Nature Study suggestions

I like the ideas already given.

The Handbook of Nature Study is a great parental guide. It contains many, many of Charlotte Mason’s ideas and thoughts on the importance of nature study and includes ideas on how to implement it into your life. Great book to read to get the WHY’s. Outdoor Secrets will be better enjoyed when he is older.

When your children are this young, going out to the yard or park and just learning to look for things is wonderful. You can get some great early science readers from the library to read about the things you are seeing. You really don’t need a formal curriculum for this! Have a field guide for birds, animals, insects, trees, and flowers available as you are out and about. Some of the first ones we used were the Take a Walk series from Amazon. They were lightweight and very encouraging. We like to use our state’s Department of Conservation resources as well. Another book that is fun is Nature’s Notes by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards (brother and sister duo).

Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be. You can be learning the names of things while he is playing, too. That will give you confidence.

Check out “Hours in the out-of-doors” by scm.

We are focusing on Nature Study this year, and I have lots of good resources that I’m reading for myself before I’m letting the kids at it. But two things the kids are doing is 1) spending lots of time outside and 2) filling out bird, insect, and flower charts that I downloaded from the Wildlowers and Marbles blog. I can’t seem to cut and paste, so if you do a search for “wildflowersandmarbles” and “notebooking acquiring habits” you should find the blog post where she links to the beautiful charts that she has made.

I’ll be the odd one out and suggest you consider Outdoor Secrets (not the companion yet) IF you son listens to read-alouds already.  My first listened to the whole Little House series the year he was 3 and he would have loved OS.  My other three weren’t ready to listen to stories that young.  The chapters aren’t as long as a Little House chapter but they are several pages.  But they are very, very sweet and appropriate for a young child if they are willing to listen.  If you went that route, I’d say to just read the stories gently and expect to read them again in a year or two if you wanted to do the Companion book along with it.  My family did not get much out of the Companion book except for some great suggestions for other books to read on the theme of the OS story.  We seem to be rare in that we didn’t use the Companion but it is just a style thing. 

I sold our OS when we were finished with it and I’ve regreted it since!  I do wish it was offered in a hardback version bc I think it would be much better suited that way.

Enjoy!