Try an Outdoor Hour Challenge at night! With the warmer evening temperatures and longer twilight hours of summer, your family can enjoy a few nighttime nature study activities. The list below is just a taste of the opportunities you can create for learning about the natural world right in your own backyard.
Nighttime Nature Study: A Perfect Summer Activity
Try an Outdoor Hour Challenge at night! With the warmer evening temperatures and longer twilight hours of summer, your family can enjoy a few nighttime nature study activities. The list below is just a taste of the opportunities you can create for learning about the natural world right in your own backyard.
More than anything else, be aware of your surroundings and use all your senses. When you can’t rely on your vision…listen, feel, and smell the nighttime in your backyard. Try to spend a few minutes just sitting quietly in the dark if your children are able and see what you notice. Even a few seconds of quiet is good for younger children.
Homeschool Nature Study Members: Download and complete the My Backyard at Night Notebook Page after your nighttime nature study.
Discover Nature at Sundown: Great Resource for Summer Nature Study
Wondering about the summer nature study book, Discover Nature at Sundown? This helpful review includes a fantastic idea (and free printable!) for families to take a nature walk in the evenings. Find out more about Discover Nature at Sundown.
A Spectacular Night Sky Nature Study for Your Summer Homeschool
Take some time this next week to get outside at night and enjoy a beautiful night sky homeschool nature study. Allow plenty of time for your eyes to adjust to the darkness and just enjoy gazing up at the heavens. Use some of these suggestions to get started with some simple night sky observations. Get your free Night Observations Printable HERE!
More Fun Summer Learning for Your Family
Summer is a perfect opportunity to mix up learning opportunities. Enjoy these summer nature studies as well:
We invite you to check out membership here at Homeschool Nature Study and Bring the Handbook of Nature Study to Life in Your Homeschool. The benefits of a membership are numerous including 26+ courses, printable curriculum and dozens of printable nature journal pages and activities.
Wondering about the summer nature study book, Discover Nature at Sundown? This helpful review includes a fantastic idea (and free printable!) for families to take a nature walk in the evenings.
Discover Nature at Sundown: Family Summer Nature Study
Discover Nature at Sundown by Elizabeth P. Lawlor is a book that our family has used for many years. When my children were younger, we would pull it off the shelf every summer to use as a reference and as a source of nature study ideas.
Our Summer Nature Study Curriculum features Discover Nature at Sundown and its topics, which you can find referenced below (Summer Series of Outdoor Hour Challenges).
Main Topics in Discover Nature at Sundown
Here are some of the many topics you can enjoy in your summer nature study:
owls
frogs
moths
fireflies
bats
opossums
raccoons
and skunks
There’s a little something for everyone’s taste! Dissect an owl pellet, try to entice moths to your nature hike, chase a firefly, listen for crickets, or hunt for traces of raccoons and opossums. My strategy was always to complete an entire in-depth study from this book each summer. Over time, your family will have covered a lot of interesting topics in a relaxed and enjoyable way.
Great Ideas for Summer Nature Journaling
For those of you that keep nature journals, you’ll be happy to note that the illustrations and charts are all very well done and our family would often copy them into our nature journals for future reference. The black and white line drawings are simple enough to inspire even the most reluctant nature journaler.
The ideas in this book will help you use your senses during your nature study to learn more about each of the topics. These skills are so useful in all scientific study but especially so for nature study. Plus, using all your senses is lots of fun! The book will help you with ideas for honing these skills and explain how we can enhance our natural senses.
Take a Sunset Nature Walk – A Fun Way to Work on Using Our Senses
Summer evenings are a cooler time of day for getting outside with your children. The after dinner hours are still light enough that taking a nature walk is a possibility.
You could go on a dinner picnic at a lake and then take a long walk in the evening air. There will still be plenty of things to observe, including a delightful sunset, the chirping of crickets, the song of the robin, the breeze in the treetops, and the buzz of mosquitoes.
Your nature walk doesn’t need to be a long one and you can adjust the time of day and length to fit your particular family. For a first outing, plan on 15-20 minutes and then see how it goes. If you can encourage your children to walk silently, even for just a minute, they are going to get more out of the experience. As your children are able, try to spend longer periods of silence as you listen for any signs of life during your outdoor time.
Take a Nature Hike at Sundown Printable
This printable is also available to Homeschool Nature Study members in your Summer course. Please be sure to share photos of your sunset walk and tag us on Instagram @outdoorhourchallenge
Summer Nature Study in Homeschool Nature Study Membership
Join us for even more homeschool nature studies for all the seasons! With a new nature study each week, you will have joyful learning leading all the way through the homeschool year for all your ages!
“One afternoon a week, the students in our ‘Practicing School’ [taught by the student teachers at Charlotte Mason’s teacher’s college] go for a ‘nature walk’ with their teacher. They notice things by themselves, and the teacher tells them the name or gives other information only if they ask for it.”
“The teachers are careful not to turn these nature walks into an opportunity to give science lessons, because they want the children’s attention to be focused on their own observations.”
“They’re allowed to notice things with very little direction from the teacher. By doing this, children accumulate a good collection of ‘common knowledge.’ ”
Homeschool Nature Study in Your Own Backyard – There is such freedom in homeschool nature study in your own backyard and in learning what is closest to home! In your own backyard, your children will learn to observe, to write about their experiences, to draw their treasures, to be patient, to imagine, and to explore. You don’t need a special textbook or kit to get started.
5 Getting Started in Nature Study Tips – What a delight nature study learning is and what joys you will discover outside your back door. We will help you with simple encouragement along the way.
June Nature Study Activities
Cicada Nature Study – This cicada homeschool nature study will be a lesson in learning to listen and distinguish the sound of the cicada. In the past we’ve listened in the evenings for other insects like the cricket. Now we’re going to learn about the cicada by listening and observing like investigators during the daylight.
Day Hikes Near Home – I realized over time that we didn’t need to travel far to find places to go on short notice or even for a half day’s hike. I loved being able to roll out of bed, decide to go on a hike, and be out the door in a short period of time. So, how did I overcome the dilemma of finding places to hike near our home?
Study Nature as You Travel This Summer – If you are planning a trip to a natural area to enjoy the outdoors, you may want to include nature study for your summer travel plans. Implement some of the ideas below to enhance your outdoor time.
FUN Summer Nature Study Photo Challenge! Enjoy a fun summer nature study photo challenge plus first day of summer ideas! I don’t know about you but I’m so very ready for the summer season! The most noticeable change is the amount of daylight. The sun is up early and it lingers in the evenings.
Beautiful Lupine Wildflower Nature Study – Enjoy a beautiful lupine wildflower nature study for your homeschool! Don’t miss the free lupine resource download and the free event!
Keeping a Nature Journal Review – Keeping a Nature Journal is a great homeschool nature study resource and contains a wealth of ideas that you can pick and choose to use as inspiration. This book is a tool like so many other tools we use in our family’s nature study.
For even more homeschool nature study ideas, join us in Homeschool Nature Study membership! You’ll receive new ideas each and every week that require little or no prep – all bringing the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool!
Enjoy all of these and more in homeschool nature study membership:
Enjoy these tips for a conglomerate rock nature study and have fun hunting for them on your next nature walk.
Conglomerate rock is a sedimentary rock that contains large rounded particles. The rock particles are stuck together with sand that filled in the spaces. There can be many different colors of conglomerate rock depending on the color of the gravel and sand where the rock was formed. Colorful conglomerates may be called “puddingstones”.
Tips for a Conglomerate Rock Nature Study
We were able to find some awesome specimens of conglomerate rock during our trip to Oregon. Actually, my son found the one below and my husband found the one above. I told them what I was looking for and I was shocked they found two so very different from each other.
You can look for conglomerates in rivers, ocean beaches, or even in dry rocky desert areas where there used to be water.
Rock Cycle Activities for Middle and High School
An introduction to geology with rock cycle activities for middle and high school. This is a great homeschool nature study and a simple way to explore rocks as a nature study in your own backyard!
Note To the Parent: There is a lot of great information in this study, far more than can be covered in a week. Use this study as an introduction to geology as it relates to nature study in your own backyard or neighborhood. Read the information in the Handbook of Nature Study and share any facts or ideas with your child that make sense to you. Keep it simple. (includes an interactive rock cycle!): Rock Cycle Activities for Middle and High School
Follow-Up Rock Activities For Your Homeschool:
Choose one of the rocks you collected outdoors and look at it closely using a hand lens. If you collected some granite, can you distinguish the various components? Record your observations in your nature journal.
Advanced study: Diagram and describe the rock cycle in your nature journal.
Advanced study: Use your observation skills and record your information in your nature journal. Use a rock identification key to identify your igneous rock.
All three of my sons enjoy digital photography to capture our time outdoors.
A love of the natural world does not come automatically for all children and sometimes we need to find a way to hook them into getting outdoors. We live in a world of “wired” children….they have a lot of screen time each week as part of their normal routines. How do we get these children to move from their indoor screen to one that they can take outdoors?
My teens both had cameras on last year’s trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. They took amazing images.
The Benefits of Digital Photography in Nature Study
It slows them down.
Helps them focus and really see an object.
Everyday things in their own backyard can now be captured and viewed.
They can see the beauty.
They make their own connections.
Perfect for our teens…they are comfortable with the technology and love to share with their friends.
Technology in the Natural World
Would Anna Botsford Comstock and Charlotte Mason have approved of this use of technology in the natural world? I think they would have accepted that sometimes we need to help our children make connections in a way that is comfortable to them. If our 21st Century children are using technology on a regular basis, they are going to find it an easier transition to move from inside screen time to outside time with the aid of a digital camera.
Using the Outdoor Hour Challenge insect study and a digital camera might be just the invitation your child needs to get started on their own outdoor experiences this month. You don’t need to travel far to capture great images with your digital camera…your own backyard will reveal some interesting subjects for even the youngest photographer.
One of Mr. D’s calendar images.
I have encouraged my children to take digital photos for a long time now. This past summer, I challenged my oldest son to capture six images for next year’s family calendar. He blew me away with his nature photography! They are all stunning….I shared one of the photos above.
At some point we can hope that the technology is put away and our children just enjoy being outside but don’t overlook the power of digital photography to get your kids outside and exploring.
You can plan a simple outdoor picnic with the benefit of homeschool nature study! Even a snack in your backyard will make for a fun time together outdoors. You will be surprised at all you notice while you are outside.
“..by beginning with the child in nature-study we take him to the laboratory of the wood or garden, the roadside or the field, and his materials are the wild flowers or the weeds, or the insects that visit the goldenrod or the bird that sings in the maple tree, or the woodchuck whistling in the pasture.”
Picnics don’t need to be fancy. Wrap up a sandwich in a cloth napkin, grab a piece of fruit, and some water and you are set. Venture outside even if it is only to your own yard to sit on a blanket and enjoy your lunch. Afterwards you can make time for a short period of nature study.
I love eating outside with my family, especially in the summertime. This week’s Outdoor Hour Challenge encourages you to share a meal outside with your children. Keep it simple as far as food selections and location. Even if all you do is put a few things in a bag, grab a blanket, and then spread it all out on your own backyard lawn, I’m sure you and your children will enjoy the fresh air and the time spent outdoors sharing a meal.
Our family looks back fondly on the meals we shared outside in the summertime on our back deck. It made us slow down a bit and take notice of the things that happen outside like clouds floating by, birds chirping, and trees swaying in the breeze. We watched loads of sunsets and I remember a few times being sprinkled on by a passing late afternoon thunderstorm.
Our family eats dinner outside every night from June to September….longer if the weather allows. We have arranged our patio table under a canopy and the citronella candles are always kept nearby. We have a tree that the hummingbirds sip nectar from in the dusk hours and after our meal we sit and observe their dinnertime.
“…When the weather is warm, why not eat breakfast and lunch outside?…Besides the benefit of an added hour or two of fresh air, meals eaten outside are often delightful, and there’s nothing like happiness to convert food and drink into healthy blood and bodies.“
Charlotte Mason, Outdoor Life pg 43
Summer Nature Study Tip
Purchase some inexpensive, unbreakable dinnerware and reusable utensils. Make sure you have a small ice chest and some cooler packs to pop into your freezer. Gather a blanket or camping chairs to leave in your garage for those last minute excursions to the park for a picnic. Make sure to bring your nature journal and some pencils so you can create a nature journal page if the opportunity arises during or after your picnic.
Outdoor Hour Challenge Picnic
1. The challenge is to have a picnic. No need to go far or to even have a picnic table. Food always tastes better outside and if you don’t want to commit to a whole lunch, why not just a snack?
After you eat, sit and listen to the sounds of the spring.
“Given the power of nature to calm and soothe us in our hurried lives, it also would be interesting to study how a family’s connection to nature influences the general quality of family relationships. Speaking from personal experience, my own family’s relationships have been nourished over the years through shared experiences in nature-from sharing our toddler’s wonder upon turning over a rock and discovering a magnificent bug the size of a mouse, to paddling our old canoe down a nearby creek during the children’s school years, to hiking the mountains.”
2. After your picnic, spend 10-15 minutes observing your surroundings. Add anything new to your list of items observed in your focus area that you are keeping in your nature journal. Make note of any additional research that needs to be done for things your child is interested in. Make a journal entry if you wish.
This challenge is found in the Getting Started ebook which is included in Homeschool Nature Study membership. The ebook provides the challenge as shown above as well as custom notebook pages for your follow up nature journal if desired.
Homeschool Nature Study MembersHave Great Resources at Your Fingertips
Consider working through the first three Outdoor Hour Challenges in the Getting Started ebook. These three challenges can help build your nature study habit. I highly recommend following the suggestions for reading in the Handbook of Nature Study that go along with those challenges. The words expressed in those readings include timeless advice to parents about the value of regular nature study close to home. Make sure to have the printable nature journal pages bookmarked in case your child is ready to create a record of their Outdoor Hour Challenge.
#1 Let’s Get Started #2 Using Your Words #3 Now Is The Time To Draw
Look for the Outdoor Hour Challenge Planning Pages printable in the Planning Resources course. Use these pages to make a rough plan for your nature study.
If you’re not a member here at Homeschool Nature Study yet, please consider joining to gain the benefit of having a nature study library at your fingertips. There are numerous resources available for you to help create the habit of nature study within your family.
Nature Study Encouragement for Your Outdoor Hour Family Time
Before you begin homeschool garden activities, enjoy these ideas for getting outdoors with your family.
Nature Study in Ripples: Simple Ways to Study Nature
Simple Ways to Study Nature – Here are some simple ways to study nature in your homeschool. Start in your own yard then let your discoveries grow out like ripples in a pond.
“Nature study is, despite all discussions and perversions, a study of nature; it consists of simple, truthful observations that may, like beads on a string, finally be threaded upon the understanding and thus held together as a logical and harmonious whole.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 1
99 Homeschool Nature Study Ideas to Get Your Family Outside
Homeschool Garden Activities Perfect for May Nature Studies
“A child who makes a garden, and then becomes intimate with the plants he cultivates, and comes to understand the interrelation of the various forms of life which he finds in his garden, has progressed far in the fundamental knowledge of nature’s ways as well as in a practical knowledge of agriculture.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 20 in the section “Gardening and nature Study”
Here are some great nature study ideas for your May homeschool!
Garden and Wildflower Nature Studies with the Outdoor Hour Challenges
You can enjoy a simple garden and wildflowers homeschool nature study with these resources we have gathered for you to use in your own backyard. It is such a delight to study and learn about a garden and the beauty of wildflowers!
Make a Wagon Garden
For this particular garden, I have a rusty old Red Flyer wagon that has wheels that no longer turn…How to Make a Wagon Garden.
World Turtle Day Nature Activities
Turtle Nature Study for Your Homeschool – Learn about pond life, pondweed and a pond habitat with this fun turtle nature study for your homeschool. Includes activities for learning about tortoises and microscopic pond life too.
Mammals: Goat Nature Study
This goat homeschool nature study is packed with fun from fainting goats to advanced mammal studies! Bring the Handbook of Nature Study to Life in your homeschool! Here’s a peek at what you can expect to enjoy in this Outdoor Hour Challenge for Homeschool Nature Study members.
Butterfly Nature Study: How to Make a Butterfly Puddle
Over the years, I’ve observed butterflies along hiking trails in the muddy edges. There will sometimes be 10 or 12 butterflies sitting on the mud slowly opening and closing their wings. This behavior fascinated me! After a little research on the internet, I discovered that butterflies are attracted to mud puddles for not only the moisture but the minerals and salts that are present in the mud. Learn How to Make a Butterfly Puddle!
Homeschool Garden Activities: The Great Sunflower Project
What is the Great Sunflower Project? This is a citizen science activity that you can participate in with your children. If you can grow a sunflower (or selected other flowers), you can join the project with just a few minutes invested later this summer.
Beautiful Queen Anne’s Lace Wildflower Nature Study
Our family made great memories together one year while noticing and studying Queen Anne’s lace throughout the seasons. Enjoy this beautiful Queen Anne’s lace nature study for your homeschool and see what you notice in each season too!
Charlotte Mason Nature Study: Simple Ideas for Wildflowers
These timeless Charlotte Mason nature study ideas are as relevant today as when they were written and I’m forever grateful for the encouragement these gave me when I was a new homeschooler.
Gathering Things for Your Nature Table
Unsure of what a nature table is exactly? Here is a simple definition with some ideas and tips. These will help you begin the habit of gathering things for your homeschool nature table during your Outdoor Hour Challenge time.
Plan a Picnic
You can plan a simple outdoor picnic with the benefit of homeschool nature study! Even a snack in your backyard will make for a fun time together outdoors. You will be surprised at all you notice while you are outside.
The Ultimate Guide to National Parks Nature Study
Ready to enjoy a trip to a national park? Use this guide to national parks nature study for your homeschool and enjoy nature study learning while you explore the great outdoors!
More Homeschool Garden Learning
Gardening in Your Homeschool – As the plant world comes alive again in springtime, what better way to teach our children about nature, food, hands-on history, and practical skills than by gardening? Whether we do a formal study or make gardening a purely hands-on project, our children will learn with a homeschool garden.
Get Them Gardening! Fun Garden Books for Kids – As spring starts to roll in, we turn our thoughts to finally getting outside and enjoying the nice weather. Along with this comes budding trees and growing plants, and gardening both for food and flowers. This collection of garden books for kids will help you include gardening in your homeschool.
12 Delightful Farm Activities for Kids – These 12 delightful farm art activities for kids include fluffy baby chicks, a tractor, a barn, ducklings, a lamb, a cow, a piglet and even the chicken life cycle. Such fun learning for your homeschool!
More Nature Study Ideas for Your May Homeschool
Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story – Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story is a beautiful picture book biography about the author of The Handbook of Nature Study. Anna Botsford Comstock was passionate about children getting out of the classroom and into nature to learn first hand about our beautiful world.
3 Tips for Nature Journaling When You Think You Can’t Sketch – Here is some encouragement for you with 3 tips for nature journaling when you think you can’t sketch. My personal nature journal is a source of great joy and it gives me such pleasure to create pages that record my observations and memories of a particular day, excursion, or season.
How Nature Study Enriches Your High School Biology in Your Homeschool – Just how to include homeschool nature study as part of high school biology? Here you will find a break down of nature study suggestions and accompanying resources for each module of your homeschool biology lessons. I really think it depends on the family and how much nature study you have time to fit in with your high school age children.
Flower and Gardening Activities and Notebook Pages
Learning leaf parts
Poppies and buttercups
Ferns
Looking for pollen
Pressing flowers
How to draw flowers
Learning flower parts and dissection of flowers
The garden snail
Garden Seed Ideas
Coronation Crown Nature Craft for Annual Homeschool Nature Study Members
Victoria Vels shares, “May’s nature craft has landed for our lovely members and we’re feeling rather patriotic with these stunning Nature Coronation Crowns, just in time for the crowning of King Charles II.”
You will find hundreds of homeschool nature studies plus all the Outdoor Hour Challenges in our Homeschool Nature Study membership. There are 25+ continuing courses with matching Outdoor Hour curriculum that will bring the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool! In addition, there is an interactive monthly calendar with daily nature study prompt – all at your fingertips!
Outdoor Mom Encouragement for Annual Homeschool Nature Study Members
The Outdoor Mom in May Helps Us Refocus
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to attend your own business and work with your hands –
1 Thessalonians 4:11
It reminds me to re-focus my goals and ambitions so that they align with God’s will rather than my own, often more worldly, ambitions.
This verse grounds me. When I put this verse into action in practical ways in my everyday life I find that life slows down and I have enough head space to allow my thoughts to centre on what is important.
The May Outdoor Mom includes:
Choosing a journaling spot
10 (!) May nature prompts for outdoors, for journaling and for either the seashore or mountains
Ideas for working with your hands
Six ideas for making the ordinary extraordinary – including planting a kitchen garden!
Enjoy relaxed preschool nature study plans for your homeschool with nature table suggestions, simple nature study activities, field trip ideas, images to print, coloring pages, and so much more. What a privilege to introduce children to the glorious world God created!
Have children eager to be outside? You can think of the earliest years outdoors with your children as the way to grow a love and curiosity about the natural world. This habit develops gradually over their childhood. The earlier you start building a habit of nature study in your family, the easier it will be to encourage children to be engaged in nature study.
Don’t miss the free sample of preschool curriculum, below!
Delightful Preschool Nature Study Plans for Your Homeschool
Preschool nature ideas for each month of the year include:
an animal, bird, flower and tree of the month – that is four nature studies each month!
nature table suggestions and items for free play
image cards
monthly activities
library books suggestions
casual monthly nature study
preschool hands on activities for active learning: singing drawing, tasting
“..the mother must not miss this opportunity of being outdoors to train the children to have seeing eyes, hearing ears and seeds of truth deposited into their minds to grow and blossom on their own in the secret chambers of their imaginations.”
Charlotte Mason, Volume 1, page 45
These Outdoor Nature Study Plans Can Be Used Family Style
Most of these nature study plans point to existing Outdoor Hour Challenges in our membership. The new Preschool course includes nature studies plus the plans refer to spring, summer, autumn and winter topics.
These are studies the whole family can explore! So these preschool plans are a great place for the whole family to start with.
48 Outdoor Hour Challenges!
But what if there is a rainy day and you can’t get outdoors? The activities in our Preschool Nature Study Plans will give you new ideas for fun learning.
Sample a Month of Nature Study Plans For Preschool
Try a free sample of the preschool nature study plans included in Homeschool Nature Study Membership. This sample includes a month of nature study plans! Get your copy in the form, below:
Preschool Nature Study Curriculum Included in Homeschool Nature Study Membership
Our Preschool Nature Study Curriculum is the newest addition to the Homeschool Nature Study membership. There are even more resources coming to members in the coming months!
There are 25+ continuing courses with matching Outdoor Hour curriculum that will bring the Handbook of Nature Study to life in your homeschool! In addition, there is an interactive monthly calendar with daily nature study prompt – all at your fingertips!
Join us for even more homeschool nature studies for all the seasons! With a new nature study each week, you will have joyful learning leading all the way through the homeschool year for all your ages!
This Nature Study curriculum written by founder, Barbara McCoy. Additional resources by Tricia.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.
Enjoy an easy way to learn backyard bird calls. Then use the homeschool nature study on the robin, cardinal and house finch to discover even more!
I thought it would be fun to start to learn some bird calls. Our family is going to try to learn the calls of the birds from the Outdoor Hour Challenge. I have one son that definitely learns things well when we make them into a song so I thought this would be a fun project for him to do.
Learn Backyard Bird Calls: Robin, Cardinal and House Finch
If you would like to join us, here are the links to a website where you can hear the bird calls.
Robin, Cardinal, and House FinchNature Study for Your Homeschool
No need to stop at the backyard bird calls! This series of Outdoor Hour Challenges is going to help you study birds, their habits and their unique features. Learning to really see the parts of the bird in order to not only identify it but to see how each bird fits into the overall world of animals. I have decided to emphasis the most common backyard birds.
YourInside Backyard Bird Homeschool Nature Study Time:
1. Read the Handbook of Nature Study pages 27-28 to get a general overview of bird study using this book. In addition, read pages 43-44 for some ways to attract birds to your yard. I highly recommend hanging a feeder of some sort and providing water as well.
2.Read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 57-62 about the robin. There is so much information about the robin on these pages that it is a little overwhelming. I would read the information and mark any ideas or facts that you are interested in sharing with your child. 3. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 127-130 about the cardinal grosbeak.
4. Backyard Birds: Read aloud with your child the introductory pages and the section on red birds: the robin, the cardinal, and the house finch. Take note of each bird’s field marks for future reference. Notice the difference between the female and male birds for each kind of bird.
5. Peterson Field Guide: Backyard Birds: Read the introductory pages 17-22(W) or 23-30(E). Look up in the index the robin, the cardinal, and the house finch. Observe the illustrations carefully and read the narrative descriptions and explanations.
Please Note: (W)=Western Birds and (E) Eastern Birds
YourOutdoor Hour Time
Take your 10-15 minutes of outdoor time to enjoy your own backyard. Since this series of challenges is about birds, be aware of any bird subjects that come your way. This could include feathers, nests, bird tracks, or the sounds of bird calls.
You could also use your outdoor time to hang a bird feeder and talk about what kinds of birds you hope to attract. You could talk about the different kinds of seeds. The more you include your children in the process of setting up the bird feeder, the more excited and invested they will be to watch for birds to visit.
Your goal this week is to spend the time outdoors with your children and perhaps observe a bird. What particular aspect of the bird are you observing this week? How about the color, size, and shape of the beak? This should get you started in your bird study.
Follow Up Bird Homeschool Nature Study Activities
For your follow up activity you can learn more about the particular bird that you observed. If you know what kind of bird it is, look it up in the Handbook of Nature Study for more information. You can also use the Peterson Field Guide or an internet resource such as whatbird.comor Cornell’s bird website.
The above websites also can help you identify an unknown bird. We will be learning in the upcoming challenges how to use a field guide to identify birds so don’t worry if you don’t find an exact identification for your bird.
The most important part of this challenge is getting outdoors with your children and beginning a search for birds. If you have a nearby park, you can try visiting there during your week to see if there any different birds for observation. Many parks have ducks and geese that make excellent subjects for bird study.
More Bird Nature Study Activities for Your Homeschool
Birds are such a joy to learn about. Here are some more bird nature studies you can enjoy!
Hopefully during your outdoor time you found something to investigate further. Questions are always a great way to extend your nature study to other days of your week.
This red bird challenge is from the Birds Course in our Homeschool Nature Study membership using the Handbook of Nature Study. You can purchase a membership now and have instant access.
Enjoy these simple mouse homeschool nature studies learning about these small mammals. Includes mouse stories to read, studies to enjoy indoors, outdoor time and nature journaling suggestions.
Outdoor Hour Challenge hostess, Shirley Vels, shares, “These little creatures, love them or hate them, are entertaining to watch. Personally, I have a soft spot for mice probably borne of having my early childhood views molded by the likes of Brambly Hedge and Beatrix Potter tales.”
Remember: You are always successful in your homeschool nature studies with the Outdoor Hour Challenges if you take time to be outside with your children for a few minutes each week. You can use your outdoor time this week to sit on a blanket in the shade, read about mice, and then make a few notes in your nature journal. Snacks are always welcome during the Outdoor Hour Challenge as well.
Mouse Homeschool Nature Studiesfor Kids
Your Indoor Homeschool Nature Study Preparation
Read the Handbook of Nature Study pages 224-228 (Lesson 55). Additional information for more advanced students can be found at: Animal Diversity Web. Note: The Handbook of Nature Study includes quite a bit of information on trapping mice-this may not be appropriate in every family.
This is one of those challenges that is hard to plan ahead of time for direct observation of the topic. If you have access to a real mouse to observe, use the suggestions for the lesson in the Handbook of Nature Study.
If you don’t have access to a mouse, use your outdoor time to observe any mammal and compare it using information you know about a mouse: teeth, feet, tail, color, size, behavior, diet.
MouseFollow-Up Nature Study Activities:
Complete a nature journal entry with any information you learned from your mouse study. You can sketch any signs of mice that you observed in your yard like tracks, scat, or a mouse hole. You can also click this link, click and print the image of the house mouse to include in your notebook: Nature.CA—House Mouse or members can color the page for the Whitefooted Mouse in the summer course.
If you observed any other mammal and would like to follow-up with more nature study, you can check the list of previous mammal Outdoor Hour Challenges for more information using the Handbook of Nature Study. You may wish to use the free Mammal Notebook Page available on my blog.
Advanced Study: Research the Rodentia order and the Muridae family. Record your results in your nature journal.
MouseMammal Study with Owl Pellet Dissection
Additional Links:
Optional activity: You may wish to complete an Owl Pellet dissection as part of this study. Many times the owl pellets include mouse bones that your child can identify as part of this study. Please see my Outdoor Hour Challenge for Owls for more information. You can see our family’s owl dissection here with a good look at the mouse bones: Raptors of the Night.
All the summer challenges are included in the continuing summer course in Homeschool Nature Study membership. If you want to follow along with notebook pages and coloring pages, click over and learn more about membership.
