Friends, it's time for another peek into the real life study of nature! In this post, you'll see how easily Amber Oliver and her children were able to explore and discover wildflowers through an interest-based nature study. I'm a big believer in letting our children have a say in their schooling once in a while. It's highly motivating for kiddos to make decisions and helps them take real ownership in the learning. Besides allowing her children to take part in the planning of which wildflower activities their family would complete, Amber was also great at incorporating lessons that support their passions and learning styles. Again, this promotes excitement in the learning ... Read More
Free Nature in Your Notebook Winter Printables
One of the best ways to perk up the school year during the winter is to get outside. Yes, you heard right - get outside! I know it's cold, but I also know what "going stir crazy" feels like and how {even cold weather} nature walks can rejuvenate the spirit. Not to mention, there's a world of nature waiting to be studied during the winter! Nature in Your Notebook To get you started in your nature explorations, I've created THREE fun notebooking pages that will guide you on walks from Valentine's Day through those first sweet signs of spring. To download them, simply click on the graphics. Lovely Winter Walk: Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so how about ... Read More
A Nature Study Photography Project For Any Age
(This post contains links to my products.) Wildflowers make me happy. Of all the treasures of nature, nothing brings quite the smile to my face and peace to my heart as wildflowers. All flowers are beautiful, but there's just something about the flowers that weren't planted by the hands of a human that make God seem just a little bit closer. This spring (after an incredibly long winter) it seemed as if all the flowers that ever grow in our yard burst forth in bloom at once. We have filled our farm yard with plenty of fruit trees and other brightly flowering trees and a few perennials that don't count as wildflowers. But, before the first lawn cutting, the yard also happens to be ... Read More
Nature Study – Wildflowers
Welcome to my 10 Days Series on the topic of nature study! Each of the ten days brings you a creative nature walk idea and a fun follow-up activity to spark your enthusiasm for nature study today! (This post contains affiliate links and links to my business website, Shining Dawn Books.) Why study nature? The answer is more serious than you might think. Today's nature study: Wildflowers This post contains affiliate links. Creative Walk: As you search for wildflowers today, you'll closely observe each flower type to decide whether it's a monocot or a dicot. Monocots and dicots are determined by the number of cotyledons inside the seed. (The little tiny leaves present when you ... Read More
Nature In Your Notebook Printables
One of the best ways to perk up the school year during the winter is to get outside. Yes, you heard right - get outside! I know it's cold, but I also know what "going stir crazy" feels like and how {even cold weather} nature walks can rejuvenate the spirit. Not to mention, there's a world of nature waiting to be studied during the winter! Nature in Your Notebook To get you started in your nature explorations, I've created THREE fun notebooking pages that will guide you on walks from Valentine's Day through those first sweet signs of spring. To download them, simply click on the graphics. Lovely Winter Walk: Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so how about ... Read More
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 much fun learning the in-depth ins and outs of various plant types. In the lesson below, we were studying the functions of a flower. The activities came from the Wonderful Wildflowers NaturExplorers study. (The Reason for a Flower by Ruth Heller is a great kick-off book for this type of lesson.) Isn't science great ... Read More
An Abundance of Wildflowers
My children and I have just ended a wonderful month of nature study focused on wildflowers. Wonderful, beautiful, magnificent wildflowers. I could go on and on about my feelings toward wildflowers, but I'll spare you the gushy words! I've already posted about our scavenger hunt and dissections. I hope you'll take a peek if you're planning to study wildflowers anytime soon. To end the study, we went on a short walk to the back of our farm. The goal was to see how many wildflowers we could find and how many of those we could identify. In about 500 feet, we tallied 30 types of wildflowers! Considering it's late August and many of the flowers are gone already, I was amazed! After ... Read More
Ending our Month Spent with Wildflowers
I admit that wildflowers are quite possibly my favorite of all nature studies. I'm always in awe of God's creativeness, beauty and majesty through such delicate little things like wildflowers. I'm also amazed at how each season presents me with new flowers that I've never noticed before - each with awesome characteristics that are different from any other flower. A field of wildflowers can move me, while a single wildflower observed closely makes me marvel at the constant, yet diverse design that makes a flower a flower. And to think that wildflowers are "planted by God" reminds me that He cares about me enough to bring me flowers! Last week, we took a very up-close and personal ... Read More
Wildflower Studies
This month's nature study is focusing on wildflowers. Our farm is just abundant with wildflowers this time of year! During last week's study, we placed a blanket among a field full of wildflowers to read books and praise the Lord for His magnificent beauty. Afterward, I sent the kids off on a scavenger hunt. They had a ball running around the field trying to check off each and every item. After the scavenger hunt, each of the big kids had to go in search of one flower that was new to them to bring back to the blanket. They had to identify it and write down various characteristics and information on a notebooking page. As usual, we had such a lovely time ... Read More
Manet, Pachelbel and Wildflowers
Our first Fine Arts Tuesday has come and gone. What a lovely day it was! We will soon be listening to Peggy's Violin: A Butterfly in Time(which is a wonderful story of the life of a violin, by the way!) Woven into the story are several classical music pieces by famous composers. One of the first is "Canon" by Pachelbel. Before heading downstairs for our artist tea, we listened to "Canon" on the computer. The kids were very excited to know this piece was played at my wedding! Then we headed downstairs for some peppermint tea and cookies. We did a picture study of "Lilacs in a Vase" by Manet. After a brief biography session, we used the idea from Discovering Great Artists: ... Read More