Planning Archives

Last month I shared how to plan a nature study course for a year. This time I want to show you how to use the monthly ideas shared in the Handbook of Nature Study newsletter and each Friday here on the blog and make a monthly nature study plan. If you are a member here on the Handbook of Nature Study, there is a set of planning pages available in the printables section of your membership.

Customize Your Monthly Nature Study Plans

Think of all the ideas as ingredients. There are many options for your nature study recipe. Pick the ones that suit your family and your taste. Add them to the planner page and use that as a way to remind you of your options for the month. Don’t feel like you need to complete all the things you list on the planner page….I don’t. But, creating the list will make it more likely I will accomplish something during the month. Celebrate the things you are able to share with your family and look at this as a life long journey, taking one month at a time.

Handbook of Nature Study Newsletter – Download and print the newsletter each month. Read through the ideas presented and pick a few to put on your monthly planning page. Make sure to look on the planning page for nature photo ideas, nature table suggestions, and nature journal topics to jot down on your monthly planning page.
Ebooks- If you are following along with the Friday posts, pick one or two to include on your monthly planning page. (The month’s Friday topics are found on the planning page in the newsletter.)
Archives– You are welcome to pick an ebook from the library and pull challenges from there. Write the ebook title and the challenge title on your planning page.
Seasonal ideas- Use the seasonal ideas from the tab at the top of the website to find one or two seasonal ideas to pick from for your family.
Once a Month Nature Journal Idea – use the idea in the post to create a nature journal page for any of the items listed above.
Printables- If you are a member here on the Handbook of Nature Study, check out the printables in your library for additional ideas to include on your monthly planner.

Does that overwhelm you? Here is an alternative that will be simple to try!

As an alternative, download the newsletter planning page and print the planning page out (usually it is the second page of the newsletter). Add ideas to the page that you would like to include for your monthly nature study time. Again, don’t feel like you need to do everything but use the planning page as a way to stimulate some nature study during your month.

Any more questions!

I hope this helps answer the frequently asked question about nature study planning for your family. Let me know if you have any other questions that I can answer in future posts!

Many of you have written to ask me how to go about planning a year of nature study for your family. It seems like it should be easy enough but when you want to follow your child’s interest and it doesn’t coincide with the Friday topics here on the Handbook of Nature Study you can get frustrated. My advice normally is to find a topic of interest for your family and then use the tabs at the top of the site to find specific challenges to use for your weekly nature study.

This advice works for families that are following the Ambleside Online nature study rotation as well. Find the tab at the top of my site that corresponds with the nature topic for the term and then glean ideas from the challenges and activities listed there on the page.

To make your planning a little easier, I developed Outdoor Hour Challenge Planning Pages. These pages are available in the printables section of the Journey and Ultimate level memberships.

There are three pages in the Outdoor Hour Challenge Planning Page packet.

This is the first page you can use if you prefer to have monthly nature study topics. I loved the years that we stuck with a topic for a whole month, digging in deeply. The chart at the top of the page gives you some ideas to choose from as you contemplate your seasons and habitat.

Hint: The topics listed in the chart on the page above are going to be the monthly topics found in the Handbook of Nature Study newsletter.

Some families like to schedule their nature study focus for a complete term or season. The page shown above found in the Outdoor Hour Planning Pages packet allows for a different topic to be planned each term. If you follow the Ambleside Online nature study rotation, this would be the page you could use to plan your year’s topics.

After you have chosen your topics, either monthly or for a term, you can then use the challenge and activity planning page found in the packet to note specific challenges or ideas that you want to implement during your topical study. The ideas shown above are what I hope to accomplish in September 2015 to go along with the newsletter topic of trees. Even if we don’t end up accomplishing all of the items listed, planning ahead of time will make it more likely that they will happen. You can use ideas from the tabs at the top of the website, suggestions in the newsletter, or ideas from a Pinterest board

For families that are following along with the weekly Friday challenges here on the Handbook of Nature Study, there is a planning page each month in the newsletter. It will include the current challenges, field trip ideas, nature journal page ideas, nature table prompts, and nature photo suggestions. These will all coordinate with the monthly theme of the newsletter. Note: You can receive each month’s newsletter by subscribing to the Handbook of Nature Study blog: Subscription Page.

Any more questions!

I hope this helps answer the frequently asked question about nature study planning for your family. Let me know if you have any other questions that I can answer in future posts!

Additional Help

You may like to have this page for your nature study goals.

Free Printable Nature Study Goals Planner Page

Tag: Planning

Planning Nature Study for the Year

Outdoor Hour Challenges for families since 2008!