Tag: Prairie

Prairie Wildlife Study with Printables

If you live in the prairies of North America or are interested in learning more about this rich and valuable habitat, you’re going to be excited about the featured book for this month’s nature book club link-up. America’s Prairies and Grasslands-A Guide to Plants and Animals by Marianne D. Wallace describes that unique habitat with words and beautiful pictures. I’m eager to share this incredible resource on prairie wildlife that our family has used and loved.

Here’s the book I’m featuring: America’s Prairies and Grasslands.

You can look for it at your public library or it’s available from Amazon (Note that I’m an Amazon affiliate and there are affiliate links in this entry).

Using America’s Prairies and Grasslands in Your Nature Study

I love the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock but she wrote the book featuring plants and animals of her local habitat in upstate New York. Many of us live in very different habitats and to supplement our nature study we draw on other resources that talk about plants and animals we see in our neighborhoods.

America’s Prairies and Grasslands will appeal to many families because it helps us look deeper into things we see every day and maybe don’t appreciate.

This book uses maps to show where different prairies and grasslands are located in the United States. Visual spatial learners will benefit by looking at the maps or even recreating them in their nature journals. When I was homeschooling my boys, I always appreciated the opportunities to draw connections between different academic subjects and using geography alongside your nature study will make it more meaningful.

How to Use This Book for Nature Study

A great way to use this book is to go through each of the six major grasslands one at a time: tallgrass prairie, mixed-grass prairie, shortgrass prairie, Palous prairie, California Valley grassland, and semidesert grassland.

For each of the six grasslands, you can do the following steps.

1. Read the narrative.
2. Look at the map.
3. Look at the two page colored illustration.
4. Pick a plant or animal to learn more about using information in the back of the book, your own nature library, or online resources.
5. Wrap up your study with a nature journal page (see below).

Take a week for each grassland or if you live in a particular grassland, why not stretch it to an entire school year by taking a plant or animal each week? Use the index in the back of the book to see just how many topics you find of interest to your family. Check the Handbook of Nature Study website using the tabs at the top to find any Outdoor Hour Challenges for selected topics to use alongside the America’s Prairies and Grasslands book.

I’ve created this set of six notebooking pages to use with your prairies and grasslands studies.

Member’s Benefit: Members here on the Handbook of Nature Study will have unlimited access in their printable library. (See how to purchase a membership here: Ultimate Naturalist Library.)

 

Prairie Wildlife Study with Printables

Member’s Benefit: In addition, members here on the Handbook of Nature Study have access to several notebooking pages in their printables library that will be helpful in a study of prairie wildlife. Learn more about purchasing a Ultimate Naturalist Library membership here: Join Us!

***New! Prairie Wildflowers and Animals Clipart set

***Look for the pages for bison, pronghorn, coyotes, elk, rattlesnakes, and deer.

Want to study a different habitat?

This book is one in a series of books that teach about the various habitats of the world. I own several of them and use them as references in my nature writing. Here are the other habitats you can read about: deserts, forests, mountains, seashores, and wetlands.

Make sure to subscribe to my blog to follow along with our weekly nature study activities.

 

Here are the co-hosts, their choices of books, and activities for the month:

Notebooking Pages based on The Prairie That Nature Built from Jenny at Faith and Good Works

Nature Journaling based on Wildflowers of Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks: A Guide to Common & Notable Species from Eva at Eva Varga

Online Nature Book Course based on The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush from Dachelle at Hide The Chocolate

Flower Suncatchers for Toddlers and Preschoolers based on Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America from Erika at The Playful Scholar

Flower Printable Pack based on Prairie Flowers: Learning Activities and Lessons to Inspire Creativity! from Sharla of Minnesota Country Girl

Flower Paintbrushes based on The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush from Cassidy at Freshly Planted

Sunflower Decoupage Vase based on The Sunflower House from Katrina at Rule This Roost

Prairie Wildflower Identification Hike from Thaleia at Something 2 Offer

 

Past Month’s Themes:

• January 2018 – Winter Birds
• February 2018 – Mammal Tracks
• March 2018 – My Favorite Tree
• April 2018 – Birds, Nests, and Eggs
• May 2018 – Wildflowers
• June 2018 – Nature Walks
• July 2018 – Seashore Observations
• August 2018 – Pond Study

Link Up Guidelines

• Choose an engaging nature book, do a craft or activity, and add your post to our monthly link up.
• The link up party goes live at 9:00 a.m. EST on the 20th of each month and stays open until the last day of the month. Hurry to add your links!
• You can link up to 3 posts. Please do not link up advertising posts, advertise other link up parties, your store, or non-related blog posts. They will be removed.
• By linking up with us, you agree for us to share your images and give you credit of course if we feature posts.