and then see how it goes. If you can encourage your children to walk silently, even for just a minute, they are going to get more out of the experience. As your children are able, try to spend longer periods of silence as you listen for any signs of life during your outdoor time.
Take a Nature Hike at Sundown Printable
This printable is also available to Homeschool Nature Study members in your Summer course. Please be sure to share photos of your sunset walk and tag us on Instagram @outdoorhourchallenge
Summer Nature Study in Homeschool Nature Study Membership
Join us for even more homeschool nature studies for all the seasons! With a new nature study each week, you will have joyful learning leading all the way through the homeschool year for all your ages!
“One afternoon a week, the students in our ‘Practicing School’ [taught by the student teachers at Charlotte Mason’s teacher’s college] go for a ‘nature walk’ with their teacher. They notice things by themselves, and the teacher tells them the name or gives other information only if they ask for it.”
“The teachers are careful not to turn these nature walks into an opportunity to give science lessons, because they want the children’s attention to be focused on their own observations.”
“They’re allowed to notice things with very little direction from the teacher. By doing this, children accumulate a good collection of ‘common knowledge.’ ”
Homeschool Nature Study in Your Own Backyard – There is such freedom in homeschool nature study in your own backyard and in learning what is closest to home! In your own backyard, your children will learn to observe, to write about their experiences, to draw their treasures, to be patient, to imagine, and to explore. You don’t need a special textbook or kit to get started.
5 Getting Started in Nature Study Tips – What a delight nature study learning is and what joys you will discover outside your back door. We will help you with simple encouragement along the way.
June Nature Study Activities
Cicada Nature Study – This cicada homeschool nature study will be a lesson in learning to listen and distinguish the sound of the cicada. In the past we’ve listened in the evenings for other insects like the cricket. Now we’re going to learn about the cicada by listening and observing like investigators during the daylight.
Day Hikes Near Home – I realized over time that we didn’t need to travel far to find places to go on short notice or even for a half day’s hike. I loved being able to roll out of bed, decide to go on a hike, and be out the door in a short period of time. So, how did I overcome the dilemma of finding places to hike near our home?
Study Nature as You Travel This Summer – If you are planning a trip to a natural area to enjoy the outdoors, you may want to include nature study for your summer travel plans. Implement some of the ideas below to enhance your outdoor time.
FUN Summer Nature Study Photo Challenge! Enjoy a fun summer nature study photo challenge plus first day of summer ideas! I don’t know about you but I’m so very ready for the summer season! The most noticeable change is the amount of daylight. The sun is up early and it lingers in the evenings.
Beautiful Lupine Wildflower Nature Study – Enjoy a beautiful lupine wildflower nature study for your homeschool! Don’t miss the free lupine resource download and the free event!
Keeping a Nature Journal Review – Keeping a Nature Journal is a great homeschool nature study resource and contains a wealth of ideas that you can pick and choose to use as inspiration. This book is a tool like so many other tools we use in our family’s nature study.
For even more homeschool nature study ideas, join us in Homeschool Nature Study membership! You’ll receive new ideas each and every week that require little or no prep – all bringing the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool!
Enjoy all of these and more in homeschool nature study membership:
Victoria shares this really fun nature craft! “Summer is nearly upon us but the odd rain shower still hangs around, so now is the best time to make these little nature boats. Float them on a puddle after a summer rainfall, send them drifting across a pond or sailing down stream. these little nature boats will bring copious amounts of joy to a summers day.”
How to Make a Dandelion Crown Nature Craft
We are weeks away from Summer and the hedgerows and fields are glowing with dandelions, so now is the time to make dandelion crowns. One of the best uses for dandelions (there are MANY) is to create bright golden crowns to adorn our heads.
The Outdoor Homeschool Mom in June
This June, be encouraged by Shirley with all of her lovely Outdoor Mom prompts! Shirley shares, “So this summer I want to encourage you to take lots of walks. Eat lots of picnics outdoors. Take your shoes off and paddle in cool streams with your children. Lie down in flower-filled meadows looking up at the blue skies and find shapes in the clouds. Take time to plan a long, slow, purposeful summer with your families.”
Enjoy these tips for a conglomerate rock nature study and have fun hunting for them on your next nature walk.
Conglomerate rock is a sedimentary rock that contains large rounded particles. The rock particles are stuck together with sand that filled in the spaces. There can be many different colors of conglomerate rock depending on the color of the gravel and sand where the rock was formed. Colorful conglomerates may be called “puddingstones”.
Tips for a Conglomerate Rock Nature Study
We were able to find some awesome specimens of conglomerate rock during our trip to Oregon. Actually, my son found the one below and my husband found the one above. I told them what I was looking for and I was shocked they found two so very different from each other.
You can look for conglomerates in rivers, ocean beaches, or even in dry rocky desert areas where there used to be water.
Rock Cycle Activities for Middle and High School
An introduction to geology with rock cycle activities for middle and high school. This is a great homeschool nature study and a simple way to explore rocks as a nature study in your own backyard!
Note To the Parent: There is a lot of great information in this study, far more than can be covered in a week. Use this study as an introduction to geology as it relates to nature study in your own backyard or neighborhood. Read the information in the Handbook of Nature Study and share any facts or ideas with your child that make sense to you. Keep it simple. (includes an interactive rock cycle!): Rock Cycle Activities for Middle and High School
Follow-Up Rock Activities For Your Homeschool:
Choose one of the rocks you collected outdoors and look at it closely using a hand lens. If you collected some granite, can you distinguish the various components? Record your observations in your nature journal.
Advanced study: Diagram and describe the rock cycle in your nature journal.
Advanced study: Use your observation skills and record your information in your nature journal. Use a rock identification key to identify your igneous rock.
All three of my sons enjoy digital photography to capture our time outdoors.
A love of the natural world does not come automatically for all children and sometimes we need to find a way to hook them into getting outdoors. We live in a world of “wired” children….they have a lot of screen time each week as part of their normal routines. How do we get these children to move from their indoor screen to one that they can take outdoors?
My teens both had cameras on last year’s trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. They took amazing images.
The Benefits of Digital Photography in Nature Study
It slows them down.
Helps them focus and really see an object.
Everyday things in their own backyard can now be captured and viewed.
They can see the beauty.
They make their own connections.
Perfect for our teens…they are comfortable with the technology and love to share with their friends.
Technology in the Natural World
Would Anna Botsford Comstock and Charlotte Mason have approved of this use of technology in the natural world? I think they would have accepted that sometimes we need to help our children make connections in a way that is comfortable to them. If our 21st Century children are using technology on a regular basis, they are going to find it an easier transition to move from inside screen time to outside time with the aid of a digital camera.
Using the Outdoor Hour Challenge insect study and a digital camera might be just the invitation your child needs to get started on their own outdoor experiences this month. You don’t need to travel far to capture great images with your digital camera…your own backyard will reveal some interesting subjects for even the youngest photographer.
One of Mr. D’s calendar images.
I have encouraged my children to take digital photos for a long time now. This past summer, I challenged my oldest son to capture six images for next year’s family calendar. He blew me away with his nature photography! They are all stunning….I shared one of the photos above.
At some point we can hope that the technology is put away and our children just enjoy being outside but don’t overlook the power of digital photography to get your kids outside and exploring.
You can plan a simple outdoor picnic with the benefit of homeschool nature study! Even a snack in your backyard will make for a fun time together outdoors. You will be surprised at all you notice while you are outside.
“..by beginning with the child in nature-study we take him to the laboratory of the wood or garden, the roadside or the field, and his materials are the wild flowers or the weeds, or the insects that visit the goldenrod or the bird that sings in the maple tree, or the woodchuck whistling in the pasture.”
Picnics don’t need to be fancy. Wrap up a sandwich in a cloth napkin, grab a piece of fruit, and some water and you are set. Venture outside even if it is only to your own yard to sit on a blanket and enjoy your lunch. Afterwards you can make time for a short period of nature study.
I love eating outside with my family, especially in the summertime. This week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge encourages you to share a meal outside with your children. Keep it simple as far as food selections and location. Even if all you do is put a few things in a bag, grab a blanket, and then spread it all out on your own backyard lawn, I’m sure you and your children will enjoy the fresh air and the time spent outdoors sharing a meal.
Our family looks back fondly on the meals we shared outside in the summertime on our back deck. It made us slow down a bit and take notice of the things that happen outside like clouds floating by, birds chirping, and trees swaying in the breeze. We watched loads of sunsets and I remember a few times being sprinkled on by a passing late afternoon thunderstorm.
Our family eats dinner outside every night from June to September….longer if the weather allows. We have arranged our patio table under a canopy and the citronella candles are always kept nearby. We have a tree that the hummingbirds sip nectar from in the dusk hours and after our meal we sit and observe their dinnertime.
“…When the weather is warm, why not eat breakfast and lunch outside?…Besides the benefit of an added hour or two of fresh air, meals eaten outside are often delightful, and there’s nothing like happiness to convert food and drink into healthy blood and bodies.“
Charlotte Mason, Outdoor Life pg 43
Summer Nature Study Tip
Purchase some inexpensive, unbreakable dinnerware and reusable utensils. Make sure you have a small ice chest and some cooler packs to pop into your freezer. Gather a blanket or camping chairs to leave in your garage for those last minute excursions to the park for a picnic. Make sure to bring your nature journal and some pencils so you can create a nature journal page if the opportunity arises during or after your picnic.
Outdoor Hour Challenge Picnic
1. The challenge is to have a picnic. No need to go far or to even have a picnic table. Food always tastes better outside and if you don’t want to commit to a whole lunch, why not just a snack?
After you eat, sit and listen to the sounds of the spring.
“Given the power of nature to calm and soothe us in our hurried lives, it also would be interesting to study how a family’s connection to nature influences the general quality of family relationships. Speaking from personal experience, my own family’s relationships have been nourished over the years through shared experiences in nature-from sharing our toddler’s wonder upon turning over a rock and discovering a magnificent bug the size of a mouse, to paddling our old canoe down a nearby creek during the children’s school years, to hiking the mountains.”
2. After your picnic, spend 10-15 minutes observing your surroundings. Add anything new to your list of items observed in your focus area that you are keeping in your nature journal. Make note of any additional research that needs to be done for things your child is interested in. Make a journal entry if you wish.
This challenge is found in the Getting Started ebook which is included in Homeschool Nature Study membership. The ebook provides the challenge as shown above as well as custom notebook pages for your follow up nature journal if desired.
Homeschool Nature Study MembersHave Great Resources at Your Fingertips
Consider working through the first three Outdoor Hour Challenges in the Getting Started ebook. These three challenges can help build your nature study habit. I highly recommend following the suggestions for reading in the Handbook of Nature Study that go along with those challenges. The words expressed in those readings include timeless advice to parents about the value of regular nature study close to home. Make sure to have the printable nature journal pages bookmarked in case your child is ready to create a record of their Outdoor Hour Challenge.
#1 Let’s Get Started #2 Using Your Words #3 Now Is The Time To Draw
Look for the Outdoor Hour Challenge Planning Pages printable in the Planning Resources course. Use these pages to make a rough plan for your nature study.
If you’re not a member here at Homeschool Nature Study yet, please consider joining to gain the benefit of having a nature study library at your fingertips. There are numerous resources available for you to help create the habit of nature study within your family.
Nature Study Encouragement for Your Outdoor Hour Family Time
Before you begin homeschool garden activities, enjoy these ideas for getting outdoors with your family.
Nature Study in Ripples: Simple Ways to Study Nature
Simple Ways to Study Nature – Here are some simple ways to study nature in your homeschool. Start in your own yard then let your discoveries grow out like ripples in a pond.
“Nature study is, despite all discussions and perversions, a study of nature; it consists of simple, truthful observations that may, like beads on a string, finally be threaded upon the understanding and thus held together as a logical and harmonious whole.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 1
99 Homeschool Nature Study Ideas to Get Your Family Outside
Homeschool Garden Activities Perfect for May Nature Studies
“A child who makes a garden, and then becomes intimate with the plants he cultivates, and comes to understand the interrelation of the various forms of life which he finds in his garden, has progressed far in the fundamental knowledge of nature’s ways as well as in a practical knowledge of agriculture.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 20 in the section “Gardening and nature Study”
Here are some great nature study ideas for your May homeschool!
Garden and Wildflower Nature Studies with the Outdoor Hour Challenges
You can enjoy a simple garden and wildflowers homeschool nature study with these resources we have gathered for you to use in your own backyard. It is such a delight to study and learn about a garden and the beauty of wildflowers!
Make a Wagon Garden
For this particular garden, I have a rusty old Red Flyer wagon that has wheels that no longer turn…How to Make a Wagon Garden.
World Turtle Day Nature Activities
Turtle Nature Study for Your Homeschool – Learn about pond life, pondweed and a pond habitat with this fun turtle nature study for your homeschool. Includes activities for learning about tortoises and microscopic pond life too.
Mammals: Goat Nature Study
This goat homeschool nature study is packed with fun from fainting goats to advanced mammal studies! Bring the Handbook of Nature Study to Life in your homeschool! Here’s a peek at what you can expect to enjoy in this Outdoor Hour Challenge for Homeschool Nature Study members.
Butterfly Nature Study: How to Make a Butterfly Puddle
Over the years, I’ve observed butterflies along hiking trails in the muddy edges. There will sometimes be 10 or 12 butterflies sitting on the mud slowly opening and closing their wings. This behavior fascinated me! After a little research on the internet, I discovered that butterflies are attracted to mud puddles for not only the moisture but the minerals and salts that are present in the mud. Learn How to Make a Butterfly Puddle!
Homeschool Garden Activities: The Great Sunflower Project
What is the Great Sunflower Project? This is a citizen science activity that you can participate in with your children. If you can grow a sunflower (or selected other flowers), you can join the project with just a few minutes invested later this summer.
Beautiful Queen Anne’s Lace Wildflower Nature Study
Our family made great memories together one year while noticing and studying Queen Anne’s lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne’s lace nature study for your homeschool and see what you notice in each season too!
Charlotte Mason Nature Study: Simple Ideas for Wildflowers
These timeless Charlotte Mason nature study ideas are as relevant today as when they were written and I’m forever grateful for the encouragement these gave me when I was a new homeschooler.
Gathering Things for Your Nature Table
Unsure of what a nature table is exactly? Here is a simple definition with some ideas and tips. These will help you begin the habit of gathering things for your homeschool nature table during your Outdoor Hour Challenge time.
Plan a Picnic
You can plan a simple outdoor picnic with the benefit of homeschool nature study! Even a snack in your backyard will make for a fun time together outdoors. You will be surprised at all you notice while you are outside.
The Ultimate Guide to National Parks Nature Study
Ready to enjoy a trip to a national park? Use this guide to national parks nature study for your homeschool and enjoy nature study learning while you explore the great outdoors!
More Homeschool Garden Learning
Gardening in Your Homeschool – As the plant world comes alive again in springtime, what better way to teach our children about nature, food, hands-on history, and practical skills than by gardening? Whether we do a formal study or make gardening a purely hands-on project, our children will learn with a homeschool garden.
Get Them Gardening! Fun Garden Books for Kids – As spring starts to roll in, we turn our thoughts to finally getting outside and enjoying the nice weather. Along with this comes budding trees and growing plants, and gardening both for food and flowers. This collection of garden books for kids will help you include gardening in your homeschool.
12 Delightful Farm Activities for Kids – These 12 delightful farm art activities for kids include fluffy baby chicks, a tractor, a barn, ducklings, a lamb, a cow, a piglet and even the chicken life cycle. Such fun learning for your homeschool!
More Nature Study Ideas for Your May Homeschool
Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story – Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story is a beautiful picture book biography about the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. Anna Botsford Comstock was passionate about children getting out of the classroom and into nature to learn first hand about our beautiful world.
3 Tips for Nature Journaling When You Think You Can’t Sketch – Here is some encouragement for you with 3 tips for nature journaling when you think you can’t sketch. My personal nature journal is a source of great joy and it gives me such pleasure to create pages that record my observations and memories of a particular day, excursion, or season.
How Nature Study Enriches Your High School Biology in Your Homeschool – Just how to include homeschool nature study as part of high school biology? Here you will find a break down of nature study suggestions and accompanying resources for each module of your homeschool biology lessons. I really think it depends on the family and how much nature study you have time to fit in with your high school age children.
Flower and Gardening Activities and Notebook Pages
Learning leaf parts
Poppies and buttercups
Ferns
Looking for pollen
Pressing flowers
How to draw flowers
Learning flower parts and dissection of flowers
The garden snail
Garden Seed Ideas
Coronation Crown Nature Craft for Annual Homeschool Nature Study Members
Victoria Vels shares, “May’s nature craft has landed for our lovely members and we’re feeling rather patriotic with these stunning Nature Coronation Crowns, just in time for the crowning of King Charles II.”
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!
Outdoor Mom Encouragement for Annual Homeschool Nature Study Members
The Outdoor Mom in May Helps Us Refocus
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to attend your own business and work with your hands –
1 Thessalonians 4:11
It reminds me to re-focus my goals and ambitions so that they align with God’s will rather than my own, often more worldly, ambitions.
This verse grounds me. When I put this verse into action in practical ways in my everyday life I find that life slows down and I have enough head space to allow my thoughts to centre on what is important.
The May Outdoor Mom includes:
Choosing a journaling spot
10 (!) May nature prompts for outdoors, for journaling and for either the seashore or mountains
Ideas for working with your hands
Six ideas for making the ordinary extraordinary – including planting a kitchen garden!
Use this azalea homeschool nature study for your spring homeschool to learn more about these beautiful shrubs and then create a page for your nature journal.
Azaleas come in many colors and are often a staple at garden nurseries around this time of year. This is wonderful news for families that may not have a wild azalea to observe!
Azalea Nature Study for Your Spring Homeschool
Azaleas are part of the Heath family of plants. If you would like to find an alternative flower to study in this family, you can look on this website for ideas: Heath Family.
Learn More with These Azalea Resources
Our full azalea nature study is included in our Forest Fun curriculum. You can enjoy the Forest Fun Outdoor Hour Challenge curriculum which is a brand new series of nature studies featuring things you might find in the forest. It is not too late to join us by purchasing a Homeschool Nature Study annual membership.
Join The Homeschool Nature Study Membership for Year Round Support
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!
Taking anature walk can bring refreshment to your whole family. Maybe you are having a tough day and the children are a little restless or perhaps the weather is just too nice to stay inside all day…these are perfect opportunities to drop everything else and take a walk in your own neighborhood or a park close by.
I’ve observed that families that take nature walks on a consistent basis, as part of their weekly routine, benefit greatly from the efforts they spend in making them happen. They feel more relaxed in nature, they see their children get excited about things they discover, and they feel a closer bond as a family because of shared nature experiences.
Whether you use the Outdoor Hour Challenges as part of your nature studies or not, the fundamental idea of taking a short walk outside with your child is the basis of building a happier childhood.The Benefits of Nature Study with Ideas for Creative Nature Walks
Insect Nature Study for Kids: How to Identify an Insect
“Insects are among the most interesting and available of all living creatures for nature study. The lives of many of them afford more interesting stories than are found in fairy lore; many of them show exquisite colors; and, most important of all, they are small and are, therefore, easily confined for observation.”
Our family has always enjoyed being outside together, hitting the hiking trail and doing a little exploring. But often the biggest obstacle to taking that hike was figuring out where to go. We may have had the desire and the time to get outside but wrestled with the question of where to go. Often we thought too big.
I realized over time that we didn’t need to travel far to find places to go on short notice or even for a half day’s hike. I loved being able to roll out of bed, decide to go on a hike, and be out the door in a short period of time. So, how did I overcome the dilemma of finding places to hike near our home? Ideas for Field Trips and Day Hikes Near Home
Plan to Make Your Backyard a Natural Wildlife Habitat
Here are some simple ways you can make your backyard a natural habitat for wildlife. You will love having the opportunity to have nature come to you in your very own backyard. Involve your whole family in the project and spend some time outdoors! Here are the simple how tos: How to Make Your Backyard a Natural Wildlife Habitat
Learn the Parts of a Flower
This plant life nature study is going to be helpful to all families as they strive to learn the technical names for flower parts. Make sure to read the pages in the Handbook of Nature Study and look up the link in the challenge with a printable with the flower parts labeled. Don’t make this too much of a drill or memorization assignment. As the need arises, use the proper names for the flower parts as you go through your outdoor time and find garden flowers or wildflowers to observe. Plant Life Nature Study
Simple April Nature Activities: Keep Weather Records!
Keeping weather records has not only been a pastime for thousands of years, but it has also been essential to predicting the weather and its effects on everyday life. What should we wear? When should we travel? Is it time to plant our garden? We make many of our decisions based on the weather and its patterns and cycles. Keeping Weather Records as Homeschool Science
Enjoy a Ladybug Nature Study
It’s time for a ladybug homeschool nature study! We love ladybugs in our garden. It is as simple as that. They always make me smile when I see them crawling around in the grass or on the rose bushes. Maybe it is the nostalgia of childhood memories that flood in when I see ladybugs….you know, singing *that* song. A Delightful Ladybug Nature Study
Use Your Magnifying Lens in Your April Nature Study
Looking for ways to encourage your child to explore things in nature? Using a magnifying lens in homeschool nature study is not only fun for children but it helps them see more clearly the wonderful world of objects we have all around us. Try one of the ideas below to help your child get started making careful observations of natural items. Here are 5 Ways to Use Your Magnifying Lens in Homeschool Nature Study
Easter Nature Studies
With signs of spring upon us, enjoy these beautiful Easter nature studies for kids. A fun and hands-on way to celebrate the resurrection story. Be inspired here!
Join The Homeschool Nature Study Membership for Year Round Support
New for members this month!
Preschool Nature Study Plans
Enjoy relaxed preschool nature study plans for your homeschool with nature table suggestions, simple nature study activities, field trip ideas, images to print, coloring pages, and so much more. What a privilege to introduce children to the glorious world God created! Get your FREE SAMPLE of Preschool Nature Study Plans HERE!
Spring Flower Lantern Nature Craft
It’s officially Spring! The first flowers of the season are beginning to bloom so let’s celebrate new life with these Spring flower lanterns! With pressed flowers we can create something beautiful to illuminate our gardens and enjoy the spring blooms even after dark. Here is a preview in the video, below:
The Outdoor Mom Celebrates April
April is the month when spring begins to make its presence felt. Deciduous trees produce new leaves and blossom; wild flowers such as daisies, cowslips and bluebells begin to appear in fields and woodlands; and birds build their nests and fill the air with their sweet, sweet song.
In this lesson, you can enjoy prompts for your April garden, encouragement for slow living, the April home and Holy Week preparation, nature journaling for mom, ideas for being creative, nature journal prompts and more!
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!
Even if you or your children are squirmy about insects, there is so much to discover and learn! In this insect nature study, learn how to identify an insect with simple steps!
“Insects are among the most interesting and available of all living creatures for nature study. The lives of many of them afford more interesting stories than are found in fairy lore; many of them show exquisite colors; and, most important of all, they are small and are, therefore, easily confined for observation.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 294
I am finding this to be the case in our everyday life…there are insects everywhere. The caterpillar above we found on our hike yesterday. The more we looked, the more we found.
Rain beetle: Although she looks dead, she really wasn’t. She kept flipping over on her back and wiggling and stretching her legs. Today was a first. I actually looked closely at a very ugly beetle. Yes, I am becoming an insect gal. I know this for sure because my daughter and her friend Shyloh brought me home a very large, very alive beetle creature. I had asked all my family to bring home any interesting insects they find and had even given them each a ziploc sandwich bag to bring them home in. Yesterday was the first time someone brought me an insect treasure. They said they couldn’t bear to put it into a baggie so they used a small plastic container from my daughter’s lunch box. She said there were hundreds of the beetles so she felt like she could bring one to us to study
How to Identify an Insect
At first I was disgusted by this creature but after taking her out of the container and looking carefully, I once again found the beauty in the design of the Creator. Now all that was left to do was to discover what sort of beetle this insect was.
Steps To Identify An Insect
1. I pulled out my field guide but could not see any beetles that looked like this one.
2.So it was off to the internet and we started by looking up “beetle, california” on Google. I am finding that if I Google something and then look at the images it takes me far less time to identify a creature.
3.Once you find an image that looks like your insect, click on the link associated with that image. The majority of the time this is enough to get you pointed in the right direction.
Insect Nature Study For Kids
Here’s what I learned about this little female insect: Rain beetle or P. puncticollis (more on classification at BugGuide.net)and can be found in California woodlands. The male is approximately 1″ and the female can be slightly larger at 1 3/4″. The males have wings but the females do not. They range in color from reddish-brown to black. The underside is covered in hairy bristles.
The interesting thing about this beetle is that it makes a sudden appearance after a soaking rain….hence the name Rain beetle. We had a really good rain all the night before so I think this is probably why we were able to see this amazing creature. The life cycle of the Rain beetle is very long. The larvae, who feed on roots of live trees and bushes of oaks and conifers, take up to as much as 10-12 years to mature but once they become adults the males wait for the first rains to bring them out for their mating flight and the females dig a tunnel to the surface to wait for the males to find them. Here is the fascinating part:The conditions that trigger the males and females to emerge are so stringent that this may only happen in a population for a single day in a given year. This made the finding of this insect all the more precious since it is a rare event.
This is the head of the beetle and if you look closely you can see her little “horns”. The males fly slowly over the area, low to the ground, looking for the females who although rarely leave their underground burrow, wait at the burrow’s entrance for the arrival of the males. She puts off a pheromone that attracts the males. After mating the female closes off the entrance to her burrow and lays her eggs. These mature the following spring.
I love this photo that shows her leg parts.
Wow, so much to learn. I have a new appreciation for the study of insects after learning that this was not just an ugly bug. It has a whole life story to learn and now I can share it with others.
“When it is properly taught, the child is unconscious of mental effort or that he is suffering the act of teaching.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 6
I did all this research and it hardly felt like any effort at all. I will be striving to make our nature study so that it is interesting and feels not like work but like refreshment.
If you’re not a member here at Homeschool Nature Study yet, please consider joining to gain the benefit of having a nature study library at your fingertips. There are numerous resources available for you to help create the habit of nature study within your family.
Here are some tips for enjoying summer nature study when it’s hot outside. I live where it gets really hot outside in the summer. We have had just a taste of the heat so far this year but it has been enough to remind me just how hot it can be in the sun in the afternoon.
I want to encourage those that have emailed me lately telling me that it is too hot to participate in the Outdoor Hour Challenges right now in their part of the world. I sat and thought about how we can accomplish the Outdoor Hour even when the temperatures and humidity get up to the point where staying outdoors is unpleasant and potentially dangerous.
Homeschool Family Tips for Enjoying Summer Nature Study
Here are homeschool family tips for enjoying summer nature study (what we do in our family).
We try to get outside early in the day when there is still a little shade. We take a few minutes first thing to take a walk around the garden to pull a few weeds, make sure the watering system is working, harvest any goodies that are ripe, and enjoy the progress of the garden.
This gives us an opportunity to watch birds, look for worms, see butterflies, look at spider’s webs, watch ants, pick up some acorns, feel the cool breeze, look at signs of nocturnal visitors, and so many other everyday sorts of nature study.
Other than working in the garden, we many times take a short walk just around the perimeter of our property just looking for anything interesting. Ten or fifteen minutes is usually all that takes. Do we sometimes get hot? Yes we do but then we come inside and get something to drink and take a little time looking up anything we found interesting online or in a book while it is fresh in our minds. It might be a feather we found or an interesting rock. It could be a new flower blooming or a spider we don’t know the name of. Here is a quote from a newer participant in the Outdoor Hour and what she wrote on her blog.
“I have noticed in our studies that if we wait, nature will come to us.”
I love that and it is so true. It is the little things that come your way during your everyday business and travels that enrich your nature study.
It really isn’t about the big field trips or the nature study classes, it is the day to day, ho-hum stuff that is fascinating. The house fly that you look at with the hand lens, the ants crawling on your front step, the bird gathering twigs for a nest outside your window, the things we so many times fail to notice.
Nature Study When It’s Hot Outside
Here are some simple tips for summer nature study:
Have a Focus for Your Nature Study
I think in the heat of summer you just need to plan and have a focus for your nature study. You may want to focus your Outdoor Hour Challenges on garden flowers. Each challenge can literally be completed by taking a ten to fifteen minute period of time outside. You do not need to travel to a nature study area or spend a half-day or a whole day outside. For instance, challenge #17 was to look at leaves. My son and I went out and found about ten different leaves to look at and we were only outside about five minutes. We brought the leaves inside and we looked at them and then he drew them in his nature journal in the comfort of the cool indoors. You really only needed to find one leaf and bring it in to look at….tops outdoor time would be five minutes and that is still doable in hot weather.
Involve Water in Your Nature Study
I find that if I involve water in some aspect of our outdoor time the children and I enjoy it more. Watering the grass or watering with a watering can can provide just the touch of coolness to our time even if the temperatures are soaring. How about a squirt bottle to cool off with as you take a few minutes in your yard or neighborhood exploring?
Have a Cool Snack
The promise of a cool snack at the end of a short period outside is always a great way to keep spirits up as you have your outdoor time. We keep popsicles and Go-Gurts in the freezer for a refreshing snack in the shade after we have made our observations.
Remember That Your Children Are Developing Their Senses
The other aspect of nature study is that we are really training our children to see the differences in their world in each season. So many children today are raised in houses heated and cooled to a comfortable temperature year round. Our cars and the grocery stores are temperature controlled as well. Our kids need to feel the hot air of summer and the cold air of winter. It is part of growing up and experiencing our world and developing their senses.
I think that until we recognize that our children need outdoor time in nature close to their own homes, we do not make it a priority or think that it is worth while. Richard Louv in his book, Last Child in The Woods has a chapter titled “A Life of Senses: Nature vs. the Know-It-All State of Mind”. He makes some excellent points. Here is just one quote.
“Children need nature for the healthy development of their senses, and, therefore, for learning and creativity.”
More Ideas for Your Summer Homeschool
You might also like these fun ways to enjoy summer homeschool nature study:
Do you think this will help those that are hesitant to have nature study in the summer? I hope everyone that has a willingness to try will now not use the heat (or cold) as a reason to procrastinate nature study and participating in the Outdoor Hour Challenges any longer.
