Exploring Nature with Children is an open and go curriculum. To make it even easier, I have created a free calendar for you to download.
If you’re over on Instagram, do pop over and say hello! The Instagram page is very much about community; think of it as your virtual home school co op! Our community uses the #exploringnaturewithchildren hashtag, & also specific weekly hashtags to enable you to connect with other families working through the ENWC curriculum. This week’s hashtag will be:#ENWCgardensnailweek
At the vernal equinox, day and night are almost equal in length. It is a turning point in the year, when winter has not quite gone and spring is beginning to unfold.
Go out of doors today and look for a place where you can see signs of both winter and spring together. Perhaps you may find bare branches with swelling buds, fallen leaves lying beneath fresh green shoots, or hear birdsong on a cool and windy day.
In your nature journal, record what you find.
You might like to include:
What you noticed What signs of winter can still be seen? What signs of spring are beginning to appear? What colours, sounds, and textures can you observe?
A drawing or a small list Make a simple sketch of the place, or of one small thing you found there. You could also write a list of the things that showed you that the year is turning.
A thought to finish Write a sentence or two about this question:
What does this place tell me about springtime’s arrival?
There is a temptation, when we think about nature study, to make it far too large. We imagine long walks, baskets and journals, a lovely stretch of uninterrupted time, children happily roaming, and ourselves calmly identifying everything that we see. And while those days do come, real nature study is often much smaller and more ordinary than that.
In fact, one of the most helpful ways to begin, or begin again, is this:
choose one small patch of ground, and study it well.
It may be a corner of your garden, the verge beside the bus stop, perhaps the edge of a field. What matters is not that it is picturesque, but that you can easily return to it.
When we come back to the same place week after week, we begin to notice something that we often miss when we are always moving on: nature is not static. It is always changing, always speaking, always revealing something new to the attentive eye.
A patch that looked dull in February may be full of green shoots in March. A bare hedge may suddenly show swelling buds, moss may brighten, birdsong may change. This is one of the great gifts of nature study: it teaches us to see.
Studying one small patch of ground is practical.
It does not require much time, expert knowledge, perfect health, perfect weather, or a beautifully organised plan. Just faithfulness: You return, you look, you notice. As simple as that!
For children, this can be surprisingly powerful. They begin to realise that even a very ordinary place contains far more than they first thought. The same patch becomes familiar, and because it is familiar, they start to see difference. They notice what is new, what has vanished, what has grown, what has been eaten, what has opened, and what is still waiting.
For adults, too, we are so used to skimming over the surface of things. One small patch calls us to slow down.
A simple March patch study
March is a wonderful time to begin this habit, because the world is on the turn. Not yet fully spring, and yet no longer winter in quite the same way. There is movement everywhere, though much of it is quite small still,
If you would like to try this, here is a very simple way to begin:
Choose a patch of ground that you can revisit easily. Visit it once a week, or even two or three times a week if it is close to home.
Stand in the same place each time if you can.
Then ask yourself, or your children, questions like these:
What is the same as last time?
What is different?
What is new?
What do I notice first?
What would I have missed if I had hurried past?
Look at the ground itself. Is it muddy, dry, cracked, mossy, green? Are there leaves breaking down into the soil? Are there tiny seedlings? Is there evidence of worms, birds, insects, or animal tracks?
Look at the plants. Are there shoots coming up? Seedheads standing from last year? Nettles beginning again? Grass freshening? Daisies opening?
Look at trees and shrubs nearby. Are the buds tight or swelling? Is there blossom beginning? Catkins? Any change in colour?
Listen too. Nature study is not only done with the eyes. Has the birdsong changed? Is there more calling, more movement, more urgency in the air?
And notice the light. The days are lengthening, shadows change, and activity shifts.
In Your Journal
You might write:
Date Place Weather Three things I noticed One question
Or you might use this little pattern:
Same Different New
Children might sketch one thing they notice each time. A bud. A stone. A feather. A weed. A seedhead. An insect. Over time, those sketches begin to tell the story of the patch, and of the season.
A gentle encouragement
Begin with one small patch, visit there in March and see what is changing. Return the following week, and see what has shifted again. Over time, that little patch may become one of the best teachers you know.
Exploring Nature with Children is an open and go curriculum. To make it even easier, I have created a free calendar for you to download.
If you’re over on Instagram, do pop over and say hello! The Instagram page is very much about community; think of it as your virtual home school co op! Our community uses the #exploringnaturewithchildren hashtag, & also specific weekly hashtags to enable you to connect with other families working through the ENWC curriculum. This week’s hashtag will be: #ENWCvernalequinoxweek
This coming Sunday is Mothering Sunday, (not to be confused with Mother’s Day for our American friends!) and it can be a complicated day.
For some, it is full of joy; handmade cards, small children clambering into bed with armfuls of flowers, and the simple happiness of being together.
For others, it can feel quite tender; perhaps your own mother is far away, or no longer here, perhaps your relationship is strained. Or maybe you are longing for children, or navigating the deep, demanding work of motherhood while feeling burned out. Motherhood is not a neat story. It is a long landscape, full of beauty, but also of steep paths, and seasons where we simply keep going.
If that is where you find yourself this year, you are not alone. Mothering is one of the most hidden forms of work in the world. Much of it takes place in the small moments that no one else sees; the endless answering of questions, the wiping of tears, the cooking, the listening, the guiding. These small acts shape whole lives.
Charlotte Mason once wrote that education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life. The same might be said of motherhood. It is not something that happens in grand gestures, but in the atmosphere we create day after day. The steadiness of a home where curiosity is welcomed, and life is lived alongside our children.
A Nature Invitation
If you would like a no-fuss way to mark Mothering Sunday this year, here is a small nature activity you might try together, requiring no preparation and takes as long as you would like it to.
Go outside together, and ask each member of the family to find a living thing that is beginning to grow. Perhaps a bud beginning to swell on a branch, the green shoots of a spring bulb pushing through the soil, a bird carrying nesting material.
When everyone has found something, pause together and look closely at each.
You might ask:
What do you notice? What might this small thing become? What does it need in order to grow?
And then just stand for a moment and take it in, together. Growth in nature rarely looks dramatic. Most of it happens almost invisibly.
Motherhood often feels the same. The love we give, the patience we practise, the time we spend alongside our children, these things may feel insignificant in the moment, but they are shaping something that will grow for years to come.
Mothering Sunday doesn’t need to be perfect, it can simply be a day to pause and notice the life that is growing around you, and the life that is growing, quietly and steadily, within the work of mothering itself.
The natural world is waking after its long winter sleep and you will begin to see much activity at your local pond. Here are some links to inspire you this week:
Exploring Nature with Children is an open and go curriculum. To make it even easier, I have created a free calendar for you to download.
If you’re over on Instagram, do pop over and say hello! The Instagram page is very much about community; think of it as your virtual home school co op! Our community uses the #exploringnaturewithchildren hashtag, & also specific weekly hashtags to enable you to connect with other families working through the ENWC curriculum. This week’s hashtag will be:#ENWCspringpondweek
At first, the changes are small enough to miss if we are not paying attention. A bud begins to swell on a bare branch, birds sing a little more brightly in the early morning, a patch of green appears where the earth only weeks ago seemed so cold and lifeless.
But if we slow down and look carefully, we begin to notice that something quite remarkable is happening: Life is returning.
For many Christian families, Easter is filled with beautiful traditions: church services, shared meals, and the joyful celebration that Christ is risen. Yet the natural world around us also tells this same hopeful story in its own beautiful way.
Seeds hidden beneath the soil begin to grow, trees that appeared bare and lifeless are slowly unfolding new leaves, and the birds gather twigs and grasses, preparing their nests for the next generation of life.
Creation itself is proclaiming the same message: Life has returned!
This year, I wanted to create a simple resource to help families to notice these quiet signs of resurrection together.
A Gentle Easter Tradition
An Easter Nature Walkis a printable guide written to help you to step out of doors with your child, and and observe the returning life of spring together.
Rather than rushing through a checklist or following a scavenger hunt, the pages invite children to slow down and pay attention to the living world around them.
As you walk together, you might:
• pause for a moment of stillness and listen to the sounds of spring • search for the smallest living thing you can find • notice signs of new life beginning in the plants and animals around you • reflect on the symbolism of an empty nest
Each observation becomes an opportunity to talk about the hopeful message of Easter.
A Memory Walk
The resource also includes gentle ways for children to record what they have noticed.
There is a nature journal page where they can write or dictate their observations, and a sketch page encouraging them to draw something they discovered along the way. At the end, families are invited to talk together about their walk and reflect on what they saw.
One of my favourite pages is the keepsake page featuring an empty nest. Just as the empty tomb on Easter morning revealed the miracle of Christ’s resurrection, the empty nest reminds us that life has taken flight and begun again.
Over time, these simple walks may become a quiet family tradition, one that returns each spring as you step outside together and notice the signs of new life.
An Easter Nature Walk is in the shop now. I do hope that it helps you and your child to enjoy time together noticing the quiet signs of resurrection that appear each spring.
If you would like to begin nature study this spring, this bundle gathers together everything you need. No fluff, simply a solid, year-round curriculum used by hundreds of thousands of educators around the world.
These are the exact resources many families in our community use to build a steady and enjoyable rhythm of nature study throughout the year.
Guided Nature Journals – a simple but beautiful journal to encourage your older child in journaling independence, or use as a scrapbook for your younger child.
A Nature Study Primer – a companion workbook for you as your child’s encourager, written to help you lay a strong foundation.
Rooted in Charlotte Mason’s principles, these resources will lead your family into the quiet joy of regular nature walks, careful observation, and the forming of lifelong habits of attention, reverence, and wonder.
The mornings can still feel cold and grey, yet the evenings stretch out with unexpected light. The garden looks untidy and half-awake, and then suddenly, there are daffodils! The birds are louder, and the air feels different.
It is not quite spring, but it’s no longer winter.
For many of us, March can feel unsettled. The home shows the dust in the brighter light (please tell me that I am not alone in this!) . Energy is returning, but not fully. The children are often restless, and we sense that the earth is shifting.
So I’ve made a small gift for you: a simple one-page March Joy sheet. Not a plan, a challenge, or another thing to keep up with. Just a gentle encouragement for light-growing days. You don’t need to “do” it perfectly. You might simply stick it on the fridge, tuck it in your diary, or read the blessing aloud one morning whilst the kettle boils.
There comes a point in every home educating family’s life when we realise that nature study will not happen by good intentions alone.
We mean to go out, intend to keep notebooks, and we truly want to notice what’s happening in nature.
But weeks pass by. Other subjects appear more important, and the seasons move on.
Charlotte Mason wrote that education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life. Nature study belongs in all three. It shapes the culture of a home. It trains the eye. It forms the habit of attention. Habits, as she reminds us, are built deliberately.
Exploring Nature with Children provides a clear and orderly plan for the year, what to study, when to go out, how to connect your reading and observation.
A Nature Study Primer – 21 Days to the Habit of Nature Study is written for you, the parent, to help you establish the practice quietly and steadily, so that it becomes part of the life of your home rather than an occasional extra.
Together, they help you to begin, and continue faithfully.
