When homeschooling, you have to opportunity to experience explore science rather than to hear and read about it. Instead of learning passively about nature, it makes more sense to take a walk with a notebook and a pencil and discover science instead. Here are some activities you can do that will help you get started on your journey.
Study plants: While going on a walk, you can collect leaves while discussing why they change colors. Introduce the words chlorophyll and photosynthesis into the child’s vocabulary and further explain how plants take in carbon dioxide, which we breathe out, and give us oxygen to breathe in. Have them write down key words in a nature book. When they get home, they can look up the concepts further, and glue the leaves, which you can preserve in a Ziploc bag, into their books. They can also tape pictures taken on their nature walk into their books.
Nature study words
• Photosynthesis: The process in green plants where carbohydrates (or food) are made from carbon dioxide and water using light for its energy source while releasing oxygen
• Chlorophyll: the waxy green substance found in plants that give them their color
• Oxygen: a colorless tasteless odorless gas that we need to breathe
• Carbon dioxide: a colorless tasteless odorless gas that we breathe out
Study insects and reptiles: On your next walk, you can bring a magnifying glass in addition to your nature journal. Keep a watchful eye out for insects like ants, caterpillars, and butterflies and worms. Also, look for non-dangerous snakes, frogs, and lizards. Observe then closely. Point out the skeletal structure of the insects and their body parts like the thorax, head, and abdomen. Also discuss that lizards are cold blooded and why and how they shed their skin and grow back missing body parts. If you see caterpillars and butterflies you can discuss how they make transform by forming a cocoon. This could serve as a separate nature walk by itself, and you can take pictures of butterflies for your journal.
Insect and reptile study words:
• Exoskeleton: the exterior protective or supporting structure or shell of many animals
• Thorax: middle of the three body regions of an adult insect composed THAT bears three pairs of legs usually two pairs of wings
• Abdomen: the last of the three body parts of an adult insect that bears the reproductive system
Study Weather: It is only natural to discuss weather on a nature walk. Pick a pleasant but cloudy day to point out different types of clouds in the sky like cirrus clouds, for example. Take this opportunity to discuss the cycle of water and to discuss evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
Weather study words:
• Condensation: When gas vapor changes into a liquid
• Evaporation: The when water transforms into a vapor and mixes with the air
• Precipitation: When water falls to the ground in the form or rain, sleet, or snow
• Cirrus cloud: cirrus clouds are made of ice crystals from the freezing of water droplets. They generally occur in fair weather and point in the direction of air movement.
• Cumulonimbus cloud: consist mostly of water droplets at lower elevations, but at higher elevations below 0 degrees Celsius, they are mostly ice crystals.
Study Pollution: While walking, point out any litter on the ground. Discuss how this interferes with nature and affects animals and their habitats. You can further discuss the effect on the food chain of companies putting chemicals into the water. Make a special date with the child to do a community clean up where you can further solidify human being’s responsibility to the environment.
Pollution study words:
• Food chain: how plants and animals are linked together. Small animals eat plants, and larger animals eat smaller animals. Therefore, anything in the environment that affects the smaller animal, also affects the larger animal.
• Habitat: the place where a plant or animal naturally lives
This may sound like a lot of information for a parent to give a child, not to mention for a parent to remember. If it makes your job easier, print out cheat sheets before each walk. On each walk focus on one specific area, and go places that would best demonstrate your topic. Your long time goal with these nature walks is to have the child observe nature on their own, collect items, then go home and study them further.
