Taking School Outside

Earlier this week, I was a little antsy about staying indoors. The weather has cooled off just a touch, and I was itching to get outside. So were my two students.

So we headed out. I decided to take on a Charlotte Mason approach and just see where our "nature walk" took us. The kiddos were well prepared with their nature notebooks for drawing what they see, pencils, crayons, a ruler, sandwich bags for collecting things. Oh, and their binoculars. :)

We had not been on our walk for three minutes before Landon took two tumbles over tree roots. Ella Beth asked, "Why are all of these tree roots sticking out of the ground?"

And that's where our nature walk took us.

We talked about how trees search for water through their roots, and when trees get bigger they get very thirsty. As their roots stretch to find water, they get bigger and bigger and can eventually stick out of the ground.

Then the kiddos started looking very intensely at the leaves that had fallen. They started asking questions about the "lines" all over them, so our tree lesson continued very naturally.

We talked about how trees drink water through their roots and carry that water all the way up to the tallest branches. We were in the middle of the woods with tall trees everywhere, so the kiddos were absolutely fascinated that water could travel so far! I told them that the water travels up the tree to its branches and then it's carried to the leaves. The leaves drink the water through their stems, and then the water is dispersed by the tiny veins. And what better activity to do than leaf presses. :)

We also used that handy ruler to measure our leaves.

Ella Beth was very into drawing her surroundings. It made me smile by how seriously she took her work.

And then we continued our walk. With walking sticks, of course. ;)

I let Ella Beth and Landon decide where to stop and explore (aka - dig in the dirt).

Landon found an acorn to take home to Daddy.

All in all, it was a great opportunity for learning, and I know we will be doing "nature walks" regularly. We covered math, science, handwriting, and PE all while having a really good time. It is so nice to get outside and away from the structure of our normal day, and the kiddos had a blast learning without even realizing it. Success!