nature walk

Green leaves with red berries covered in snow

Nature Study in the Winter

Brrrr – it’s cold outside! Winter is in full swing. This might seem like a silly time to suggest taking a nature walk, but creation doesn’t stop singing just because the temperatures are cold! In fact, winter is an awesome time for viewing things that we might miss other times of the year. Nature Study…

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…

A Busy Animal

We came across this little scene in our yard the other day – some sweet little animal is busily preparing for winter! A few days later, this is what we found in the same tree cavity! It was so full of hickory nuts that I asked my children if they had stuffed the hole.  Everyone…

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…

Teaching Computer Skills

Children of the 21st century simply must be knowledgeable about and capable with computers.  Besides typing programs and internet research,  I like to assign occasional projects that are computer-based.  I thought you might like to see the most recent projects… Writing is something that Caleb does NOT like.  But, when the writing is (at least…

Parts of a Flower

While Mahayla takes a formal, high school biology class this year, Caleb (6th grade) and I (along with the interested 4-year-old) are studying biology using a variety of resources like Considering God’s Creation, Lyrical Life Science, Vol. 1 and, of course, NaturExplorers studies. Botany has been first on our list and we’ve been having so…