Tag: Earthworms

Posted on by — 4 Comments

Earthworms Homeschool Nature Study: Invertebrates

This earthworm homeschool nature study is packed with great learning for all ages and even includes advanced invertebrate 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.

This earthworm homeschool nature study is packed with great learning for all ages and even includes advanced invertebrate 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.

Earthworms Homeschool Nature Study: Invertebrates

“Any garden furnishes abundant material for the study of earthworms. They are nocturnal workers and may be observed by lantern or flashlight….For the study of the individual worm and its movements, each pupil should have a worm with some earth upon his desk.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 424

Take 15 minutes of your outdoor hour time to find a place in your yard to dig for worms. If you have a garden or flower bed, you may be successful in finding earthworms just a few inches down in the soil. Use some of the suggested activities from the lesson in the Handbook of Nature Study to carefully observe your earthworms.

This earthworms homeschool nature study for our members includes:

  • Handbook of Nature Study references and indoor preparation time
  • Suggestions and questions for your Outdoor Hour Time
  • A list of questions to ask during your earthworm nature study time
  • Follow up activity for your nature journal

Members will find the full homeschool nature study in the Spring with Art and Music Appreciation Outdoor Hour course and curriculum.

You can use the notebook page provided with Spring with Art and Music Appreciation course or your own blank nature journal to record you observations and sketches. Don’t forget to sketch and label your earthworm.

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

More Resources For Learning About Earthworms

Join Homeschool Nature Study membership today!

Visit our website to find an affordable membership option that suits you. Why not give membership a try for a month and go from there. We would love to have you along for the adventure!

first published May 2010 and updated May 2022

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge – Spring Earthworm Study

Outdoor Hour Challenge:

Spring Earthworm Study

We are going to be outside this week looking for earthworms. The Handbook of Nature Study suggests going out at night with a flashlight to look for worms but we find them just digging around in our garden boxes. Ask your children if they know where there are any earthworms.

Spring Earthworm Study – Make sure to find all the suggestions for worm observations in this entry.

Earthworm Nature Journal Topper – Find a nature journal prompt in the May Newsletter that will help you record your earthworm observations.

Special Activity:

If you have a child who is super into worms and they would like to see a YouTube video of an earthworm dissection, here is a link: Earthworm Dissection.

Getting Started Suggestion:

If you already own the Getting Started ebook, complete Outdoor Hour Challenge #3.  Take some time this week to use the suggestions in this challenge to focus on making a drawing in your nature journal. It can feature your earthworm study or anything else your child finds during your outdoor time that interests them. 

Handbook of Nature Study Ultimate Naturalist Library

 

Posted on by — 2 Comments

5 Spring Nature Study Ideas

 

1. How about a spring cattail hunt? Find your own patch of cattails and complete some observations using the Handbook of Nature Study. There is even a free Seasonal Cattail Notebook Page to print!

2. Look for signs of spring in your part of the world. What better way to enjoy the early spring time outdoors? Use the suggestions in the challenge and then print the Signs of Spring notebook page for your nature journal.

3. One of the most popular “wildflower” challenges of all time is the Dandelion Challenge from the Spring Series! Everyone loves a good dandelion study and with this commonly found plant your family can enjoy a little flower study too!

4. Here is one that all of you gardeners will enjoy…earthworms! We love digging down into the fresh spring soil and that means lots of earthworms. My boys loved to go on an earthworm hunt while I pulled a few weeds in the garden boxes.

5. Everyone has weather….you can all take some early spring weather observations no matter if there is snow on the ground or you are experiencing rain showers or you have blue skies and white puffy clouds. Print a weather notebook page and have some fun outside recording your weather and observations.

There are lots more spring nature study ideas on the Spring Tab at the top of my blog. Pick one and enjoy a few minutes outdoors this week.

  Have you seen some signs of spring in your neighborhood?

Posted on by — 5 Comments

Ideas for Garden Critter Nature Study – June Newsletter Suggestions

Roses in the Garden

As part of the June Newsletter, I suggested that you try to find a garden critter to observe and study using the Handbook of Nature Study. There are already quite a few challenges that feature critters that you may come across in your own garden. Using the Outdoor Hour Challenge does not need to take a lot of time. In fact, I originally started the challenges and expected participants to only spend 10-15 minutes outdoors with their children. You do not need to make your nature study into a unit study or complicated. In fact, the simpler the better since it usually means the children are following their interests. If you already own the Getting Started ebook, you can use the first five challenges along with the suggestions in the June Newsletter.

Here are a few links to challenges that you may wish to think about using as part of the Garden Critter suggestion in the June Newsletter.

Beans and Sunflowers Sprouts

Have fun exploring your garden or yard for something interesting to learn more about in your nature study. You might try to go outside early in the morning or later in the evening when the temperatures are cooler and there may be more critters moving around.

Make sure to follow up your study with the chance for a nature journal entry. Look up the answers to any questions your children may have either in the Handbook of Nature Study or at your local library. After you make your blog entry about your garden critter, submit it to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. Remember every entry to the carnival is an entry in my June Newsletter Giveaway for a Squirrel Buster Birdfeeder.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

Earthworms in the Garden: Spring Series Challenge

Our Outdoor Hour Challenge Earthworm Study was very informal and done as we did our gardening this past weekend. Our garden boxes were tilled in preparation of our seedlings and in the process we uncovered lots of glorious earthworms. What amazing creatures!

Earthworm (2)

I am always worried that we will hurt them if we dig them up but they soon snuggle back down into the soil, more quickly than you think they should.
Earthworm (1)

We did a formal study of earthworms earlier in the year when we studied them in our science dissection unit. Here is a diagram of the innards of an earthworm.

Earthworm dissection

Mr. B also did a very good sketch of an earthworm for his nature journal.

Earthworm sketch

Rest assured that we will be continuing our study of earthworms as we tend our garden this summer.


You can find the Outdoor Hour Challenge for Earthworms with links, study ideas, and more here on my blog:
OHC Spring #9 Earthworms.

STEM Mom