autumn

Cove Springs Nature Walk

While we love simple nature walks around our home, we also love taking the time once a month (sometimes more often) to go somewhere interesting for nature study.  This post highlights our autumn walk through the wetland trails of Cove Springs in Frankfort, KY.  What a beautiful afternoon! We were blessed to have my parents…

Preschool leaf activity image with colorful leaves in the background

Preschool Leaf Study

It’s autumn and time to have a little leaf fun with your preschoolers and kindergarteners! The Colors of Autumn in Play Dough After observing the changing colored leaves on trees, let your little ones create their own autumn trees from play dough or clay.  You might even use some autumn scented play dough. Perimeter with…

Collage of summer nature including trees, yellow flowers, butterflies, dandelions, and more.

Early Fall Nature Studies

Early Fall Nature Studies are FUN! Early autumn is such a wonderful time of the year for nature studies!  The crispness in the air keeps walks comfortable, while the scenery abounds with exciting treasures to find. Believe it or not, the photos in all of the collages were taken during only one short woodland walk! …

Fungi Study

I told you I’ve been slacking on my posts!  Four botany study posts in four days doesn’t mean we’ve been studying botany in such depth every day.  In fact, each topic took us at least a week to cover.  Today’s post is about one of the lessons spent learning about fungi. After some activities from…

Conifer Study

Caleb (and Eli) and I have been so loving our study of botany!  This post highlights one of our activities as we learned about gymnosperms, particularly conifers. Gymnosperms are plants with “naked seeds” that aren’t housed inside a fruit.  Conifers (cone-bearing plants) are an example of a gymnosperm. During this lesson, we had collected various…

Studying Trees

In continuing our middle school botany study, we’ve been studying trees.  A lot.  Most of the activities we’ve done have come from the Delightful Deciduous Trees NaturExplorers study. One super-interesting nature walk activity was finding the tap root (main root that grows straight down), lateral roots (large roots that grow outward or laterally) and fibrous…

Late Fall Fun

Not every nature walk has to be serious! Let your children take the lead during nature study often. It might not be just the thing you would’ve planned, but it will be exciting and worthy nonetheless.

Green caterpillar with a bunch of little white eggs stuck to it.

It’s Caterpillar Season…

(This post contains links to my products.) It’s caterpillar and butterfly season, but those fast and furious butterflies won’t sit still long enough for me to snap a picture! Caterpillars love cameras. On a recent walk with my hubby – alone (do you know how precious a nature walk alone with my husband is?? )…

Animal Signs Walk

Late Autumn and Winter (before everything is covered by snow) is one of our favorite times to search the woods for signs of animals. It’s funny I’m posting this today as we’re covered by about 5 inches of snow, but here’s a peek into our walk a week or two ago. There are wonderful nature…

Fun Fall Afternoons

Autumn afternoons are full of free time fun (and learning) for my children.  Below are just a few pictures from recent days. Mahayla spends countless hours caring for her horses and pony.  She’s recently learned how to braid horse hair in various styles. Another of Mahayla’s afternoon activities is photography.  Eli happens to be her…