Family Focused Nature Studies (+ Free Free Cricket Unit and Nature Study!)

My family loves nature, they love creation and animals. Early in my homeschool journey, I decided I wanted my children to do nature studies.

I purchased many books, art supplies, sketch books and more than all the websites/books said we would need. However, that soon squelched all the joy in nature out of them.

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See, I had read so much, gotten so involved that our children nearly lost all interest. I was trying to get preschool and early elementary students to do these in depth planned nature studies that were killing their interest and love for learning. These studies were full of art, reading and more.

I backed off and soon came up with another plan. We soon started doing nature studies and my children had no idea that we were. We would go outside and see what God put in our path. We took pictures of the plants, animals, and other nature things and soon started building our own form of nature studies.

It wasn’t long and even my husband was calling to send us off on nature adventures. Now, 10 years later and my family all still love to family focused nature studies. Most are more animal focused, loving snakes and other herps. We don’t take quite as many pictures as we used to. (hard drives were filled to the brim)

Where to find nature?

Nature is everywhere… It could be in your home as house plants. In your fridge as mold. In your back yard, at the park, in a field or a ditch along the road. At the zoo, in a pond, a mud puddle, the ocean, a tide pool, in your garden. Nature is everywhere.

How to study nature…

Observation. You will notice my kiddos will catch snakes. If my boys see a snake, you can bet their shirt is flying off and they will catch it. They learned at an early age to ID snakes.

Please, if you plan to take your children out to hunt for snakes, teach them to identify them first. We visited various wildlife museums to get the hang of identifying them.

Rather than filling out a lot of pages and such after observing nature, we will discuss it as a family over meals, during our road trips and such.

We have numerous field guides and other books to help us learn more about the creation we come to find. Not all those purchases so many years ago went to waste.

During the winter we like to find unit studies and other things to do when it is too cold out. This keeps us learning and covers most all of our science needs in our homeschool.

Getting your family involved in nature studies will help build strong relationships and lots of learning opportunities. My oldest now has several hives of bees, from one of our studies early on in our homeschool years.  Learn more about our family focused nature studies at my blog. 

 

Grab Your Free Cricket Unit and Nature Study!! 

Here is your very own FREE cricket unit and nature study to get you started! 

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Betty from Peace Creek on the Prairie is a Christian Farmwife and homeschooling mom to seven children. She stays busy helping on the farm driving trucks during harvest, helping with their grass fed beef cow herd, and running for parts for their farm equipment. For their homeschool, they do a lot of lifestyle of learning and delight directed with a few text and workbooks thrown in. You can find her in the kitchen whipping cooked from scratch meals, and reading aloud to her children when not helping on the farm.