Tag: Ambleside Online

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Ambleside Online Nature Study Resources: Term 3

Homeschool Nature Study and Ambleside Online (AO) Term 3 can work together with The Handbook of Nature Study! Have fun learning about insects.

If you’re using Ambleside Online for your homeschool year, you know that the nature study rotation for Term 3 of 2024-25 is studying insects! Some people love insects, and many do not; but if you look closely at them, they have so much about them that is interesting!

Homeschool Nature Study and Ambleside Online (AO) Term 3 can work together with The Handbook of Nature Study! Have fun learning about insects.

And, insects can be found literally everywhere! We’ve gathered the Outdoor Hour Challenges that go along with Term 3 for this year in this one post for you. We hope it will help to make insect nature study a breeze for Ambleside Online users over the next few months. . .and lots of fun, too!

Don’t forget your copy of the Handbook of Nature Study! So may of these studies follow right along with that book, and it’s great if you have it on hand to reference. It’s always helpful to read it ahead of time; so you can tell it back to your kids without having to read it out loud to them word for word.

Ambleside Online Nature Study Resources Term 3: Insects

Here is an Outdoor Hour Challenge perfect for this time of year!

Homeschool Nature Study Outdoor Hour Challenge: Winter Insects

Insect Nature Studies – Outdoor Hour Challenges

If you work your way through the section on insects in the Handbook of Nature Study, the lessons listed below line up with the Outdoor Hour Challenges!

Homeschool Nature Study and Ambleside Online (AO) Term 3 can work together with The Handbook of Nature Study! Have fun learning about insects.
Homeschool Nature Study and Ambleside Online (AO) Term 3 can work together with The Handbook of Nature Study! Have fun learning about insects.

Here are some other ideas that go along with Ambleside Online’s study of insects:

Take a closer look at insects with a magnifying lens!

A sweet post encouraging us to take the time to observe flowers and insects:

This post has ideas for building winter habitats in your backyard for wildlife. . .including insects!

Homeschool Nature Study and Ambleside Online (AO) Term 3 can work together with The Handbook of Nature Study! Have fun learning about insects.

More Insect Nature Studies with The Outdoor Hour Challenges

Here are even more nature studies for discovering and learning about insects!

If you’d like to look back our post about Term 2’s nature study from the school year 2024-2025, you can find that post here. It also gives a quick overview of the Ambleside Online curriculum and several helpful links.

Happy insect observing!

Spring Nature Studies with the Outdoor Hour Challenges

Our Homeschool Nature Study members have access to endless year round nature studies, including these courses with Handbook of Nature Study references, follow up nature journaling activities, printable notebook and journaling pages and resources to inspire and guide you.

Find Out More About Homeschool Nature Study Membership Here!

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get outdoors!

Amy Law is wife to Jeremy, and mom to three. They homeschool using Charlotte Mason’s principles, and love to spend lots of time in nature! You can often find them hiking the beautiful trails of their beloved Tennessee hills, while Amy attempts to capture the beauty of it all with her camera lens.

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Ambleside Online Homeschool Nature Study Resources: Term 2

Are you homeschooling using the Charlotte Mason method? If you use Ambleside Online as your Charlotte Mason curriculum, you may have wondered if The Handbook of Nature Study here at Homeschool Nature Study fits within the yearly rotations for nature study.

Yes, Homeschool Nature Study and Ambleside Online (AO) can work together! There are years and years worth of nature study ideas that cover so much from the Handbook of Nature Study, on which those who use AO often rely. A search through the archives brings up a multitude of helpful resources. Instead of you having to take the time to dig, though; we’ve done the work for you! This post contains lessons that will go with Term 2 of the Ambleside Online 2024-2025 school year, which is weather/climate.

Yes, Homeschool Nature Study and Ambleside Online (AO) can work together! The Handbook of Nature Study is at the center of both.

What is Ambleside Online Homeschool Curriculum?

Ambleside Online homeschool is an incredible Charlotte Mason curriculum. Spanning all the grades with a few extra options for lighter years and catch up years, it covers all that Miss Mason would have covered in her schools.  Complete with booklists, free ebooks, weekly schedules, online discussion groups, and a huge number of supportive articles, this curriculum is so good and thorough that one would expect it to be very expensive.  However, it is free..

Read the full review of Ambleside Online curriculum at The Curriculum Choice!

Homeschool Nature Study With Ambleside Online

Ambleside Online progresses through each school year in three terms:

  • Term 1: September – November
  • Term 2: January – March
  • Term 3: April – June

Families are encouraged to explore Artists, Composers, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Folk Songs, Hymns, and Nature Study together as a group throughout each term.

Ambleside Online Nature Study Resources: Term 2

An important component of nature study and exploration in AO’s current Term 2 is a focus on weather.

Weather and Climate Nature Study Resources

Five Ways to Teach Preschoolers about Weather can be found here.

This lesson has ideas for keeping track of the weather.

How about an Autumn Weather study? Here is a blog post with a whole list of activities and ideas for autumn weather study.

Here and here are winter weather nature study lessons.

Some ideas for different winter weather walks are listed here.

Weather Chart notebook page.

Winter Weather notebook page.

Is the weather too bad to be outside? Here are some ideas for indoor nature study.

By studying weather late fall through winter, there will be so many different patterns in weather to observe! Studying weather can be as simple as laying outside and observing to clouds from your own backyard. . .to keeping elaborate weather records. Keeping weather records can be easily made more simple for younger kids, and more complicated for older kids. Younger students could check and write in the nature notebook daily the date, temperature, and whether it’s sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, etc. Older students could keep a more elaborate weather chart and include, date, temperature, conditions, barometric pressure, sunrise and sunset, etc.

Beyond that, here are some other simple weather topics you could study/observe: rain, water cycle, fog, freezing fog, snow, ice, clouds and their shapes and names, how temperature fluctuates, and the seasons compared. There is so much that is interesting about weather!

I hope these ideas get you excited to explore the wonders of our ever-changing weather!

More Charlotte Mason Resources for Your Homeschool

Here are more Charlotte Mason homeschool resources to encourage you!

Outdoor Hour Challenge Winter Tree Silhouettes

Winter Nature Studies with the Outdoor Hour Challenges

Our Homeschool Nature Study members have access to endless year round nature studies, including these courses with Handbook of Nature Study references, follow up nature journaling activities, notebook pages and resources to inspire and guide you.

Find Out More About Homeschool Nature Study Membership!

Be inspired. Be encouraged. Get outdoors!

Amy Law is wife to Jeremy, and mom to three. They homeschool using Charlotte Mason’s principles, and love to spend lots of time in nature! You can often find them hiking the beautiful trails of their beloved Tennessee hills, while Amy attempts to capture the beauty of it all with her camera lens.