Winter weeds are a quick and easy nature study topic that you can complete in your yard or neighborhood, or at a local park or alongside a road (be watchful of traffic). Spend a few minutes this week to take notice of any weeds you may have, searching for seeds or signs of animals feeding nearby.
Easy And Engaging Homeschool Nature Study
You can use these links for some specific Winter Homeschool Nature Study ideas:
Tricia’s family enjoyed a weedsOutdoor Hour Challenge and even found a woolly caterpillar!
Getting Started With The Outdoor Hour Challenge In Your Homeschool Nature Study
Download your free copy of our Getting Started ebook and complete challenge #6. You may wish to make a list of weeds you observed in winter and then check the list during the summer to see if you can add some more entries.
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Did you enjoy this Outdoor Hour Challenge? Be sure to tag us on Instagram @outdoorhourchallenge and use the hashtag #outdoorhourchallenge so we can see and comment!
This week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge is from the Winter Wednesday Course and Curriculum.
This winter homeschool nature study curriculum contains all the nature study Outdoor Hour Challenges, custom notebook pages for nature study as well as art and music appreciation, and three months’ worth of art and music appreciation.
Writing this winter homeschool nature study curriculum has helped us appreciate the winter season more than we ever have before. Part of our enthusiasm has come from spending more time outdoors bundled up with our families exploring the winter landscape.
Winter changes our normal view of things by emptying the trees of their leaves and covering the ground in thin or thick blankets of snow. The colors of winter are more vivid and the sky seems more brilliantly blue at times with its puffs of white clouds dotting the horizon.
The season of cold can bring surprising nature study subjects your way and if you are open and aware of these opportunities, you will soon find yourself loving or at least appreciating this winter season.
Our sincere wish is that this book will help your family find some joy in winter homeschool nature study. In addition to nature study, this curriculum offers you a chance to include some winter artist study and music appreciation as well. Give everything a chance and see what happens!
With much joy,
Homeschool Nature Study Team, Home of the Outdoor Hour Challenge
Winter Homeschool Nature with Art and Music Appreciation is available in membership, along with access to 26+ Outdoor Hour Challenge Homeschool Curriculum and courses, weekly Outdoor Hour Challenges, a monthly nature calendar with daily nature study prompts and more!
The Winter Homeschool Nature Study for Members Includes:
You will have a complete plan at your fingertips for your spring nature study, art appreciation, and music study. You will need to have the Handbook of Nature Study in order to complete the nature study challenges. All of the art prints are included in the curriculum and there are links to viewing them online as well.
10 Outdoor Hour Challenges – All the Outdoor Hour Challenges in this curriculum are based on the Handbook of Nature Study and include page numbers and suggested learning observations. More about the Handbook of Nature Study, here.
10 Outdoor Hour Challenge notebook pages and nature journal suggestions.
3 months’ worth of art and music appreciation- 3 composers and 3 artists with links, prints to view, coordinating projects, a coloring page, and notebook pages. More on our sister site and the Homeschool Fine Arts curriculum, here.
Links for further enrichment for each Outdoor Hour Challenge, artist study, and composer study.
Complete list of resources and instructions to get started with your winter study.
Topics Include: winter cattail study, tree study, sky, weather, pine tree, salt study, winter bird, small square study, early spring flower, signs of spring walk
Nature Study Outdoor Hour Challenge Homeschool Curriculum Included
Each challenge has three parts: inside preparation work, outdoor time, and then a follow up activity. You can complete all or part of each challenge as you go along. Each challenge is written so you can adapt it to your own backyard or local area. Use the ideas as a way to get started with simple weekly nature study using the Handbook of Nature Study. Some of the challenges include pages to read from the Discover Nature in Winter book.
Winter Series Art Appreciation Curriculum Included
Each month there is a suggested piece of artwork to study with your family. You can view the print on your computer, print out the page from the curriculum, or you can follow the provided link to see the artwork in a larger format. Plans for viewing, studying, and then completing a follow up piece of artwork are included with each painting.
Music Appreciation Homeschool Curriculum Included
To enhance your winter nature study, this curriculum includes a suggested piece of music for your family to listen to each month. The plans for each composer include links to biographies, links to listen to the music online, suggestions for CDs to purchase, and plans for completing your music appreciation studies. Each month has a suggested art activity to go along with the musical selection as well.
We have aimed to keep these challenges and studies as simple as possible with very few additional resources needed.
This week we are going to be on the lookout for interesting tree silhouettes in our own yard and neighbourhood. Here is the link to the previous challenge: Winter Wednesday – Tree Silhouettes
In this challenge, be sure to look for the list of four ideas to use when completing this challenge with your children. You can also work on your Winter Tree Study and your Four Seasons Tree Study.
Homeschool Nature Study: Outdoor Hour Challenge
Special Activity: My Tree is a Living World This may be a great week to revisit this activity: My Tree is a Living World
You might also like to see how Tricia’s family enjoyed this winter tree silhouettes challenge. They did a blind contour drawing. They also noticed how paying attention to winter tree silhouettes made them notice the backyard birds!
Getting Started With The Outdoor Hour Challenge In Your Homeschool
Getting Started Suggestion: If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #4.Use the ideas in the challenge to start a focused study of trees with your children. Use the accompanying notebook page to record your outdoor time and your focus area.
If you do not own the Getting Started in the Outdoor Hour Challenges guide then hop on over to our shop and grab your free copy! We would love to have you join our membership for full access to the new year’s nature study plans as well as access to the curriculum with detailed lesson plans for each weekly challenge.
Join Our Homeschool Nature Study Membership for Helpful Tips Year Round
Connect With Our Homeschool Community On Social Media
Did you enjoy this Outdoor Hour Challenge? Be sure to tag us on Instagram @outdoorhourchallenge and use the hashtag #outdoorhourchallenge so we can see and comment!
In addition to this winter tree silhouette challenge, our nature study homeschool members enjoy so much more! Membership includes three sets of Winter Handbook of Nature Study curriculum, additional nature study resources and ideas plus a calendar FULL of easy, daily nature study prompts. This Week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge comes from:
Outdoor Hour Challenge Winter Tree Silhouettes
Did you enjoy this Outdoor Hour Challenge Winter Tree Silhouettes? Be sure to tag @outdoorhourchallenge on Instagram and use the hashtag #outdoorhourchallenge so we can see and comment!
Are you up for a wintery festive homeschool nature study challenge?
Christmas time is so busy and it is easy to get distracted by all the hurry of the season. Sometimes it is just nice to get outdoors with the children and leave the pressures behind.
How Can I Make Our Homeschool Nature Study Festive?
I’m glad you asked! Our winter series of curriculum ebooks and courses have so many wonderful winter challenges to inspire your homeschool nature studies and because we are known for our challenges only taking about an hour (or longer if you prefer). It does not have to be an onerous task during this busy season.
A festive homeschool nature study can be as simple as wrapping up warmly and going on a lovely winter walk to find some winter colors. Challenge 1 in our Winter Wednesday book does just this. You can read about Barb’s hunt for red and green on a wintery walk she took a few years back. You can also read her World of Winter post which fits in nicely with our wintery festive homeschool nature study theme.
I always find that you can add a little fun into your nature studies by including a few nature crafts and a festive nature study is the perfect time to do just that!
Challenges from our Winter Wednesday Outdoor Hour Challenge Book
Our Winter Wednesday ebook and accompanying course has lots of other wintery nature topics to explore in your homeschool:
Challenge 2 – Snow
Challenge 3 – Winter Star Constellations – this would tie in beautifully with the story of the wise men from the east as they followed the star to find Jesus in the stable at Bethlehem!
Challenge 4 – Trees: Silhouettes
Challenge 5 – Trees: Cones
Challenge 6 – Winter Weeds
Challenge 7 – Winter Insects
Challenge 8 – Birds
Challenge 9 – Mammals
Please be sure to share photos of your nature time with us! Use the hashtag #OutdoorHourChallenge when sharing so we won’t miss your photos!
A Homeschool Nature Study Membership For Helpful Tips Year Round!
Our members’ Outdoor Hour Challenges for January will come from the Winter Wednesday ebook and course. If you would like to join our nature study membership then please visit the link below to join – we would love to have you along.
Members also now have a printable plan for the upcoming year for guided nature study – January 2022 to August 2022. We will be following highlighted challenges from the Winter Wednesday, Spring, Summer and the Garden books and courses.
Connect With Our Homeschool Community On Social Media
Did you enjoy this Outdoor Hour Challenge? Be sure to tag us on Instagram @outdoorhourchallenge and use the hashtag #outdoorhourchallenge so we can see and comment!
Outdoor Hour Hostess Shirley lives in Chester, England and blogs at Building A Household of Faith where she writes about homeschooling the Charlotte Mason way, nature study and encouraging homeschooling moms in their great charter as Christian wives, mothers and keepers of the home. She also hand-dyes yarn in her home studio Under An English Sky, which is inspired by the English countryside and of the great living books she and her family enjoyed over their homeschooling journey. No doubt you will be sure to recognise some of the names of her yarn from literary childhood favourites!
December has been a cold, wet, snowy month. We often have all types of weather in the span of 24 hours which is one of my favorite things about Central Oregon. We can have a snowstorm in the morning but by late afternoon the sun is shining, and I get to enjoy the sparkling snow and the blue sky.
I spend a lot of time watching birds at my feeders when the weather is storming outside. They zip in and out, sheltering only briefly under the roof overhang of the feeder. We watch the geese land in flocks down by the river and observe as they walk along poking here and there for something to eat. The sparrows will pop out from under the shrubs to get a bite to eat from seeds that have fallen from the feeder, then quickly dart back under the shelter before we can get a good look at them. Our gray squirrels leap around in the treetops where they search for cones still hanging on the tall pines. It seems as if there is always something going on out in the yard.
It’s our December world.
I cannot help but think back on the past twelve months sitting here now in mid-December. What a wild ride of a year for our family! We’ve had our serious struggles along with everyone else: unemployment, cross country moves, dating during COVID, caring for elderly parents who are in and out of lockdown. On the other hand, there were high spots like the celebrating of joyful outdoor weddings of two of our children and a summer filled with staying close to home and getting creative with how we can socialize safely with our children.
There has been kayaking, canoeing, floating, hiking, nights around the fire pit, bike rides, and lots of fishing.
These are all things we normally do together, but we had to be thoughtful about the execution of these activities this year.
I needed to have some “normal” in my life and I found it while hiking a trail or paddling my kayak.
We started our big garden remodel back in May and little did we know that it really was the project that would keep us sane and bring us a place to sit in peace with the world seeming far, far away. We could sit and watch the birds and insects from our little bench placed under our newly planted crab apple tree. Swallows took up residence in the nesting box within a few feet of that bench. The nuthatches and finches came to drink at the bird bath.
I’ve come to realize that there were more benefits to that garden than I could have ever imagined. It gave me a reason to go outside, it provided beautiful cut flowers to have in vases inside, and it was always a thrill to go out to the wildflower patch and spy a new variety of flower blooming.
I look back on the photos of the progress we observed as we dug the dirt, built the boxes, planted the seeds, saw the seeds sprout, enjoyed the first flowers, and welcomed the bees and butterflies and birds. This project was a joy!
In the end, it’s the place that our middle son married his beautiful bride, right there under the tall sunflowers we planted from seeds. During the ceremony, a chickadee was sitting on a flower right over their heads and it was such a happy moment even in this crazy mixed up year of 2020.
2020 gave us something wonderful after all. If it weren’t for the COVID shutdown, we wouldn’t have had such an extensive garden, we would have missed out on all the wildlife visitors coming to enjoy the garden, we probably wouldn’t have had a garden wedding, and I would not be looking forward to the promise of next summer’s flowers and bees and birds.
Maybe you had an experience like mine this year and stumbled into a project that kept your spirits up. Thank you to all of my faithful readers who have encouraged me this year with comments and email.
I’m looking forward to some winter fun and garden planning over the next few months.
We’ll be starting the winter series of Outdoor Hour Challenges January 8, 2021. There is still time to purchase a membership and follow along with us.
Please use the discount code NATURE5 to receive $5 off an Ultimate Naturalist membership.
Our last hike along the river was on a cold but sunny day last week. This particular trail allows for one way hiking on a loop that goes upstream on the Deschutes River and then across a bridge and back downstream on the other side. Although it’s a popular trail, keeping us all hiking in one direction means you can easily space out and feel as if you have the trail all to yourself.
We noticed quite a few shrubs with berries along the trail and it reminded me of this winter berry hunt nature study idea. I was wishing you all could see the many berry colors!
I hope that you can squeeze in a winter berry hunt sometime soon. Let me know what you find along your neighborhood trails.
there are two notebook pages to choose from for your nature journal.
To purchase an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership, click on over to the Join Us page at any time.
Don’t forget there are Winter ebooks in the Member’s Library for you to use in your nature study. Feel free to use any of the winter Outdoor Hour Challenges during this season. You can pick and choose the topics that fit your family best.
You’ll find all of the winter themed nature study ideas by clicking the Winter tab at the top of the Handbook of Nature Study website. Everyone is welcome to use the ideas found there whether you have a membership or not.
Winter changes the view of our normal landscape. Where we live in Central Oregon amid the mostly evergreen pine forest, the willows lose their leaves, and we can see far past the river that they grow along.
I can remember the winter emptiness of a deciduous woods near where we lived in California, how when winter came, we could distinguish the contours of the hills and gullies more clearly.
How does your view change in the winter? Look for the colors of the winter landscape and you may be treated with some colorful berries, lichen, and fungi. Is your sky a more vivid blue on a sunny winter day or does it just seem that way?
Members have a printable December World Study Grid in the December 2011 newsletter found in the Ultimate Naturalist Library. This activity is a perfect way to take a close look at your December World no matter where you live or what your current weather is this week.
Also, there is a December Words notebook page in the Member’s Library if you wish to complete that instead of or in addition to the December World notebook page.
To purchase an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership, click on over to the Join Us page at any time.
Don’t forget there are Winter ebooks in the Member’s Library for you to use in your nature study. Feel free to use any of the winter Outdoor Hour Challenges during this season. You can pick and choose the topics that fit your family best.
You’ll find all of the winter themed nature study ideas by clicking the Winter tab at the top of the Handbook of Nature Study website. Everyone is welcome to use the ideas found there whether you have a membership or not.
“My whole impetus for starting this blog was to share how our family finally cracked the book open and started implementing the ideas that Anna Botsford Comstock wrote about so skillfully in this book. The entire Handbook of Nature Study is to help parents/teachers to be better nature study guides.”
The breath of fresh air, the moving about outside, the getting to know better our own backyard…these are the joys of the Outdoor Hour Challenge. The most successful families involved in the OHC are those that embrace the idea that getting outdoors as a family is important and worthy of our time. The OHC is the vehicle for getting us outside, hopefully giving us something interesting to learn about.”
I wrote those words just about ten years ago. They were heartfelt then and I still feel as passionate now about the importance of spending time outdoors with your children. What a gift you can give your children with a little effort and the suggestions found each week with the Outdoor Hour Challenge.
The original December World Mini-Challenge included the suggestion that moms read a few pages in the Handbook of Nature Study to refresh their memories about some of the key principles that Anna Botsford Comstock shared in the introductory pages of her renowned nature study guide.
Here are the pages I suggested reading:
Handbook of Nature Study Reading Suggestions
Challenge 1: Pages 1-8
Challenge 2: Pages 23-24
Challenge 3: 16-17
Challenge 4: 10-11 and 13-15
I broke the readings into four smaller sections that you can schedule to read a little each week this month. Use this time to energize your desire to include nature study as a regular part of your family’s weekly routine.
I created a printable for you to use as part of your December World Outdoor Hour Challenge. Simply take a walk outside with your children, either in your own yard or at a nearby park. Take the printable along and complete it as you go or use it as a follow up activity once you get back home.
I have always encouraged parents to learn right alongside their children; so why not complete a page of your own? Talk a little about what you observed outside this week. Did you bring a nature treasure home with you? You can use that as the basis for your nature journal page if you wish. Keep it simple and enjoy your time together.
Also, there is a December Words notebook page in the Member’s Library if you wish to complete that instead of or in addition to the December World notebook page.
To purchase an Ultimate Naturalist Library membership, click on over to the Join Us page at any time.
PS: I know that many of us are experiencing wintry weather already. I hope you’ll consider bundling up and taking a walk even if you’re thinking it’s too cold. I know for myself that once I get outside, I can manage the cold just fine, especially if I know I can go back inside and get warmed up by the woodstove and drink a hot cup of coffee. I challenge you to give it a try!
December Nature Study Plans – Outdoor Hour Challenge
We’ll be taking a break from our normal Outdoor Hour Challenges during the month of December. This will be a more relaxed month of nature study using ideas found in the archives. I invite you to join us for four simple nature study ideas that will feature a winter theme.
12/4/2020 – December World (follow up with a free printable)
12/11/2020 – December World Study Grid from the 12/2011 Newsletter
12/16/2020 – Winter Berry Hunt from the Autumn Nature Study Continues Ebook
12/18/2020 – First Day of Winter Nature Walk from the Members Library
New Printables in the Members Library
1. Frozen Lake, Pond, and River Notebook Page: I was inspired to create this page on my last nature walk. We have a frozen pond and an icy river to explore. At first, it looks as if nothing is going on there but when you observe closely, you see lots of signs of activity. Use this page to follow up a visit to a local, frozen landscape.
2. Mammal Lapbook printable: You’re going to love this complete set of mammal themed printables for your nature journal or use them to create a separate lapbook project. Included in this printable are vocabulary cards, black line drawings of a variety of mammals, mammal trivia in a mini book, and another mini book that answers the question, “What is a mammal?” This lapbook was originally created by my daughter and shared on her Hearts and Trees blog many years ago. I hope you have some fun with it as part of a mammal nature study with your family.
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 would 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 and will include the benefits shown below.
There are lots of new things planned for the next year and you’ll have access to any new items added during your membership.
You can join us anytime for the current series of nature study topics. Click the graphic above to see what we have planned.
Use one of the ideas listed below to take a winter weather walk. There are so many variations of this nature study idea that I’m sure you’ll find one that sparks your interest. Why not pick one and get outside this week as part of the Outdoor Hour Challenge?
If you’re on Instagram, you can use the hashtag #outdoorhourchallenge to connect with other families using the Outdoor Hour Challenge all around the world. I also check the hashtag and am always happy to see what families are doing each week to get outside together.
You can follow me on Instagram to see what I’m doing each week.
Have you seen the new ebooks?
We’ll be starting with the challenges in this ebook next week! Click over and see all the interesting topics that we’ll be learning about together with the Outdoor Hour Challenge.
If you don’t have a membership yet, you can click the graphic above and join today for immediate access to the 24 ebooks and so much more! Remember that all levels, even the Discovery level membership, include access to all of the archived newsletters!
