Suggestions for homeschool group nature study

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  • November 21, 2013 at 2:32 pm
    mtnmama
    Participant

    Our homeschool group is planning to do a weekly nature study class from January-April. I’d love your suggestions for activities and books to use. We have three classes, divided by age: 4-6yr. olds/ 8yr. olds/ 9-11yr. olds

     

     

    November 21, 2013 at 4:39 pm
    missceegee
    Participant

    I will send info on how my CM co-op does it later today. Essentially, we spend 3 weeks per topic with specimens brought in and every 4th week take a nature walk around the church campus. More details later.

    November 21, 2013 at 9:36 pm
    Sara B.
    Participant

    Are you going on a nature walk, or just a nature study?

    Our old co-op did a nature study, and they brought in something specific every week.  They would tell a little about it (pussy willows, for example), where they found it, and then the kids drew it.

    Our current co-op does a nature walk every other week.  We go to different outdoors places – parks, nature centers, etc – and just walk.  The kids each choose something to draw.  If it’s too cold to draw outside, we just bring it with us (this means we can’t draw a whole tree or a bird or what-have-you).  We don’t tell them what to choose, but we may offer suggestions if they can’t think of something on their own.

    November 21, 2013 at 11:01 pm
    Tecrz1
    Participant

    I led a nature group/class for our co-op last year. Some of my classes:

    1) A nature scavenger hunt (big hit!!)

    2) a tree study using the notebook page from The. Handbook of Nature Study blog.

    3) the “square foot” study where we marked off a square foot of ground with string and journaled everything we found in it.

    4) one cold rainy day we did a pumpkin study and each family brought a pumpkin and we used another notebook page from the blog as we cut open the pumpkins and examined them and filled out our page. We cleaned the seeds and sent home directions for how to roast them.

    5) we went on a nature walk and collected leaves to make leaf rubbings. We identified the trees the came from and labeled the rubbings

    6) We started a bird counting list

    Don’t discount simply doing a nature walk. We would walk the area around the church and collect leaves, flowers, caterpillars, etc. I would just let them do their own thing and something would spark. We ended spending quite a bit of time on caterpillars that wasn’t planned, and one damp morning we identified several types of mushrooms. Each walk was memorable in some way. During one when I took the whole group down to see two horses in a corral my kids and I often visited and one of the horses escaped and followed us halfway back to the church before we found someone to help catch her lol. The kids talked about that for the longest time!

    All the families pooled their field guides, binoculars, magnifying glasses, viewing containers, etc. that helped a lot.

    Tara

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