Category: nature study

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Is Nature Study Old-Fashioned for Your Homeschool?

Why are we spending time in nature study? Is nature study old-fashioned for your homeschool? Do we really need to expose our children to this type of learning in our modern age, where everything is at our fingertips as far as finding answers to anything we want to know in books or on the internet?

Is nature study old-fashioned for your homeschool? Discover how outdoor time and nature study are as fundamental to good learning as you can find.

Is Nature Study Old-Fashioned for Your Homeschool?

I think outdoor time and nature study are as fundamental to good learning as you can find. Charlotte Mason agrees.

“And this is exactly what a child should be doing for the first few years. He should be getting familiar with the real things in his own environment. Some day he will read about things he can’t see; how will he conceive of them without the knowledge of common objects in his experience to relate them to? Some day he will reflect contemplate, reason. What will he have to think about without a file of knowledge collected and stored in his memory?”
Charlotte Mason, volume 1 page 66

Is nature study old-fashioned for your homeschool? Discover how outdoor time and nature study are as fundamental to good learning as you can find.

The Benefits of Nature Study in Your Homeschool

Is nature study old-fashioned? Nature study is foundational and fundamental to learning. Here you will find more encouragement to include nature study in your homeschool days.

Homeschool Nature Study in Your Own Yard: Learn What is Closest – 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 Tips for Nature Study – Nature study should be something that doesn’t seem like work. Allow the child to soak in the nature study opportunities that come your way. 

Creating a Nature Study Atmosphere: Start with Your Attitude – Creating a homeschool nature study atmosphere does not need to be difficult, dirty, or uncomfortable. In fact, the best nature study is done without much effort and is guided by your child’s interest in topics that come along.

Is nature study old-fashioned for your homeschool? Discover how outdoor time and nature study are as fundamental to good learning as you can find.

More Favorite Tips for Encouragement

Let us help you get started! You will find our FREE Getting Started Outdoor Hour Challenges Guide HERE.

You can use the ideas in those challenges to get started with a simple nature study time with your children. You can use each challenge as many times as you want.

Outdoor Hour Challenges for Your Homeschool

To get each Friday’s homeschool nature study Outdoor Hour Challenge and for access to a continuing series of new nature studies, join us in Homeschool Nature Study Membership. You will have everything you need to bring the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool.

Find Out More About Homeschool Nature Study Membership!

With membership, you will have access to Outdoor Hour Challenges curriculum and resources to enrich your homeschool.

Be inspired! Be encouraged! Get outdoors!

by Barb, July 2008

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Homeschool Nature Study in Your Own Backyard: Learn What is Closest to Home

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.

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.

In the book Last Child in the Woods, the author makes the point several times that today’s science textbooks and programs are missing the mark. Many, many young students know more about the tropical rainforests and volcanoes of the world than they know about their own backyards.

Homeschool Nature Study in Your Own Backyard: Learn What is Closest to Home

Is there a better way to introduce our children to the world of science? Yes, but it may mean we have to get dirty. We will need to spend time outdoors *with* our children and look at things through their eyes. It may mean that teaching science doesn’t follow a straight path or a certain scope and sequence. It changes science or nature study in your own backyard into more of a way of life rather than a school subject to be checked off your “to do” list each week.

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.

Encouragement From Last Child in the Woods

Here’s a selection of quotes from one of my favorite sections in Last Child in the Woods:

“Any natural place contains an infinite reservoir of information, and therefore the potential for inexhaustible new discoveries.”

“For some young people, nature is so abstract-the ozone layer, a faraway rain forest-that it exists beyond the senses.”

And the best of all from this section:
“For a whole generation of kids, direct experiences in the backyard, in the tool shed, in the fields and woods, has been replaced by indirect learning, through machines. These young people are smart, they grew up with computers, they were supposed to be superior-but now we know that something’s missing.”

Nature study encouragement from Charlotte Mason
Charlotte Mason Homeschool Art Appreciation

Encouragement from Charlotte Mason


If you have read any of Charlotte Mason’s writings, she tells us what is missing from most of our young people’s educations. Charlotte Mason advocated the sort of science learning that Richard Louv encourages in this book….an education where children are exposed to and encouraged to be out in nature.

With her emphasis in the early years on nature study, Charlotte Mason is showing us how to make science meaningful to our children. It will not be some abstract idea or have a political agenda. Science really is as simple as the plan put before us by Charlotte Mason. We are the ones that make it complicated.

Benefits of Nature Study in Your Own Backyard


A nature walk can stimulate our children’s senses and their inborn desire to ask questions. One bird, one tree, one wildflower or garden flower at a time, our children will learn about their own world and neighborhood. Whether your “outdoors” is a park, a few square feet of dirt, or an acre of forest, every child has the opportunity to be exposed to some kind of natural environment.

If you live in a high-rise apartment or the weather is too bitter or too hot to be outside, bring nature to you in the form of a potted plant, a fish tank, or a collection of natural objects brought in from your time spent outdoors. (Check out my daughter’s table-top garden post on her blog at HeartsandTrees.)

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.

 
Anna Botsford Comstock in her book Handbook of Nature Study puts her thoughts this way:

“Nature study is for the comprehension of the individual life of the bird, insect, or plant that is nearest at hand.”

My eyes are wide open at all times to find ways to bring nature closer to our family. As Christians we want to appreciate the world that God made for us to live in. We want to be able to understand Him better by learning about all that He created.

You don't need a special textbook or kit to get started. With nature study 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.

Nature Study in Your Own Backyard with Outdoor Hour Challenges

To get each Friday’s homeschool nature study Outdoor Hour Challenge and for access to a continuing series of new nature studies, join us in Homeschool Nature Study Membership. With homeschool nature study membership, you will have everything you need to bring the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool.

Join Homeschool Nature Study Membership Today!

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get outdoors!

By Barb, June 2008

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5 Getting Started Tips for Nature Study in Your Homeschool

Here are 5 getting started tips for nature study in your homeschool. 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.

Here are 5 getting started tips for nature study in your homeschool. 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.
Photos by Amy Law

Tips From The Handbook of Nature Study

You will find some of the very best tips for nature study from Handbook of Nature Study author, Anna Comstock.

“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

Nature study is a long term project, building from year to year. Take it one subject or topic at a time and see the results.

“During autumn the attention of the children should be attracted to the leaves by their gorgeous colors. It is well to use this interest to cultivate their knowledge of the forms of leaves of trees; but the teaching of the tree species to the young child should be done quite incidentally and guardedly. If the teacher says to the child bringing a leaf, “This is a white-oak leaf,” the child will soon quite unconsciously learn that leaf by name. Thus, tree study may be begun in the kindergarten or the primary grades.”

Handbook of Nature Study, page 622
What a delight learning is and what joys you will discover outside your back door. We will help you with simple encouragement along the way.

Begin slowly and naturally to share a love of things in nature with your children.

“It is a mistake to think that a half day is necessary for a field lesson, since a very efficient field trip may be made during the ten or fifteen minutes at recess, if it is well planned.”

Handbook of Nature Study, page 15

You don’t need to devote large blocks of time to nature study to be successful.

“When the child is interested in studying any object, he enjoys illustrating his observations with drawings; the happy absorption of children thus engaged is a delight to witness.”

Handbook of Nature Study, page 17
Nature journals are a natural extension of the learning that happens. 

Nature journals are a natural extension of the learning that happens during nature study. 

“If nature study is made a drill, its pedagogic value is lost. When it is properly taught, the child is unconscious of mental effort or that he is suffering the act of teaching. As soon as nature study becomes a task, it should be dropped; but how could it ever be a task to see that the sky is blue, or the dandelion golden, or to listen to the oriole in the elm!”

Handbook of Nature Study page 6
Nature study should be something that doesn't seem like work. Allow the child to soak in the nature study opportunities that come your way. 

Nature study should be something that doesn’t seem like work. Allow the child to soak in the nature study opportunities that come your way. 

More Favorite Tips for Encouragement

You will find our FREE Getting Started Outdoor Hour Challenges Guide HERE.

You can use the ideas in those challenges to get started with a simple nature study time with your children. You can use each challenge as many times as you want. Make sure to subscribe to this blog for more tips for nature study.

Homeschool Nature Study Membership - Bring the Handbook of Nature Study to Life!

To get each Friday’s homeschool nature study Outdoor Hour Challenge and for access to a continuing series of new nature studies, join us in Homeschool Nature Study Membership. With homeschool nature study membership, you will have everything you need to bring the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool.

Find Out More About Homeschool Nature Study Membership!

With membership, you will have access to Outdoor Hour Challenges curriculum and resources to enrich your homeschool.

Be inspired! Be encouraged! Get outdoors!

Enjoy 5 tips for nature study in your homeschool. What a delight nature study is and what joys you will discover outside your back door.
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Creating a Nature Study Atmosphere in Your Homeschool: Start With Your Attitude

Creating a homeschool nature study atmosphere does not need to be difficult, dirty, or uncomfortable. In fact, the best nature study is done without much effort and is guided by your child’s interest in topics that come along.

Creating a homeschool nature study atmosphere does not need to be difficult, dirty, or uncomfortable. In fact, the best nature study is done without much effort and is guided by your child's interest in topics that come along.
Photos by Amy Law

The nature study we talk about here is meant to be simple, a constant vigilance for something to be interested in right in your own neighborhood.


Creating a Homeschool Nature Study Atmosphere – It Starts With You

Nature Study- You can do this and your children will thank you. That really is my main message for this post and this Homeschool Nature Study website.

Nature Study Close to Home

Traveling to national parks can be a goal for everyone and I feel so very blessed to live in a part of the county where they are at my fingertips. But your own backyard can produce meaningful nature study if you are aware of things that come along…you need to be watching and listening.

Creating a homeschool nature study atmosphere does not need to be difficult, dirty, or uncomfortable. The best nature study is little effort and is guided by your child's interest.

No Need for Homeschool Group Learning

Participating in nature clubs can be a wonderful experience for a nature study atmosphere but having a few minutes with just your own kids outside each week can be just as wonderful.

Be Flexible With Your Time

Focusing on one nature study topic gives your family a full picture of that aspect of nature but don’t miss out on other subjects that come around because they are not on topic. Take a detour if needed and remember that nature study should be a life-long endeavor.

I have observed that families that make nature study a consistent part of their everyday life are the ones that feel the most satisfaction. Honestly, it warms my heart to see and hear about the times where families have an opportunity arise and they drop everything to pursue the learning more. A spider in a web, a bird’s song, the weather, rocks in pockets….take a few minutes to share it with your children.

dragonfly homeschool nature study

You may be surprised how your attitude changes with knowledge. 

In the end, what matters most is the way you view nature. Children are very keen observers and they will know when you are not excited about something. I can’t say I am always excited about every nature study topic…snakes and fish come to mind…but I do try to share my passion for learning new things and encourage my children to learn more about topics of interest. Funny thing is that once you start learning about things like snakes, the more interesting they become. The closer you look at a fish, the more beautiful it is.

Join us in Homeschool Nature Study Membership for a NEW Outdoor Hour Challenge each Friday!


You will find encouragement and resources to get your nature study atmosphere started. It is all done for you. Bring the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool!

Outdoor Hour Challenge Getting Started Guide – the beginning of so many good times with your children outdoors!

Find Out More About Homeschool Nature Study Membership HERE!
Creating a homeschool nature study atmosphere does not need to be difficult, dirty, or uncomfortable. In fact, the best nature study is done without much effort and is guided by your child's interest in topics that come along.

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get outdoors!

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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.

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.
Photos by Amy Law

“From the time she was no higher than a daisy, Anna was wild about nature.”

Suzanne Slade

One of the most natural ways for people to learn is through story. This sweetly illustrated biography of Anna Comstock gives a glimpse into the life of the woman who wrote the wonderful book The Handbook of Nature Study. Knowing more about her life makes her writing even more special! – my friend, Amy Law.

Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story is a lovely book written by Suzanne Slade and beautifully illustrated by Jessica Lanan.

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.

The Anna Comstock Story Picture Book Biography Review

This post contains affiliate links. Please see our disclosure policy.

“This picture book biography examines the life and career of naturalist and artist Anna Comstock (1854-1930), who defied social conventions and pursued the study of science. From the time she was a young girl, Anna was fascinated by the natural world. She loved exploring outdoors, examining wildlife and learning nature’s secrets. From watching the teamwork of marching ants to following the constellations in the sky, Anna observed it all. And her interest only increased as she grew older and attended Cornell University. There she continued her studies, pushing back against the common belief of the day that implied science was a man’s pursuit.

Eventually, Anna became known as a nature expert, pioneering a movement to encourage schools to conduct science and nature classes for children outdoors, thereby increasing students’ interest in nature. In following her passion, this remarkable woman blazed a trail for female scientists today.” –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.

“The nature story is never finished. There is not a weed or an insect or a tree so common that the child by observing carefully, may not see things never yet recorded.”

-Anna Comstock

Here at Homeschool Nature Study, we highly recommend this book for your homeschool! It is a wonderful way to learn all about – and be inspired by – the author of the Handbook of Nature Study. You might also like our Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for Nature Lovers and Last Child in the Woods.

Bring The Handbook of Nature Study to Life in Your Homeschool!

Learn More About The Handbook of Nature Study for Your Homeschool

We have some great resources for learning what The Handbook of Nature Study is all about:

You might also like my review of a Charlotte Mason Picture Book biography: The Teacher Who Revealed Worlds of Wonder – on our sister site, The Curriculum Choice. Charlotte Mason adored nature study!

My Homeschool Nature Book Report

In Homeschool Nature Study membership, you will find a printable nature book report page under your Nature Journaling course. Use this when you enjoy the Anna Comstock Story or any other nature book!

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.

Tricia and her family fell in love with the Handbook of Nature Study and the accompanying Outdoor Hour Challenges early in their homeschooling. The simplicity and ease of the weekly outdoor hour challenges brought joy to their homeschool and opened their eyes to the world right out their own back door! She shares the art and heart of homeschooling at You ARE an ARTiST and Your Best Homeschool plus her favorite curricula at The Curriculum Choice.

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Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for Nature Lovers

Enjoy these Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for nature lovers! Anna Botsford Comstock is the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. The Handbook is a staple in the Outdoor Hour Challenges we share. This is a wonderful reference guide for you, the homeschool teacher to use. We show you how!

Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for Nature Lovers

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.

Anna Botsford Comstock, The Handbook of Nature Study
Enjoy these Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for nature lovers! Anna Botsford Comstock is the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. The Handbook is a staple in the Outdoor Hour Challenges we share. This is a wonderful reference guide for you, the homeschool teacher to use. We show you how!

The Teaching of Nature Study– …the object of the nature-study teacher should be to cultivate in the children powers of accurate observation and to build up within them understanding.

The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock

Every parent interested in introducing nature study to their children needs to read Part 1 of the Handbook of Nature Study. Although the book itself is hundreds of pages long, the first twenty-four pages are golden and a must read. There are so many gems of wisdom contained within those few pages that you don’t want to miss.

Enjoy these Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for nature lovers! Anna Botsford Comstock is the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. The Handbook is a staple in the Outdoor Hour Challenges we share. This is a wonderful reference guide for you, the homeschool teacher to use. We show you how!

First, but not most important, nature-study gives the child practical and helpful knowledge. It makes him familiar with nature’s ways and forces, so that he is not so helpless in the presence of natural misfortune and disasters.

The Handbook of Nature Study

Read them with highlighter in hand.

You can read the pages on Google Books as well: Handbook of Nature Study.

Enjoy these Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for nature lovers! Anna Botsford Comstock is the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. The Handbook is a staple in the Outdoor Hour Challenges we share. This is a wonderful reference guide for you, the homeschool teacher to use. We show you how!

It is a mistake to think that a half day is necessary for a field lesson (nature walk), since a very efficient field trip may be made during the ten or fifteen minutes at recess, if it is well planned.

The Handbook of Nature Study

There is a reason she is included in National Wildlife’s Conservation Hall of Fame. Her words are as valuable and relevant today as they were back at the turn of the 20th century. I invite you to read her words and be encouraged to include an outdoor life in your family’s week.

Enjoy these Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for nature lovers! Anna Botsford Comstock is the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. The Handbook is a staple in the Outdoor Hour Challenges we share. This is a wonderful reference guide for you, the homeschool teacher to use. We show you how!

She who opens her eyes and her heart nature-ward even once a week finds nature study in the schoolroom a delight and an abiding joy… She finds, first of all, companionship with her children; and second, she finds that without planning or going on a far voyage, she has found health and strength.

The Handbook of Nature Study

Nature study cultivates in the child a love of the beautiful; it brings to him early a perception of color, form and music.

The Handbook of Nature Study

Nature study cultivates the child’s imagination since there are so many wonderful and true stories that he may read with his own eyes.

The Handbook of Nature Study


I had the opportunity to visit Anna Botsford-Comstock’s cottage in Ithaca, New York. You can read about that experience here: Recollection From a Visit to Anna Botsford-Comstock’s Lake Cottage.

Enjoy these Anna Botsford Comstock Quotes for nature lovers! Anna Botsford Comstock is the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. The Handbook is a staple in the Outdoor Hour Challenges we share. This is a wonderful reference guide for you, the homeschool teacher to use. We show you how!

The simple steps that Anna Botsford Comstock shared for nature study are our guide here at Homeschool Nature Study. It is easy and rewarding.

We Invite You To Join Us In Homeschool Nature Study Membership! Find Out More HERE
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A Beautiful Queen Anne’s Lace Nature Study for Your Homeschool

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!

If you don’t have any Queen Anne’s Lace to observe in person, choose two other neighborhood weeds to study and compare using the ideas in the challenge.

Homeschool Nature Study members will find the suggestions in this challenge a great help in learning about this common wildflower. (Some call it a weed, but I prefer to think of it as a wildflower!) Members: Find this challenge in your Summer Continues Outdoor Hour Challenge curriculum ebook.

Make great memories by studying Queen Anne's lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne's lace nature study for your homeschool.

Queen Anne’s Lace Nature Study

I suppose it’s the new awareness we have from last year’s summer study of Queen Anne’s lace. Or it could be recent rains. Or it could be that we didn’t really start looking for Queen Anne’s lace until late August of last year. Or it could be a combination of all those factors. Which, likely, it is.

Make great memories by studying Queen Anne's lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne's lace nature study for your homeschool.

It’s abundant. We point and yell, “Look!” everywhere we drive. Lace lines the roadsides to the north Georgia mountains where we trekked last week. Lacey patches are right across the street – almost as tall as Middle Girl.

“Nature study cultivates in the child a love of the beautiful…”

~ Anna Botsford Comstock, The Teaching of Nature Study
Make great memories by studying Queen Anne's lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne's lace nature study for your homeschool.

(Above photos of her taken with my phone when we quick pulled off the road).

family homeschool nature study

And Queen Anne’s lace thrilled us in the usual spot we checked back in spring. When we went on a family walk that Sunday night before Memorial Day – there it was!

Make great memories by studying Queen Anne's lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne's lace nature study for your homeschool.

Ready for the picking.

Make great memories by studying Queen Anne's lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne's lace nature study for your homeschool.

We scooped a few blooms and brought them home to study up close. To sketch.

Make great memories by studying Queen Anne's lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne's lace nature study for your homeschool.

We also found a beautiful robin’s egg, right in the middle of the grass, while on our walk. We figured the recent winds and storms may have blown it out of its nest.

Make great memories by studying Queen Anne's lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne's lace nature study for your homeschool.

Our up close studies helped us appreciate. As I sketched my flower, I noticed the hundreds of little, tiny flowers…

nature journaling

…the umbrella looking underneath, the pink tinges of a young blossom.

nature journaling

The children appreciated the certain color of green, the hairy stems, the dot in the center.

“The chief aim of this volume is to encourage investigation rather than to give information.”

~ Handbook of Nature Study
homeschool nature journaling

During sketching we noticed that the outside flower clusters open first, just as the Handbook of Nature Study says.

Queen Anne’s lace makes this mama happy. It reminds me of childhood.

Homeschool Nature Study for Your Family

Join us this summer! Enjoy some deliberate delight with nature walks and simple, joyful learning.

Join Homeschool Nature Study Today!
Make great memories by studying Queen Anne's lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne's lace nature study for your homeschool.

How about you? Is Queen Anne’s lace lining your roadsides?

Tricia and her family fell in love with the Handbook of Nature Study and the accompanying Outdoor Hour Challenges early in their homeschooling. The simplicity and ease of the weekly outdoor hour challenges brought joy to their homeschool and opened their eyes to the world right out their own back door! She shares the art and heart of homeschooling at You ARE an ARTiST and Your Best Homeschool plus her favorite curricula at The Curriculum Choice.

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How Nature Study Enriches 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.

How to include homeschool nature study as part of high school biology? Nature study definitely enriches high school biology. Here is a break down of nature study suggestions and accompanying resources for each module.

Homeschool Nature Study and High School Biology

There are two ways to approach homeschool nature study with high school biology.
1. Start with nature study and supplement with a text.
2. Use a text and supplement with nature study.

If you decide on approach number one, take each area of focus in the Outdoor Hour Challenge and add in supplemental information from a textbook.

Please note that affiliate links are included in our recommendations below. Please see our disclosure policy.

Using Apologia Exploring Creation with Biology

  • OH Challenge: Garden Plants =Text Module 8 and 15
  • OH Challenge: Insects =Text Module 3 and 12
  • OH Challenge: Trees =Text Module 14
  • OH Challenge: Mammals =Text Module 10 and 16
  • OH Challenge: Flowerless Plants =Text Module 4 and 14
  • OH Challenge: Birds =Text Module 16
  • OH Challenge: Crop Plants =Text Module 8 and 15

For the second option, here is how I enhanced the Apologia biology text with nature study ideas…many of these ideas are on my Biology Squidoo Lens.

Module 1: Microbiology for Homeschool

Read biography of Carl Linnaeus
Read Microbe Hunters, chapter 1 Leeuwenhoek

How to include homeschool nature study as part of high school biology? Here is a break down of nature study suggestions and accompanying resources for each module.

Module 2: Microbiology and Homeschool Biology Pond Study

Read Microbe Hunters, chapter 2 Spallanzani and chapter 3 Pasteur
Start a pond study to complement the study of microscopic organisms-protozoa
Use A Golden Guide to Pond Life
Read biography of Louis Pasteur
Field trip to a pond: Complete nature journal pages for things observed in real life.

Enjoy a Turtle Homeschool Nature Study.

Module 3: Continue Pond Study-Algae


Handbook of Nature Study section on insects of the brook and pond
Examine pond water under the microscope.
Complete nature journal pages on pond insects you observe.

beautiful moss homeschool nature study

Module 4: High School Biology Nature Study Focus on Mushrooms and Other Fungi

Work with yeast
Work with molds
There are some ideas for study in the flowerless plants section of the Handbook of Nature Study.
Take a nature walk to look for mushrooms and then complete nature journal pages for each one identified.

Modules 5-7: During These Modules We Used Local Field Guides to Identify Various Subjects From Our Nature Walks Each Week

The Biology Coloring Book by Robert Griffin-color appropriate pages to help visualize the abstract concepts in these modules

Homeschool nature study is definitely a part of high school biology! Here is a break down of nature study suggestions and accompanying resources for each module.

Module 8: Gardening for High School Biology

Growing pea plants to support Mendelian genetic study (just for fun).
Read a biography of Gregor Mendel. (The picture book Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas looks like a wonderful way to include younger students).
Grow radishes as part of experiment 8.4
Worked on a garden plan for the following summer.

Module 9: Homeschool Rocks and Minerals Study

Read a biography of Charles Darwin
Handbook of Nature Study section on rocks and minerals
Using a field guide we identified several local rocks and made nature journal entries for each one.

Module 10: Mammals Study for High School Biology

Identify a local mammal and then draw where it fits in the food web.
Learn about your local watershed and then diagram it or draw a map for your journal.
Complete nature journal entries for mammals observed during this module.

Find more ideas in this Mammals Nature Study Using the Outdoor Hour Challenges.

Module 11: Invertebrates for Homeschool Biology Studies

Dissection of an earthworm
Nature study focus on Invertebrates-garden snails, earthworms
Handbook of Nature Study section on invertebrate animals other than insects
Complete nature journal entries for invertebrates observed during our Outdoor Hour time
Complete a one small square activity and look for invertebrates or signs of invertebrates in your own garden or yard.

Earthworm Study for Your Homeschool

Module 12: High School Biology Study on Insects

Nature study focus on arachnida (spiders) and/or insects and/or lepidoptera
Dissection of a crayfish
Handbook of Nature Study section on insects
Complete nature journal entries for insects observed during our Outdoor Hour time.

marine biology studies for homeschool biology

Module 13: Amphibians and Fishes

Dissection of a perch and a frog
Nature study focus on amphibians
Handbook of Nature Study section on fishes
Handbook of Nature Study section on amphibians
Keep an aquarium and use the Handbook of Nature Study suggestions for observations.

More in Homeschool Ocean Study and Marine Biology Resources.

Module 14: Plants

Collect leaf samples and make a pressed leaf collection
Nature study focus on flowerless plants
Handbook of Nature Study section on flowerless plants

plants and wildflowers for high school biology study with homeschool nature study

Module 15: Garden Flowers and Seeds

Insectivorous plants-observe a Venus Flytrap or Sundew
Nature study focus on garden flowers-parts of a flower
Collect and press flowers
Germinate seeds
Handbook of Nature Study section on plants/garden flowers
Start a seasonal tree study for a tree in your own yard

The Ultimate List of Garden and Wildflower Nature Study for Your Homeschool

The Ultimate List of Birds Homeschool nature study using the Outdoor Hour Challenges

Module 16: High School Biology Nature Study Focus on Birds, Reptiles or Mammals

Handbook of Nature Study section on birds
Handbook of Nature Study section on reptiles
Handbook of Nature Study section on mammals
Keep a pet and make observations based on suggestions in the Handbook of Nature Study.
Hang a birdfeeder and keep a log of birds that visit.
Go bird watching and make journal entries for each bird you identify.

The Ultimate List of Birds Homeschool Nature Study Resources Using the Outdoor Hour Challenges

You can see how you can take an idea and then expand on it using nature study. If you use the basic ideas I have illustrated with the biology topics, you can make a study of nature high school level. Keep everything relevant to your local area and it will be a joy to work on each week. Your family will learn so much together as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenges.

SaMore Resources For Your Homeschool High School Biology and Nature Study

All of the Outdoor Hour Challenges that pair with homeschool high school biology are included 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!

Find Out More About Homeschool Nature Study Membership HERE

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get Outdoors!

Homeschool nature study definitely enriches high school biology! Here is a break down of nature study suggestions and accompanying resources for each module.

Spublished August 2009 by Barb

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Great Sunflower Project for Your Homeschool

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.

The Great Sunflower Project is a citizen science activity that you can participate in with your children this summer.

Great Sunflower Project for Your Homeschool

Is the Great Sunflower Project difficult?

The basic idea for this activity is to sit quietly and observe any bees that visit your sunflower. This is a perfect summer nature study project for families with children of all ages.

What is the Sunflower Nature Study time commitment?

Participants are asked to make three observations of at least 5 minutes each. That’s it! Of course, you can participate more than that if your kids enjoy counting bees.

The Great Sunflower Project is a citizen science activity that you can participate in with your children this summer.

Why we count bees as part of the Great Sunflower Project

The decline in bees affects everyone! This project helps collect data for scientists to use to track the bee population. If you would like to read more, click over to the website: Great Sunflower Project.

Interested in more information?

Here’s a sunflower nature study video on YouTube to go with your sunflower time.

I just planted my sunflower seeds for my summer garden. I purchased my Lemon Queen sunflowers from Renee’s Garden. Lemon Queen is the variety of flower preferred by the Great Sunflower Project. These are beautiful yellow sunflowers with lots of pollen.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in a comment or in an email.

Combine your sunflower nature study with this citizen science project. There are several great nature study ideas in Homeschool Nature Study membership.

homeschool nature study membership

More Resources For Homeschool 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!

Find Out More About Homeschool Nature Study Membership HERE

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get Outdoors!

Posted on by — 2 Comments

99 Homeschool Nature Study Ideas To Get Your Family Outdoors

Be inspired with 99 homeschool nature study ideas and outdoors sorts of things! Make a list of your own and get outdoors!

Be inspired with 99 homeschool nature study ideas and outdoors sorts of things! Make a list of your own and get outdoors!
Photos by Amy Law

My husband and I were inspired by another meme to make up own of our own. We sat under a blanket one cold morning over a winter break and compiled a list of 99 homeschool nature study ideas and random outdoor sorts of things.

It was fun to list 99 things we have done or would like to do. We decided to narrow the list to things to do in the United States so feel free to use our list or come up with one of your own!

We have not done or experienced all the things on the list *yet* but it is fun to think about how we could check some of the items off the list in the future. If you take the list and post it on your blog, please leave me a comment so I can come and see which things you have completed.

We marked our completed homeschool nature study ideas with a star.

99 Homeschool Nature Study Ideas

Outdoor Hour Challenge – 99 Outdoor Sorts of Things to Do – United States Version

1. Make maple syrup.
2. Stand under a redwood/sequoia. *
3. Ski down a mountain. *
4. See a saguaro cactus. *
5. See an alligator in the wild.
6. Find a shell on a beach. *
7. Skip a rock on a lake. *
8. See a sunrise. *
9. Pick an apple from a tree. *
10. Grow a sunflower. *
11. Sleep under the stars in a sleeping bag.*
12. Find the Big Dipper.*
13. Climb a sand dune. *
14. Walk in the rain with or without an umbrella. *
15. Find a fossil.
16. Take a photo of the Grand Canyon. *
17. Go to the lowest point of North America-Badwater, CA *
18. See a raptor fly. *
19. Be able to identify ten birds.*
20. See a mushroom. *

Be inspired with 99 homeschool nature study ideas and outdoors sorts of things! Make a list of your own and get outdoors!


21. Visit a tide pool. *
22. Visit a volcano. *
23. Feel an earthquake. *
24. See a tornado.
25. Experience a hurricane.
26. Catch snow on your tongue. *
27. See a deer in the wild. *
28. Touch a dolphin.
29. Go ice skating on a pond.
30. Go fishing. *
31. Go snorkeling.*
32. Whittle a stick. *
33. Gather chicken eggs.
34. Milk a cow or a goat.
35. Ride a horse. *
36. See a moose. *
37. Gather acorns.*
38. Pick berries and eat some.*
39. Watch a lightning storm. *
40. Build a campfire.*
41 Press a flower.*
42. Use binoculars to spot a bird. *
43. Identify five wildflowers. *
44. Take a photo of Half Dome. *
45. Find a piece of obsidian. *
46. See a tumbleweed. *
47. See a wild snake.*
48. Watch a spider spin a web. *
49. Climb a tree. *
50. Get lost on a hike. *
51. Watch ants in a colony. *
52. Hatch a butterfly. *
53. Climb a rock. *
54. See the Continental Divide. *
55. See the Northern Lights.
56. See a bear in the wild. *
57. Dig for worms. *
58. Grow a vegetable and then eat it. *
59. See a bat flying. *
60. Feel a sea star. *
61. Swim in the ocean.*
62. See a geyser erupt.*
63. Walk in the fog. *
64. Observe a bee.*
65. Find a bird’s nest. *
66. See a beaver’s den.*
67. Go whale watching. *
68. See a banana slug. *
69. Stand on the edge of a cliff.*

Be inspired with 99 homeschool nature study ideas and outdoors sorts of things! Make a list of your own and get outdoors!

70. Blow a dandelion. *
71. Throw a snowball and build a snowman.*
72. Cook an egg on the sidewalk…can you actually do that?
73. See a lightning bug. Or do you call it a firefly?*
74. Visit a cave. *
75. Make a sandcastle. *
76. Hear a cricket. *
77. Catch a frog.
78. Watch for the first star in the evening.*
79. Smell a skunk. *
80. Feel pine sap. *
81. Feed a duck. *
82. Learn to use a compass or GPS.*
83. See a buffalo. *

Find a waterfall!


84. Get wet in a waterfall. *
85. Swim in a lake. *
86. Walk on a log. *
87. Feel moss.*
88. Jump in a pile of leaves. *
89. Fly a kite. *
90. Walk barefoot in the mud. *
91. Hear a sea lion bark. *
92. Hear a coyote. *
93. Pan for gold. *
94. Crack open a nut. *
95. Go snowshoeing. *
96. Feel a cattail. *
97. Smell a pine forest. *
98. Sit under a palm tree.*
99. Walk across a stream on rocks.*

What would you add to the list?

More Resources For Homeschool 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!

Join Homeschool Nature Study Membership Today!

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get Outdoors!

Be inspired with 99 homeschool nature study ideas and outdoors sorts of things! Make a list of your own and get outdoors!

first published January 2009 by Barb