Organizing nature study so it gets done or How to waste time planning because it's fun

A friend of mine recently asked for ideas on how to implement nature study into her homeschool, and though we have taken a bit of a "nature break" during the winter (because winter is for wishing it was spring), I thought I would share how we fit it into our days last fall.

Before the 2009-2010 school year got underway, I decided that this year, this year, I was GOING to do nature study with my kids if it killed me. It's not that I dislike nature study at all, it was just hard to fit it in and make it part of the rhythm of our weeks. After math, history, grammar, writing, spelling, geography, herbology, reflexology, art, French, Latin, music, dog care, physical education, reading, dictation, narration, and too-much-information, fitting a nice nature walk into the mix seems a lot to ask of a mom. Actually, I really don't require all those subjects (yet), and we don't do every single subject on the list every single day. But still.

Anyway, like most homeschoolers who begin drooling at the mention of a freshly sharpened pencil and new smelling books before a new school year begins (and who, also like most homeschoolers, begin drooling at the thought of summer break right about the beginning of October), I was determined this year to Have A Plan for our nature study. I remember taking my brand new organizer and an armful of library books for inspiration and ideas out back with me and spending several hours on choosing just what we would do each Friday for this most exciting subject. I even scheduled in crafty things like making an acorn wreath and a peanut butter bird feeder. I was determined!

Then I found Barb's blog.

Then I pulled out my hair follicles because I liked her plans better. Much better! In fact, they were what I was trying to pull together myself, only easier and with a lot less glue. And anyone who knows me knows, if it means less glue, I'm all over it.

So began our Autumn Nature Study.

Barb has put together such an amazing resource! There are so many wonderful finds on the sidebar - from ideas for which field guides to use, to free notebook pages, to how to get started. When challenges are completed, she encourages you to blog about it and link back to her webpage. This is such a great idea because not only is it inspiring reading about other families who did the same challenge, but for moral support in keeping up with it as well. I'm really looking forward to doing the spring challenges and the only thing I'm going to do differently this time around is start my own nature journal! :) It is truly a breath of fresh air (literally and figuratively) to be outdoors and observing God's amazing creation. We all find it such an enriching time.

Anyway, I'm getting off track here...

In order to make sure I implemented the weekly lessons, I put together a binder using the logo of the Autumn Nature Series.

Because it was fun.
























And I even did the logo on the side.


















Impressive eh?

Anyway, then for the first page I put a copy of the challenge for that week so I could refer to it when I was away from the computer, like, out in nature or somethin'.




















Because I don't have a copy of Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study, I used the online version and photocopied the pages we were supposed to read before doing that week's lesson (free to the public). You can find the link to that also on Barb's blog.


















Finally, I put in the copies of the notebook pages Barb created for that particular lesson in a folder tucked in back so that I had them handy when the kids were ready to do them.



















And that's all there is to it!

I only blogged about 2 of our challenges because, well, I'm a really lousy blogger. But we DID accomplish several nature walks this year so far, and having all the tools to do it already planned out for us made it almost effortless.

Now, if only we could keep up with math...

Just kidding!