Elliot and I started our official nature studies today! Although I am always exploring Mother Earth with him I wanted to use a curriculum to guide us through each season. I finally got around to purchasing Exploring Nature with Children from @raisinglittleshoots and I absolutely love it, like I knew I would.

Yesterday was the beginning of Autumn Pond Study Week and we dove in this afternoon with a discussion about ponds: what they are, how deep they are, and what animals, bugs and plants would we find there. Then we studied the painting Nympheas by Monet and talked about the colors and what was in the water.

After, we got ready to draw our pond and first made a little list of some things we would find (from our discussion) and Elliot drew and wrote all of them down. Then he created his pond drawing with markers and crayons. He used Crinkleroot’s 25 More Animals Every Child Should Know as a reference guide.

To sum up our lesson, we relaxed on the couch for quiet time and summarized with Crinkleroot’s Animals again and read Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni, a favorite from our collection.

I am hoping to visit a pond nearby this Friday for some real life observations but today was a great start to our pond study and I am so happy Elliot is excited as I am.