We re-started our Nature Study this term
with the arrival of our spring here in South Africa.
I created a First Week of Spring Grid (click for your free download)
We chose one box for each day of the first week.
I chose to study and sketch all the different fruit trees in bud in our orchard:
Barb of Handbook of Nature Study has a new approach for her Outdoor Hour Challenges using a grid.
It has helped us focus on a simple topic for each week.
Last week we studied ants.
Miss.L10 and I stood watching the ants scurry about their disturbed holes and kept our distance! We all know how our ant bite!
We noticed the large and small-sized ants. Some ants ran straight back to the hole while others ran around in random circles.
We sat and sketched the ants.
By the time we were finished, there was not an ant to be seen.
All was calm again.
This week we crawled on our bellies with our camera to take a photo capturing a “Bug’s Eye View” ~
It was interesting to look at plants in our garden from a new and unusual angle.
It gave us a different perspective.
Miss L10 couldn’t choose the best of her 3 photos and pasted them all on her notebook page. She didn’t want to write descriptive words about her bug’s eye view.
I had some creative fun and wrote words extending out of my central photo.
Lovely, simple nature study sessions!
How does the new approach work for you? Share how you keep it simple and relaxed in the comments. Join Barb and all of us for the Outdoor Hour Challenges.
Blessings,
Practical Pages 
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Hello from another southern-hemi. I’m finding the topic approach easier to follow. We can usually find something to follow along with.
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It really looks like going topical is working for you and that makes me happy. I was hoping it would shake things up a bit for families that were having trouble with the seasonal work. I love that families can pull in a seasonal aspect if they want to but it is not required.
Wonderful journals and observations. I so look forward to seeing your studies this year. Thanks for sharing your link with the OHC Carnival.
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Love your journals. I’ll have to try the “bugs eye view” with my son.
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Love that you are one of only a few of the homeschoolers bloggers that is in the same season as me. Really tired of every post being about “fall”. We call it Autumn and it happens next March. Love Spring! Though winter is lingering here this week.
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@Jennylynne, hello, fellow southern-hemisphere blogger 🙂 I agree, and I think to a great extent it is why our nature study contributions and OHC fell away. Hopefully with the new approach being topic-related and not seasonal, we’ll join in more regularly.
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