SPRING. . .is Here!!

   Are you having Spring fever yet? I am!  It affects everything I do and don’t do.  I’m itching to get outside into the sunshine and it’s hard to think of homeschooling right now.  I don’t want to be inside with text books and papers. I want to be outside with the signing birds and budding trees.

     How can we combine these two things?  How about a Nature Notebook? There are a lot of great sites on the web about doing a Nature Notebook with your children. There is also a good book that I read by a homeschool Mom about doing nature studies.  The name of this book is, “Pocket Full of Pinecones” by Karen Andreola. I highly recommend this book to any homeschool Mom even if you aren’t going to do a nature notebook or study.   It’s an inspiring read from the point of view of a homeschool Mom.

     Other ideas for getting our children out into nature is to take them to the park and let them do their school work there – with the reward of playing after their lessons are done.  For their Nature Notebook, they can observe birds, leaves, flowers and other things.  Have them draw what they see and write a few short sentences about it. If your children aren’t inclined to draw, take your digital camera and take pictures of these things to paste in a notebook. You can even go through magazines and find things your children have seen and let them cut them out and make a notebook that way. 

     For older children like mine, we have taken a field trip up to Mingus Mountain and trekked through the woods in search of wildlife and nature.  We’ve collected leaves, drawn wildlife and taken pictures.  I don’t know how much my children appreciate these endeavors now, but there will be a time when they look back on their notebook and remember the wonderful times we all spent together. 

     For looking up information about what you’ve seen, there are several books that you can use.  One of my favorites is Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study

and  Audubon Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders and Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds.  There are a lot of other books, too. It’s Spring – get out and enjoy it!!

                   2007  Julie Danielson