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!

Creek Clay 

 Water Scorpion

It was VERY hot and humid that day, so everyone made their way down under the shade of some trees by a creek.

Even though the above photo doesn’t show it The kids had tons of fun making boats from natural materials and racing them in the creek. And below is a dragonfly that was discovered along the pathway.

And just in case you’re wondering, all of my teaching materials that I use for teaching the Nature Club is taken from the NaturExplorers series.

We discovered two Eastern Box Turtles, and male and a female.

One of the ways males can be determined is by their red eyes, versus the females brownish colored eyes. 

 We also found two baby Midland Painted Turtles. They were SO cute! And such NEAT markings.

We also found this interesting creature. At first I thought it was some kind of frog tadpole, but after research I think it may be either a baby Mudpuppy or some type of baby salamander. Any ideas? See the fluffy gills? Interesting. And it has four little legs and feet.

Also, we of course had our tadpoles for the children to observe, along with Alex’s Green Frog catch from last week and an American Toad that we caught to show the kids the comparison between the two. Here is the latest photo of our toad tadpoles which grew legs over the weekend!!

Just a few of the neat creatures we found:

Spiny Soft Shell Water Turtle (thank you Cheryl for the great photo!)

I’m having trouble identifying this beautiful white moth. 

Of course our favorite always, the American Toad.

We got such a kick out of watching this Carpenter Ant. He was taking one tiny wood chip at a time and throwing it over the edge. Very cool! 

And of course, I couldn’t miss the new wildflowers:

Hairy Buttercup

Star of Bethlehem

Wild Hyacinth

After we climbed back up the mountainside, a packed lunch was so tasty!

I’m really looking forward to our next meeting in a couple of weeks. If you can find a Nature Club/Creation Club anywhere near you run as quick as you can to join up!! If you can’t find one, start one!