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Math in Nature

Original price was: $20.00.Current price is: $10.00.

Inspire your children to see math in the world around them. This nature-based curriculum for 1st–8th graders uses eight engaging lessons to explore shapes, patterns, and mathematical concepts found in nature. With real-life connections and cross-curricular activities, it’s a meaningful way to spark curiosity and make math come alive through nature study.

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Math in Nature: Shapes and Patterns

A Nature-Based Science Study That Brings Geometry to Life

Give your children a fresh perspective on math by exploring it through the beauty of nature. With Math in Nature: Shapes and Patterns, your 1st–8th graders will be fascinated to find shapes, symmetry, patterns, and sequences in pinecones, spiderwebs, seashells, and more.

These eight engaging lessons connect science, observation, and geometry in a way that feels meaningful and memorable. It’s not your typical math or science curriculum – it’s a hands-on study that makes connections across disciplines and opens your children’s eyes to the world around them.

Whether you’re creatively reinforcing geometry, adding depth to your nature study, or just looking for science that’s refreshingly different, this guide will meet your needs with ease and joy.

What Makes This Curriculum Special

Real-Life Math Kids Can See and Touch

Children often ask, “When will I ever use this?” This guide answers that question. Every lesson helps them spot patterns, shapes, and symmetry in nature, making abstract math ideas come to life.

Designed for 1st–8th Graders

Whether you’re teaching one child or several, these lessons work beautifully across multiple ages and abilities. With suggested adaptations, you can simplify or stretch the learning to suit your family’s needs.

Deep Learning, Joyfully Taught

Each of the eight lessons weaves together science, math, and critical thinking, encouraging your children to observe closely, ask great questions, and make real connections. This is the heart of living math.

What Will Your Children Learn

Through captivating explorations and creative activities, your students will investigate:

  • 2-D and 3-D Shapes – Understand how basic and complex shapes appear in the natural world
  • Symmetry – Explore the beauty of balance in leaves, butterflies, and more
  • Patterns – Find repetition and rhythm in flowers, shells, and even animal markings
  • Tessellations – Discover how nature fits things together without gaps or overlaps
  • Fractals – Examine repeating patterns that get more intricate the closer you look
  • Fibonacci Sequence – Uncover this famous number sequence in pinecones, sunflowers, and beyond

Note: The final few lessons (fractals and Fibonacci) cover more advanced concepts. You can absolutely skip or simplify them for younger learners.

What’s Inside Each Lesson

This curriculum provides everything you need for approximately two months of flexible and engaging learning.

  • Clear Teaching Points – Kid-friendly explanations with just the right amount of challenge
  • Curated Book Suggestions – Living books that deepen understanding
  • YouTube Video Links – Visuals that support and extend the lesson
  • Nature Journaling Prompts – Encourage thoughtful observations
  • Hands-On Activities – Projects, art, and experiments that make learning stick
  • Kid-Friendly Research Ideas – Let curious minds dig a little deeper
  • Nature Walk Ideas – Practical prompts to take learning outdoors

Perfect for independent homeschooling, co-op settings, or kitchen table learning.

Why Homeschool Parents Love This Guide

“I couldn’t believe how quickly my kids started noticing patterns and shapes in nature. They were pointing things out on walks, at the park, even at the grocery store.” ~Dani, homeschool mom of 2

Digital and Ready to Go

This is a digital product. No shipping. No waiting. You’ll get instant access and can start teaching today.

Let Nature Make Math Magical

When your children start spotting spirals in seashells and symmetry in sunflowers, you’ll know: math doesn’t have to be dry or difficult. It can be meaningful and even exciting.

✏️ Do you need to see how this curriculum aligns with standards? Download the standards alignment sheet here.

Charter-Friendly

Format

PDF

Grade Level

1st-8th Grades

Is Printing Necessary?

No

Pages

36

Frequently Asked Questions

Each Nature Study Made Easy guide contains eight meaty lessons. Each lesson includes introductory material to read with the children. Follow-up learning for each lesson is based on the five “E”s – Extract, Explain, Engage, Elaborate, and Explore.

Extract – Books and YouTube videos are suggested for learning more.

Explain – This is a nature journaling activity.

Engage – This is a hands-on activity.

Elaborate – This is a kid-friendly research project.

Explore – This is a nature walk prompt.

It’s easy to pick and choose from the five “E”s to make the study as in-depth as you wish.

They are written with 1st-8th graders in mind and can be used with multiple ages together.

They can be! The unique thing about these guides is the amount of learning that can occur indoors—even though children are focused on nature study topics. Many of the activity ideas are also conducive to group work.

No, they work well for all types of homeschoolers. Because they are so flexible yet provide plenty of learning options, they can be used for almost any homeschooling situation. For example, some families may want to spend a week’s worth of morning time working on one small part of a lesson. Others may decide to use the lesson material as a full science curriculum. While others may decide to use the curriculum for a full day of nature club learning. The options are endless, but sample scheduling ideas come with each guide.

It’s entirely up to you and how you use it. One guide can last an entire semester if you open it once a week and work through most of the suggested material and activities. If you do a small portion of one lesson daily each week, a guide will last eight weeks. If you choose to cover one lesson per day (that would be really hard), a guide will last you eight days.

No. Because they rely heavily on indoor learning, they can be used worldwide. If you use the nature walk prompts, most can still be used wherever you live.

No worries! You can use 95% of the curriculum without leaving the house. The only exception is the nature walk prompt provided with each lesson. Otherwise, the rest of the learning is indoors.

Yes! They are religion-neutral and don’t discuss creation or evolution.

You can always email a picture or story to me at [email protected]. Better yet, share pictures of your adventures on social media and tag me @ourjourneywestward!

In regards to the downloadable curriculum and freebies on Our Journey Westward:

When purchasing a downloadable product, you are purchasing a license to use the product, not the product itself. The license is not transferable.

Each download is meant for single family use. You may keep a copy of the e-file on personal devices and print the file for personal use.

Please Don’t:

  • Share or link to the e-file directly; link to the blog post or product page instead.

  • Alter the e-files in any way.

  • Sell, distribute, or give away the e-files in any way.

  • Host an e-file on your website or upload it to a shared website.

A teacher of a co-op or classroom may use an e-file with her students. She may keep a copy of the e-file on personal devices and print it in its entirety for her use. She may make multiple copies of student pages as necessary.

She may not share the e-file with other teachers, even if they are team teachers. Each teacher needs to purchase her own copy of the curriculum file.

Please Don’t:

  • Share or link to the e-file directly; link to the blog post or product page instead.

  • Alter the e-files in any way.

  • Sell, distribute, or give away the e-files in any way.

  • Host an e-file on your website or upload it to a shared website.

Some folks enjoy creating additional notebook pages, worksheets, charts, etc., to accompany the NaturExplorers studies and other Our Journey Westward publications. The pages you create must only be used with your children and may NOT be sold for profit or shared with others (online or otherwise) as free enhancements, go-alongs, or otherwise.

While Our Journey Westward is pleased you enjoy our products and wish to create derivative materials, doing so without authorization violates copyright law. In other words, it is considered theft of intellectual property rights. We trust that you will understand the importance of this and thank you for your cooperation.

If you wish to create derivative materials for sale or as freebies, please contact us to discuss possible permission.

If unsatisfied with a PDF product, your entire purchase price will gladly be refunded. We only ask that you please request a refund within two weeks of purchase and delete the file from your computer. Thank you for respecting these terms. Please contact us for a refund that meets these criteria.

The following curricula meet the requirements of charter schools to remain neutral on religion.

The following professional development materials remain neutral on religion.

1 review for Math in Nature

  1. Melissa Brander

    My kids were so excited to do this study – and we were all SO fascinated by it.

    Like others in this series, I appreciated the ranking of resources from easy to hard, the variety of activities, and the close observations.

    Specifically in this study, we had SO much fun. Even though we weren’t able to access the Handbook of Nature Study through our library, we still got a lot out of this study. We loved doing things like going on a nature walk and looking for examples of symmetry. We still love to look back at the pictures we took that day. The book and video recommendations for this are especially excellent. There are tons of books especially, each one equally fascinating. It’s also very in depth on the math, but in an approachable way, covering the differences between 2D and 3D. There are even some art activities, with the symmetry drawing.

    We really appreciated this study – we all had so much fun and we all felt like we learned something, myself (mom) included!

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