E. 14 Nature Study In Spring
This episode is packed with great info! There are tons of ideas for nature study in the spring, discuss many benefits of gardening and handicrafts and throw out a nature study challenge.
I full recognize that we are in strange times right now with Covid-19 and it is addressed very briefly, but I want to keep the focus of my podcast on timeless value. I will say though that if you want to get nature journals for easter to order ASAP since I try to only leave the house once a week to ship in order to support local containment measures.
I also mention several products (linked below for you convinence) or you can check out my nature study page for all things nature study.
And as always the full transcript of the podcast can be found below.
Thanks for listening!
-Christina Hatch
Nature study links:
Not nature study but also mentioned:
Transcript of the Episode:
Episode #14 Nature Study in Spring
I love this time of year! Not so much the melt off but the anticipation for spring. This episode is packed with ideas for nature study in both early and late spring, a nature study challenge, and touches on the value of gardening and handicrafts.
I’m not going to lie, I teach classes about nature study throughout the year, and even I can get a little burnt out and find myself in a funk. In the last part of winter this year I just wasn’t able to pull it together. After a couple of trips to the lake though I found my self-restored and ready to dive back into nature study.
Where I am in Southeastern Idaho it is brown and melting. Everyone is loving the extra sun but not quite seeing the blossoms so characteristic of the long-awaited spring. If you look closely though, you’ll start to see the first hints peeking out from under the old growth.
This is the joy of nature study this time of year. It is the perfect season for tracking changes over time.
One of the projects my family is working on this year is tracking changes in our apple tree. Our honey crisp apples only come on once every other year and with this being an apple year, I decided to have the kids track the trees from the dormant winter state, through the blossoms, growth, harvesting of apples, and fall. Right now, they are making their initial observations. Last week we investigated the branches to see if we could see the first buds of the year. Since then, papa pruned the trees and buds have appeared so we will mark those down in our nature journal tomorrow (or whenever it isn’t hailing – what happened to out like a lamb?)
To track things over time you’ll want to take a page in your nature journal and divide it into sections. In mine I have it divided into 5 sections, but you can divide yours by however long you want to track something. In each section, you’ll write the date or time of observations and jot down notes or sketches of what you see. Some great subjects for this type of study are adopting a tree and watching it through the seasons where you title 4 sections winter, spring, summer, and fall. You can watch a caterpillar change into a chrysalis and then a butterfly labeling your sections in weeks, days, or even hours. You can sketch a praying mantis walking and write how many seconds each step takes. It is great for observing changes over time, measuring growth, or tracking evolution through a plant or animal’s life cycle.
Now is the time to get your initial observations, as everything comes back to life. You will be surprised at how quickly things change when you are looking closely. It is exponential, a term we are all too familiar with right now. Looking out your window it looks like break up season for so long, then suddenly almost overnight, its spring. Tracking it now will help hone observational skills. The kids are eager to look for any sign of spring and will notice the smallest changes that inch towards it. This will help them to pull out details in later observations and other circumstances.
Another investigation we have done is going on a hunt for the first signs of spring. The kids loved seeing the green grass start to poke through the brown, the daffodils climbing out of the flower beds, the onions growing in the garden, a spider skitter across the sidewalk. With a new variety of birds showing up at the feeder daily. It is fun to let them loose pointing out signs as you find them for a little more direction you could even turn it into a scavenger hunt after brainstorming signs of spring together beforehand.
Taking before/after pictures of different buds to see what the leaves look like after they have fully bloomed is a fun experiment. Or graphing when different plants flower or fruit is another for the more analytical or older child.
By doing nature study starting in the early spring you’ll notice things you can’t in the full splendor of summer. For example, this is a great time of year to find birds’ nests, they are more exposed in the sparse branches and they are often in the process of returning to their summer range and building nests for the upcoming season.
If you track species of birds or flowers you see month to month it is exciting to see new varieties show up this month. You can mark them down in a calendar of firsts which is essentially a page with the month at the top where you write down the first time you see something that year as you come across it. The first finch, the first bloom in your garden, the first ripe berry or frost later in the year. Having this record makes it easy to compare patterns year over year and fun to look back on previous years to see what you can expect this upcoming month.
As spring progresses, you’ll be able to find tadpoles in the water, tiny grasshoppers in the grass, and my absolute favorite bug- butterflies. I fully recognize that these things happen at different paces depending on your local biome. In the high mountain desert spring is the best time to see butterflies because everything dries out by summer and they become sparser. This is also a great time to find mosses and ferns.
If you live near a farm the farm animals will have just had or will be having their babies soon. Talking about life cycles and rebirth is a beautiful way to introduce nature during the Easter season if you celebrate it. And nature journals are a fun addition to the baskets.
For gear, I suggest having galoshes or rain boots, a rain jacket, and light gloves. In my mind, temperatures are ideal in the afternoon (hanging around the ’50s here) but I’ve always preferred cooler weather. You don’t need to be as concerned with sun exposure or biting insects but aware that everything is much soppier and colder the further into the outdoors you get with snow melting off the mountains and filling up the marshlands. This isn’t the best season for making observations in the field but it is great for memory work by recording what you observed while out when you get home. A portable microscope, butterfly net for catch and release, and nature journal are other helpful tools. A list of where you can find these resources can be found in my show notes at hatchingcuriosity.com.
It is fun to see what has changed over the last season. On our latest hike this afternoon we went on a little reconnaissance mission to see how long until our favorite trails would be ready. We were met with 2 feet of snow in some areas and the largest tree at the head of the trail had toppled during the winter. It was fun to speculate what could have caused it and to notice all the changes to our most familiar landscape.
This is the time to prepare the ground for planting. Dig a little deeper to learn about the layers of soil, how to keep soil healthy, worms, composting and other things like that.
As you plant your garden you can measure plant growth, notice the effects of the weather on their growth and perform other botany experiments.
Honestly, I think keeping a garden is 2nd only to reading books for your kids as far as the many benefits it offers their education.
Food is life. Understanding where it comes from is foundational to them having a healthy relationship with their food. A study at Cornell University shows that kids are 5x more likely to eat vegetables they grew themselves than ones that were simply served to them. Gardening is a full sensory experience that boosts the immune system and contains natural antidepressants. It is a humming ecosystem with many interactions at play that serve as natural parables for life lessons. As they develop their motor skills, they will also develop their character learning patience, perseverance, coping with disappointment, work ethic, and the satisfaction that comes from the harvest principle. Additionally, it is just more great and constructive outdoor time, family bonding time, and opens the door to scientific inquiry. I promise the skills learned during their experience of keeping a garden (regardless of size) will never go wasted.
This is one of the most popular times for nature study as everyone is excited to get out of the house and eager to see the signs of warmer weather teaming with life. If you don’t find much on your first few visits out though don’t get discouraged. You are still getting fresh air and building the habit. Perhaps you can return to some of the suggestions in Episode #5 Nature Study Beyond the Journal where I give tips for nature study during the winter.
Charlotte Mason famously said, “Never be within doors when you can rightly be without”. Take some of your other studies outside and see where it leads. Today when we were listening to Story of the World, they mentioned that the people they were talking about lived 9000 years ago. This led to us taking out the base ten blocks and reviewing what 9000 looks like. It was a natural flow of one subject into the other. History into math. On our way home from our hike, we saw a rabbit hopping up the side of the mountain. It was honestly the cutest thing I’ve seen since sea otters and I’m still gushing. I was shocked to see it leap 4 feet at a time. That bunny had some hustle! This led to a discussion on peter rabbit and snuggled-up story time when we got home. Nature study into literature.
When you open yourself up to experience nature and stay curious, you’ll be surprised at the rabbit holes of discovery it takes you down.
There may not be much we can do to connect with others in person during this prolonged quarantine, but it hasn’t stunted our ability to connect with nature and our little ones. So being the eternally obnoxious optimist that I am I say let’s seize the day for what it is. Let’s not let this opportunity we have for connection pass us by. With baseball, coop, church, and playdates canceled I’ve found a lot more time in my schedule. But what am I doing with it? It is tempting to fall into a holiday habit of entertainment and rest but what if instead, I allowed the stillness into my home. More time for quiet reflection. More time to watercolor, bake bread from scratch, read the story 3x instead of once to my 3-year-old.
Quality leisure when properly ordered with work is even more restorative than rest.
Confession: I have somewhat of an addictive personality. I can’t quite stop my Pepsi habit and can get sucked into Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest for longer than I care to admit. For a while, I found myself with a lot of free time that was spent on my phone. I like to pretend that the articles I read were filling my mind with useful information. Yet, I slowly started to get depressed and was always tired and overwhelmed.
When I picked up the habit of painting, something inside me came alive. I was creating something with my hands. Refining a physical skill and recognizing beauty. It took concentration and led to immense satisfaction when I was able to get the effect I was hoping for. I felt more rested and alert after an hour of painting than I did after a 2-hour nap.
I started to recognize this in others too. My friends that have a hobby seem more at rest and have better concentration. When my kids are bored and choose to create something or work on a skill will stay occupied for hours and keep their minds humming with curiosity when they are done. vs when they choose simple entertainment and complain that they are bored when they are done.
This is why I think the Charlotte Mason, Walldorf, and Montessori education models are so big on handicrafts. Yes, the motor skills and talents developed are good in and of themselves; but the sense of accomplishment, focus and drive it takes to develop the skills have their own added value.
You can get the benefits of quality leisure in many ways. From origami to sculpting, piano, to leatherwork and even a great book club but one of the ways that is built into the nature study concept is in drawing and brush drawing (which is essentially dry brush watercolor). As we find ourselves with a little more time, I would encourage you to spend a little more time on your written and drawn observations. Develop those hand skills that can lead to a lifelong satisfaction found in the hobby.
Imagine how much more we will notice in our springtime nature study by looking closer and more frequently! By taking the time to get more detailed observations.
So that is my challenge to you. I want you to set a date, time and location for nature study this week. Write it down in your calendar with an alarm on your phone if you need it. Gear up the kids and go! Then take your time recording your observations. Perhaps you’ll adopt a tree to observe through the seasons or find another subject to observe over time.
Then set a time to do it next week and build the habit of quiet reflection as you savor the subtle flow into spring.
If you are looking for easy start nature journals with some of the suggestions from this podcast built into them and ready to go you can find them at hatchingcuriosity.com/naturestudy.
And as always until next time, stay curious.