Several moms in our homeschool group want to start a nature club but we have no idea where to begin with forming a club. Can you tell me a little about yours? Thanks for the help!

Thank you for your question Lecia and since this is a popular one I decided to write up a blog post entry about it.

This spring and summer will be my second time leading a nature club for our homeschool co-op, and I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am. Our nature club was a huge success last year and I truly loved leading it. As you probably know from my blog, I am very passionate about God’s creation and especially about sharing my love of it with others, and a nature club is an excellent way to do just that!

Here is my list of steps and recommendations for getting a club started:

Determine the interest level in your group. – Poll your group to see if you have a high enough interest level to make it worth officially forming a group. In my opinion, two or more families is great! These things have a tendency to grow quickly anyways once word gets out.

Determine a vision for how you want your nature club to be ran. – Would you like a more structured time including an appointed “leader/teacher” for each meeting and a focus topic for each meeting such as birds, wildflowers, etc? Or would you prefer a more relaxed club where you just meet and freely enjoy nature together? Again, you could poll your group to determine what the majority is looking for in the club. Determine if you want parental involvement to be mandatory at each meeting. I recommend this for a couple of reasons: parents will be responsible for their children and not the leader(s), and I highly believe in parents being involved with and connecting with their children in nature study.

If a more structured time is desired, appoint a leader or leaders who will steer the meetings, being sure the meetings stay on task to what is desired of them. – Perhaps all the members would be willing to take turns leading a meeting; however most often there are a small group of people who are “natural leaders” and/or are more knowledgeable on the subject of nature and will gladly do this. Or perhaps you will determine that having just one leader/teacher works fine too.

Determine the frequency of your meetings and the topics and locations. How many times a month will you meet? Will you meet year round or only in the warmer months? Where are the places you could meet? Make a list of local parks or other locations that your club could meet. After doing all of the previous, make a list of the dates you will be meeting and locations where you will be meeting. Decide what you will do in the case of inclement weather. Will you reschedule?

After determining this, and if you chose to make your meetings a little more structured, make a list of topics your group would like to see covered throughout these meetings. When you are picking topics, match appropriate locations that would work well. For instance, a particular park may have huge wildflower fields that would make it perfect for a wildflower focused meeting. Or another park may have a beautiful creek which would make it perfect for a creek focused meeting. When determining what to teach on the focus subjects that you will be covering keep in mind the NaturExplorers unit studies at Shining Dawn Books each have a section dedicated to giving you ideas of things to do with Nature Clubs and Co-ops. I use these for each of our nature club meetings.

After you have all these details, put the information together coming up with a calendar of dates, meeting topics and locations for your club.

Now you are ready to start implementing your meetings! It is helpful to send out weekly reminders to the group, perhaps via email or another online means. In the reminders it’s helpful to list all the basics (where, what when, etc.) and also any helpful information such as if the children should bring anything special (nets, containers, etc.) or wear anything special (mud boots, long pants, old clothes, etc.).

I have tried to be very thorough in these recommendations for starting a nature club, hopefully I have not left anything out. And hopefully I have not left you feeling overwhelmed. If done correctly a nature club will NOT be overwhelming and tedious to run. It will be well worth the minimal effort! Do not make it too structured and “textbook educational”, keep structured teaching time minimal and hands-on exploring maximal.

Lastly, here is how our nature club looks:

We meet only in the spring and summer, starting in April and going through July. We meet every other Friday morning from 10:00am to 12:00pm, having a total of eight meetings. Some of the families stay after the meetings to have a picnic lunch together. Parental participation is mandatory. We start our meetings with a 10-15 minute teaching session on the chosen focus. Then the remainder of the time is spent exploring and doing fun hands-on activities. I send out reminders at least 5 days in advance giving all the details and recommendations for the meetings.

I will be happy to answer any other questions that you may have. And may God bless you in the study of His creation!

Below are notes from a nature workshop that my friend Cindy and I taught at the CHEK conference this past July.  I thought this might be helpful in aiding those who are trying to include regular nature walk and study time into their home schools.

Are you including regular, consistent nature study in your home school?  Here are some of the reasons I wasn’t:

• not enough time after regular studies
• I’m not sure I see the value to the children’s long-term education
• I can’t check off one of those little boxes on the grade appropriate checklists when we do it
• It’s too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, too humid, I’m out of shape, I might sweat, I might be cold

If some of you are where I used to be, you’ll really relate with some of those reasons.  After you read an average Nature study article you may say that you’d love to do Nature Study, if there were time, but just how do you make time?  I read article after article and books that all recommended Nature study because kids need to be outdoors, it’s good for them and Nature Study is really fun.  I knew that, but just how was I going to get my children’s educational checklists done and then have time to go and do that!  So, perhaps if your like I was, Nature Study rarely happened.  I viewed Nature Study as being more supplemental to our regular education, and not required.

I’d like to challenge you today, to try to view Nature Study in a different way.  Can you possibly see it as being just as important as Math?  Language Arts?  How about MORE important?  Because guess what, today I certainly do!  Nature Study is now a pivotal launching point for many of our other studies.  

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you.  Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? – Job 12:7-9

If seeking Him, we will find Him in His Creation.  His fingerprints are all over it!  If we walk into nature with this new vision and ask God to open our eyes, we and our children will find Him and grow from it.  What we gain from getting out into nature is simply priceless!

What are some of the benefits our family is gaining from Nature Study?

• we grow closer in relationship and knowledge of our Creator –  I can’t help but to feel reverence and awe of God as I closely observe things in Nature.  And I’ve been able to notice many symbolisms in Nature to teach us about our lives.
• develop a closer relationship with my children  – Seeing my children’s face light up in excitement as we discover something new and sitting with them to observe, spending time with them just having fun, it’s all wonderful.
• ignites a desire and need to know more about all Creation – Again, my children and I can’t help but to want to know more and discover more as we spend more and more time with His Creation
• cultivates a natural curiosity and love of learning - Because we find it so neat and exciting this drives our natural curiosity to know more which in turn makes learning fun
• provides fresh air and expends energy in children which benefits everyone - We always feel rejuvenated after a Nature Walk or Hunt or just spending time having fun out there
• can be used to teach other subjects – I was overjoyed to find how easy it was to incorporate other subjects using our experiences in Nature. 
• helps to gain focus and attention ability – my highly distractible day-dreaming daughter, and  overly-hyperactive and unfocused son suddenly have gained the ability to focus and pay attention better and not just in Nature Study but in regular studies as well.
• improves discrimination and comparison skills – as we are identifying wildflowers or anything else in Nature it is necessary to be able to notice details and be able to compare things to figure out what it is.
• improves memorization abilities – I am in awe at how much my children are able to memorize in Nature such as the names of things and where we found them, and it helps with other subjects too
• guaranteed to experience and learn more than you could imagine because God is amongst it!  -We can count on this fact because it is His Creation and because He tells us in His Word that we can learn from it, WE WILL LEARN FROM IT!

So, how do I start including more Nature Study time into our home school?

• start small and fall in love first (spend a few minutes a day just observing, go out with no other objective except to enjoy what you find) then gradually increase the amount of time you are outdoors, I have a feeling this will come naturally, possibly incorporate journaling and other small objectives – maybe take photos and observe them on your computer with your kids
• prioritize it, don’t treat it as supplemental, look at is as even more important than Math, carve out the time and honor it the same way you would your other subjects
• find specific inspiration (start focusing on something you or your children are interested in such as wildflowers, birds, etc.)
• make it personal, find out names of things by using identification books and websites, you will care so much more when, like a friend, you can call it by name
• incorporate ways to use nature for other subjects (L.A. – write about a nature walk, or something they found outside, use new terms for vocabulary/spelling, Art and Music – draw/paint in a nature journal while listening to inspirational music, etc.)  You will be surprised how easily it can satisfy other subjects, just be open to seeing the opportunities and they will come.
• Mom, get excited!  Be interested! Don’t be afraid to get a little hot or chilly or wet or dirty, I promise you if you let go and be joyful you will enjoy yourself! AND your children WILL follow.  My children have laughed for hours at me for some of the crazy things I do.  Evidently they’ve never seen another Mom pet an earthworm or talk sweet to a little toad, or take off her shoes and squish in the mud!

Dictation

• Kristy at Living, Loving, and Learning does a great job outlining her 5-day plan for dictation lessons with her son, as well as giving some helpful advice on getting started with a good foundation in her post, Dictation.

Nature Study

• Andrea at Harvest Academy has a very encouraging post for Moms just starting to get their children interested in nature study, at Green Hour Challenge #7.  Her three boys are not only starting to catch on, they are getting right down excited!  Way to go Mom!

• I was giggling out loud and learning at the same time when I read Barb’s post from The Heart of Harmony at Reptiles for Nature Study: Mustering Up My Enthusiasm!  She teaches us how she is learning to overcome her feelings of reservation and feelings of being inadequate to teach some things that her boys are interested in, such as reptiles, and gaining the blessings from it.

• My first article to present is entitled Finally – The Elusive Pileated Woodpecker.  In it I share with you a glance into a recent school day when we were visited by a very special bird.  And how I’ve learned to unashamedly put down regular studies to encourage and nourish my children’s love of God’s creation in nature.  

Music and Art

• Barb at The Heart of Harmony also provides us with two excellent online resources to use when studying composers at AO: Composer Study Term 3 Berlioz/Saint-Saens.  And more specifically gives the direct links for listening to the music of Hector Berlioz and Camille Saint-Saens which are the two composers to study this term on the Ambleside Online Plan for Music Study.  Thank you Barb for continuing to help us find great resources!

• Amy from Growing Fruit presents Listen Up, giving us a view of the way she is just beginning to include art and music into their homeschool using a book which makes it easy to combine the two subjects.

• I would also love to share my entry entitled Music and Art Friday – Vivaldi and Watercolor Project.  In it I explain how I am learning to be creative by sometimes combining our composer and art lessons together to make a wonderful project!

• Don’t miss Mr. Mozart is Coming for Lunch! a delightful entry by Shannon at Song of my heart.  She gives a precious view into how she fits composer study in with her young children over PB & J sandwiches!

• Amanda at Hearts and Trees brings to our attention a new controversial high-tech method of studying art in What Would Charlotte Mason Think?   I was shocked to view the video!  Check it out and see what you think.

• Keri from Sunny gives a review of the Simply Music Program at Simply Music.  I’m definitely checking this one out for our family.  Thanks Keri!

Habit Training

• Who doesn’t need help and constant encouragement to form habits in their children?!  MomToCherubs at Adventure’s on Beck’s Bounty gives a great reminder of the importance of forming habits in our children using an overview of Miss Mason’s writings on the subject at Concerning Habits.  She also provides a list of habits and some great thought provoking questions.

Math

• Read about the great benefits of using logic matrix as well as view some great resources as Cindy presents Math and the Logic Matrix at On Our Journey Westward.  

Literature

• Kris from At Home Science gives us an excellent post on the topic of not just old science books, but also old books in general at Old Science Books.  Not only does she discuss the wonderful benefits of using older books when teaching but also provides us with some fantastic resources where many of these great books are available for free download.

• Cindy from On Our Journey Westward reminds us that by exposing your older children to great literature, you are setting a great role model for the younger ones, at Good Literature. 

History

• Another great contribution from Keri at Sunny is her post Book of Centuries.  She presents us with a great view into her children’s Books of Centuries.  They are doing a very nice job!!

Miscellaneous

• If you’d like to get a school year update from Lizzie at A Dusty Frame visit her at School Update.

I know you will enjoy yourselves reading through these enjoyable and knowledge-filled articles.  Please remember to take the time to comment as much as possible, everybody loves that!  Have a beautiful and joy-filled SPRING!

Presenters, please feel free to comment or email me if there are any errors or things I need to change.