A whole new month is ahead of us….hopefully filled with fungus, moss, and lichen! This is a topic that probably many of us won’t put at the top of our nature study favorites but it is very interesting and it can be like a treasure hunt for your kids. I strongly urge you to give it a try, even if you just use the grid study found in this month’s newsletter.
Above all, have fun outdoors!
Outdoor Hour Challenge:
Print the March Newsletter page with the Mushroom, Lichen, and Moss Study Grid (page 8). Prepare a little before your outdoor time by discussing what the month’s focus is and where you might find some subjects to study. If your children are like mine, they will have some ideas about where to look. Use the printable below to learn a little more about mushrooms and the vocabulary that goes along with your study.
If you need more help getting started, click over to my Misc/Seasonal page and find specific challenges for mushrooms, lichen, and moss which will direct to reading in the Handbook of Nature Study.
Note: We will be focusing on moss next week and mushrooms the next. You can use this week’s challenge as an introduction to the month’s study and then go deeper in the next few weeks if you want to wait.
Special Activity: Parts of Mushroom
Free Printable Mushroom Parts Notebook Page
Getting Started Suggestion:
If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #8. This challenge is all about looking closely at things you find during your outdoor time. Take along a magnifying glass or bring home a sample to look at under your microscope. Record your results on the accompanying notebook page or in your nature journal.
We don’t yet, but I would love to do more notebooking. We do a lot of nature study, but we just talk and take pictures. 🙂
I don’t know anything about Lichen, so this will be an interesting month!
We are enjoying your outdoor studies. Last fall our interest in mushrooms was sparked upon discovering a giant puffball that weighed 42.9 ounces & measured 21″around.
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We have not done much nature study, but want to get started this spring. We do use notebook pages in our history study and find it a good fit for our family.
We have Lichen all around us.Growing on several trees in our yard, the state park behind us and river across from us.
My husband gave me the Handbook of Nature Study book a couple of years ago but I hadn’t looked at it until I found your blog and learned what a valuable resource it is. This is our first month following this blog and doing the challenges. My 2 children and I are loving the focused study you provide. Thank you!
I have never used notebooking pages, but I’ll have to give it a try.
We do sometimes . . . started nature journals with the kids about a year ago, but only use them a few times a month. Printable notebook pages make it easier!
We have started notebooking this year, so I’ve been collecting pages of all kinds.
We LOVE fungi! We’ve done prints where the spore falls and we’ve read recently about how the lichen is the canary of the eco system. We would LOVE to be lucky enough to win this! 🙂
~Honey
We would love to win these. We are just starting a nature journal. Thank you for the giveaway!
We may finally join in on an outdoor hour challenge this month. We have so many mushrooms in our own backyard at the moment, it’s amazing.
I totally love notebooking since you have introduced me to it. I hope we win.
I have been to the library to get books about mushrooms, etc. (They didn’t have many this time, but the ones they have are pretty good.) We hope to have time to go to the woods next week. And I bought a mushroom garden so the kids could watch them grow from spore. So cool!!
We use them for the birds that come to the feeder but we haven’t ventured beyond that. It is something I would like to use to explore more of our world.
I pinned this FreeBEE on my Learning Through Notebooking board… for later! Love you pages! 🙂
I am starting first grade with my son for the 13/14 year and the Outdoor Hour is something I would really like to incorporate. this handbook looks amazing!
i am loving the notebooking pages she offers!
What a wonderful giveaway! We are looking forward to spring again when we can do more exploring outdoors.
You have inspired me to put feet to this topic i only read about and wish we could “fit in”! Thank you for your help for those of us wanting to learn more about Nature Study. I am starting this week with my high schoolers “notebooking”. Better late than never!
I am excited to make outdoor studies a part of our High School learning. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us!