winter series of outdoor hour challenges Archives

Posted on November 6, 2022December 8, 2023 by Tricia Hodges — Leave a comment

A Winter Tree Study For Your Homeschool

Enjoy a beautiful winter tree study for your homeschool. Learn about evergreen trees as part of your winter season nature studies and make beautiful memories together this Christmas!

Enjoy an evergreen winter tree study for your homeschool as part of your winter season nature studies and make beautiful memories together this Christmas!

The Beauty of The Season With Evergreen Trees

As we approach Christmas, one of the evergreen trees, the spruce, becomes an important symbol in our Christmas celebrations and winter traditions.

But just why have evergreen trees, be they spruce, pine or fir, become such an intrinsic part of Christmas? What are all of the types of Christmas trees? A little peek through time reveals some interesting facts about this winter tree.

A Christmas Tree for The Animals event! Enjoy an evergreen winter tree study for your homeschool as part of your winter season nature studies and make beautiful memories together this Christmas!

A Christmas Tree for the Animals – An Event for the Whole Family!

Receive the full Spruce Tree study filled with fun learning by Outdoor Hour Challenge hostess, Shirley Vels. Sign up for our special Christmas Tree for the Animals Event! Spruce Tree Nature Study included!

Sign up below and receive the replay of this wonderful holiday event!

Plus a wonderful tutorial on decorating an outdoor tree for the animals, a craft creating an outdoor ornament for your tree, O Christmas Tree hymn study and accompanying composer study too! Joyful Art, Nature and Music for Your Christmas Homeschool

Winter Tree Nature Study For Kids

There are so many ways to enjoy a winter tree study with your family. Here are a few options you can use for your homeschool:

Pine Trees and Pine Cones

Let’s jump into exploring pine trees and pine cones in nature! This homeschool nature study has everything you need to start learning about pine trees and pine cones. This Outdoor Hour Challenge is based on the Winter Wednesday curriculum which is available to our members but you can follow along regardless using this post as a bit of a guide. In the Winter Wednesday curriculum you will have access to notebooking pages and a host more ideas and links.

Hemlock Tree

This dense and graceful tree with its drooping branches of soft needles casts such a heavy shadow that not much can live beneath it. This is a Homeschool Nature Study membership tree study and is also available the Autumn Outdoor Hour Challenge curriculum.

Winter Tree Silhouettes

We are going to be on the lookout for interesting winter tree silhouettes in our own yard and neighbourhood.

Winter Tree Twigs

A fun Homeschool Nature Study membership Outdoor Hour Challenge that includes forcing blooms from a winter tree twig.

Winter Tree Study

Use these simple suggestions from The Handbook of Nature Study and spend a few minutes outside or observing a winter tree or evergreen through a window.

My Tree is a Living World

What a fun way to learn about the trees for each season. Such a simple homeschool nature study with beautiful results. This printable for members is a fun way to observe then record all of the living things you observe in your tree.

Red and Green Homeschool Nature Study

Red and Green Outdoor Hour Challenge – this is a fun way to notice red and green in nature. Get started with these ideas.

Additional Resources For Winter Nature Study

In Homeschool Nature Study membership, you can also find a study of the Hemlock Tree in the Autumn course and Evergreens in My Yard study and journal page in the Trees course. Each season includes a new tree study.

Here are a few more resources you will love:

Everything You Need for the Great Backyard Bird Count
FREE Winter Sample of Homeschool Nature Study Membership – with simple ways to study nature this winter, taking a ‘using your senses’ walk, studying animals in winter, taking a first day of winter walk and more!
Homeschooling Through the Holidays: A Christmas Tree Study for Kids

Winter is such a wonderful time for homeschool nature study! Won’t you join us? In Homeschool Nature Study membership, each challenge gives you step by step instructions to get started with simple weekly nature study ideas whatever season you are in! This may just be what your homeschool week needs.

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get outdoors!

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.

Posted on February 25, 2022March 5, 2022 by Barb — Leave a comment

Animal Tracks Nature Hunt: Mammals Homeschool Study

Go on an animals tracks nature hunt for a great mammals homeschool study. Use these nature study lesson plans, suggestions, ideas and resources for identifying animal tracks!

Go on an animals tracks nature hunt for a great mammals homeschool study. Use these nature study lesson plans and resources for identifying animal tracks!

Mammals in Winter

Many mammals are nocturnal and you will rarely spot them to observe up close. Some mammals hibernate in the winter and they are not easily observed either. Many more mammals are just plain shy and rarely show their faces. Reading about them and learning their behaviors will help you find and observe them in the wild if you are diligent. It may not be this week or this year but you will be ready if you do the study ahead of time.

Easy Mammals Homeschool Nature Study Lesson Plans

Any study of mammals can be done with what you have on hand. Do you have a pet dog, cat, mouse, or rat? Do you have a relative or neighbor that has a dog or cat they will let you observe? How about visiting a pet store? Be creative.

For this challenge, you can use the Handbook of Nature Study to pick a mammal to study this winter. You could also choose to use the Discover Nature in Winter book to read about mammals and then use the information there to look for animal tracks during your outdoor time. Either way will give your family a great study of a mammal.

Animal Tracks Nature Hunt Ideas for Your Homeschool

Inside Preparation Work using the Discover Nature in Winter book:
Read chapter nine in Discover Nature in Winter. Mammals in general tend to be shy of humans. In the winter, it is even more difficult to observe mammals. The chapter suggests looking for signs of mammals instead like tracks and scat. Highlight ideas for your family to try this week while you are outdoors and looking for mammals.

how to find animal tracks in a homeschool nature study

Review the chart showing different animal tracks on page 182 and 183. Try sketching some of the tracks into your nature journal as a reference for future outdoor time. In our area, we often come across animal scat as we hike and we are going to familiarize ourselves with the various kinds of scat by studying the illustrations in this chapter.

Without the Discover Nature in Winter book:
You can still look up some animal tracks online using this link: Animal Tracks at Beartracker

Homeschool outdoor hour challenge time with the Handbook of Nature Study

Your Homeschool Outdoor Hour Challenge Time

This week the challenge is to get outdoors and look for signs of animals. You can look for:

tracks
scat
holes
scratches
hair
other things that mammals leave behind

Remember to make your nature study time like an investigation or nature hunt.

Animal Tracks Follow-Up Homeschool Activities:

1. Keep a record of animal tracks you have observed in the snow or mud. Record your findings in your nature journal along with a drawing, the date, the weather, the time of day, and the type of animal if you have identified it at this time. You can use your own blank journal.
2. Compare a dog’s and a cat’s footprints in the snow or mud.
3. Research an animal that hibernates and record what you learn in your nature notebook.

You can also sketch your animal and what its tracks look like.

Homeschool Nature Study Membership Resources For Your Animal Tracks Hunt

Wondering how to start? Grab our FREE Getting Started with Homeschool Nature Study Guide!

Our members will enjoy even more for this animal tracks nature hunt with the Outdoor Hour Challenge Winter Course!

These member resources will also be helpful:

Brand NEW Mammals Outdoor Hour Challenge Nature Study lesson post – all about sheep!
Mammal Notebook Page
Winter Series notebook page

Know you are ready to join us?

Join the Homeschool Nature Study Membership Today!

Be sure to take photos of your animal tracks nature hunt time and share them with us! Tag us on social media on Instagram or Facebook and use the hashtag #outdoorhourchallenge – we can’t wait to see!

Posted on January 17, 2022February 6, 2022 by Barb — Leave a comment

Winter Bird Homeschool Nature Study: Your Resident Winter Birds

Winter bird-watching can be rewarding! Even when the landscape is covered in snow or ice or mud, there are always birds that will come to visit if you create a little bird-friendly habitat with some seeds, suet, and freshwater. You can observe birds right from your window if the weather isn’t friendly. Or, if you have the right conditions, take a bird walk in a nearby wood. Winter is an amazing time to stroll your neighborhood looking for resident or visiting birds.

OHC Winter Bird Study – Looking at your resident winter birds.

This Week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge: Winter Bird Study

In addition to just enjoying your local birds, this week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge helps you to learn a little bit about bird migration using the information in the Handbook of Nature Study and a couple of online resources. Click over to the original challenge and see how easy this nature study can be for your family.

I’m enjoying Project Feederwatch which helps keep me motivated to look for birds at my own feeder. Use this challenge as a way to motivate your family to look for birds during the winter months.

Winter Bird Nature Study – Handbook of Nature Study pages 35-37

Make sure to note the links and additional resources suggested for your tree study.

Check the Handbook of Nature Study index for the bird you observe this week or use the bird tab at the top of my website to see if there is an archived Outdoor Hour Challenge for you to use in your study.

Winter Bird Nature Study – Handbook of Nature Study pages 35-37

Additional Ideas For Homeschool Bird Study

Download and save the Cornell Feeder Bird coloring book. This book has many of the most common birds you will see in your backyard and it makes a perfect complement to your family’s bird nature study.

Earlier this year I wrote about the book Birds, Nests, and Eggs as part of the Nature Book Club. You may wish to click over and read that entry and use the printables available in that entry for additional study.

Please note this challenge is found in the Winter Series course available to our members. Log into your membership to download the Handbook of Nature Study Winter curriculum. There is a custom notebook page for this challenge included in the nature curriculum.

You can find even more winter bird nature study ideas in the Learning About Birds curriculum from the Outdoor Hour Challenge. This nature curriculum is available in membership.

Join The Homeschool Nature Study Membership

Our nature members have access to all the curriculum books, an interactive calendar and a brand new, weekly Outdoor Hour Challenge post each week.

Join the Homeschool Nature Study membership Now

An image showing the full collection of Nature Study 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!

Posted on January 14, 2022January 19, 2022 by Shirley Vels — 2 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge – Winter Weed Nature Study

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.

Beloved by homeschool families worldwide, this study focuses on the Handbook of Nature Study and winter weeds this week.

Easy And Engaging Homeschool Nature Study

You can use these links for some specific Winter Homeschool Nature Study ideas:

Winter Wednesday – Weeds
Weeds and Mullein
For Southern Hemisphere families: Weeds and Seeds
You may also be interested in reading about one of our family’s winter weed adventures: Even More Lovely Than I Imagined.
Tricia’s family enjoyed a weeds Outdoor 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.

Join The Homeschool Nature Study Membership For Support All Year Long

Join the Homeschool Nature Study membership Now

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!

This week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge is from the Winter Wednesday Course and Curriculum.

Posted on January 13, 2022January 14, 2022 by Tricia Hodges — Leave a comment

Winter Homeschool Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation

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.

Blankets of snow for your winter homeschool nature study! — Image by Amy Law

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!

Join Homeschool Nature Study Membership NOW!

This winter homeschool nature study curriculum contains not only nature study but notebook pages plus three months’ worth of art and music appreciation. — You ARE an ARTiST Clubhouse members also enjoy this course! Image by Erin Vincent.

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

winter homeschool nature study - snow melting activity — Image by Amy Law

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.

Join the Homeschool Nature Study Membership Today!

Posted on December 17, 2021May 24, 2025 by Shirley Vels — Leave a comment

This Festive Homeschool Nature Study Challenge Is Perfect For Christmas Time

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 about a festive homeschool nature study this winter? Now is the perfect time to include some themed nature crafts and studies in your homeschool.

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!

Read my Winter Nature Crafts Post and my Snow Nature Study & Winter Stars Post for some ideas on crafting some festive fun activities into this months nature studies.

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

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.

Join the Homeschool Nature Study membership Now

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!

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Barb — 4 Comments

Nature Observer – December 2020

Nature Observer – December 2020

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.

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Barb — Leave a comment

Winter Berry Hunt & Nature Walk

Outdoor Hour Challenge

Winter Berry Hunt – Nature Walk

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.

View the original challenge here: Outdoor Hour Challenge – Winter Berry Hunt.

If you have access to the Autumn Nature Study Continues ebook,

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.

Enjoy!

Posted on December 4, 2020 by Barb — 2 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge: December World 2020

Outdoor Hour Challenge

December World 2020

“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.

Download a copy of the notebook page here: December World.

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!

The Beauty of The Season With Evergreen Trees

A Christmas Tree for the Animals – An Event for the Whole Family!

Winter Tree Nature Study For Kids

Pine Trees and Pine Cones

Hemlock Tree

Winter Tree Silhouettes

Winter Tree Twigs

Winter Tree Study

My Tree is a Living World

Red and Green Homeschool Nature Study

Additional Resources For Winter Nature Study

Mammals in Winter

Easy Mammals Homeschool Nature Study Lesson Plans

Animal Tracks Nature Hunt Ideas for Your Homeschool

Your Homeschool Outdoor Hour Challenge Time

Animal Tracks Follow-Up Homeschool Activities:

Homeschool Nature Study Membership Resources For Your Animal Tracks Hunt

This Week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge: Winter Bird Study

Additional Ideas For Homeschool Bird Study

Join The Homeschool Nature Study Membership

Connect With Our Homeschool Community On Social Media

Outdoor Hour Challenge – Winter Weed Nature Study

Easy And Engaging Homeschool Nature Study

Getting Started With The Outdoor Hour Challenge In Your Homeschool Nature Study

Join The Homeschool Nature Study Membership For Support All Year Long

Connect With Our Homeschool Community On Social Media

The Winter Homeschool Nature Study for Members Includes:

Nature Study Outdoor Hour Challenge Homeschool Curriculum Included

Winter Series Art Appreciation Curriculum Included

Music Appreciation Homeschool Curriculum Included

How Can I Make Our Homeschool Nature Study Festive?

Challenges from our Winter Wednesday Outdoor Hour Challenge Book

A Homeschool Nature Study Membership For Helpful Tips Year Round!

Connect With Our Homeschool Community On Social Media

Please use the discount code NATURE5 to receive $5 off an Ultimate Naturalist membership.

Outdoor Hour Challenges for families since 2008!