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Nature Study Plan
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I am wondering what everyone else’s plan for nature study is for this year. Our nature study looks a lot different then the past two years. We will be focusing more on close by urban nature and this year we have a family nature notebook instead of individual journals. Here a more detailed description. I hope other share what they are doing this year!
http://pupsplanesprogeny.blogspot.com/2015/09/this-year.html
Thanks for sharing this!
Our nature study plans always seem to be a work in progress. I really like some of the simple ideas that you used to make it work for your family right now. 🙂
Thanks for sharing. I posted a comment to your blog, but it may not show up. I like your adaptation to this season of life.
Kelly,
We go on Fridays. I’m (hopefully) starting a book club for both the Monday and Friday groups. It will meet on Mondays– hope you can come. Also a friend is starting a Destination Imagination team that is for both Friday and Monday groups, if you interested. 🙂
For Nature this year I am having my kids do it more independently. I assign it and go on a nature walk if necessary and they show me the work when completed. (It is just done this way because of my busy schedule ). Some of the lessons this year are water lilies, woodland sunflowers, spiders (is this week’s lesson), snowflakes, wood peckers and tracks in the snow. That’s all I can remember right now. I just made a list and am going with that. I try to keep things simple.
Lindsey – I was the Monday parent who came to your last meeting and remember talking about that. Very cool! I’ll probably see you around for some of the activities. 🙂
Kristin,
I like your idea for a list of topics. How do you use it? Do the kids look for those things, do you have them look up information about them? I was thinking of also having a “bird of the month” that we would learn the call for, learn about their nesting, migration, etc. Not sure I’ll get to it this year, but I thought it might be fun.
I picked 3 topics to focus on this year. We’ll take advantage of anything outside these topics if we see something really neat, but I’m planning some studies around these 3 areas. We’ve been getting our the Handbook of Nature Study when we do object lessons.
Birds
- SCM Burgess bird study–so far this has been a great study!
- Bird Watchers & Bird Feeders–a living book we are currently reading
- Chipmunks on the Doorstep–another living book, which isn’t about birds, but we have chipmunks hanging around our yard and watch them as well.
- build a birdhouse–I’ve had a kit for this sitting in our closet for a couple years!
- keep up with the bird feeders and add a birdbath this spring, I’d also like to make some peanut butter pine cone feeders (I have a bag of pine cones waiting on our bookcase). lol
- Listen to bird calls on CD and look up birds in our nature guide–we usually listen to the CD as they come up in our Burgess study
- keep a “birds spotted” list
Night Sky
- 365 Starry Nights–this book shows what’s in the sky for each day of the year
- get out our telescope or just look at the stars and learn a few constellations, I’m aiming for once a month
- observe the moon and it’s different stages
- observe any night sky happenings for the year…although these almost always seem to happen on cloudy nights. 🙁 I’ve subscribed to Jay Ryan’s emails (classicalastronomy.com) for notices of these. We observed Venus and Jupiter when they were close together this past summer.
Trees
- Trees & Shrubs by Arabella Buckley–we are currently enjoying this book.
- Woods Walk–this book has a bit about trees, insects, flowers, and animals found in wooded areas
- “Adopt a Tree” to draw/observe throughout the year
- Fir tree study this winter–I think it’d be nice to go to a tree farm and observe the different types of Christmas trees.
- Collect leaves, seeds, trees, bark rubbings, etc. from different trees…I think this would be fun to make a display of some sort for!
I try to make notes of ideas in my lesson planner as they come up in our readings or lessons. I also like the book Natural Science Through the Seasons for ideas. My goal is to hit each area at least once a month for our object lessons/nature study/handicrafts.
Lindsey;
I wrote up the list with instructions so the kids know what I expect for the lesson. This weeks lesson looks like this: Read pgs 436-444 in the Handbook of Nature Study on spiders and webs. What kind of web can you find in or near the house? What kind of spider built it? Draw a picture of the web in your nature notebook. Watch; Spider Building a web on YouTube.
The next lesson is on fall bird migration. Choose a migratory bird, map its’ route, draw and color a picture of the bird. Write its’ common and Latin name.
Draw a picture of a deciduous tree. Write where it is located, what kind it is, its Latin name, what it can be used for and why you like it. Draw it again in autumn, winter and spring.
Draw and color a pumpkin. Write a poem about it.
Study tree shapes and bark. Draw the tree. Do a bark rubbing. What kind of tree is it? Don’t forget the Latin name!
Some other things we are covering are; a year long Big Dipper Study, pinecones, animal tracks, observe a bird at the feeder (we don’t get many birds since we moved to town; we get one Chickadee and a Nuthatch, that is it. Maybe a Downy Woodpecker once in a while.) Look for icicles, describe them and write a haiku about them. Moon phases for a month, We will go for a silent nature hike also and describe what we hear. This will be hard as my almost 8 yr old cannot keep quiet!
LindseyS and Kelley,
I live in Evergreen just west of Denver so if you ever want to do an excursion up here I’d love to host you or just point you in the direction of a great hike or nature activity. There’s so much to see this time of year up here. We had a herd of elk in our backyard Monday night. We could hear the buck bugling during breakfast and clacking his antlers against a tree. Later we walked to the back of our property and saw about 10 places where the grass was matted down for them to sleep. The aspens are turning gold too which is so cool to see this time of year.
I would love to meet another CM family so let me know if you are ever interested! 🙂
Anna
That’s so generous of you, Anna! Thank you! I may take you up on that. Feel free to email me: KelleyMKlor@gmail.com.
Wow HollyS that is great. Most of you seem very specific. Maybe that comes with experience? We are Y1 and I haven’t an idea of what to do with nature study. I love the idea. Last year we just went for walks and talked about whatever we saw. I did get them to draw a bit near the end of the year. This year I really want to do something with the night sky since we’ll be doing a unit study on space later in the year. But otherwise I’m not sure. Theme? Activities or just drawing? I’m kinda lost.
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