Must-Have Resources for Observing the Night Sky

With the right resources, observing the night sky children can be an exciting activity. Whether it is a celestial event like a meteor shower or lunar eclipse, or just regular stargazing, here are some of my favorite resources for learning astronomy. 

These are my favorite resources and can be used in the classroom and out. However, its not always possible to get into the field with students. Maybe you only see the kids during the day, or city lights or weather prevent them from observing the night sky. Some of the digital resources in this post can help with that too! 

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I make a small commission from purchases made from these links, at no additional cost to you. See disclosures for more information. 

Free Resources for Understanding the Night Sky

You don't need expensive equipment to enjoy stargazing. A dark clear area is all you need, a decent pair of binoculars and a star wheel are a bonus. 

If you are not feeling confident with your astronomy skills, here are some resources that will be helpful to you, and are also fairly kid-friendly. 

Download and explore Stellarium. This is a free open-source planetarium. You can choose a location and time and see what the night sky in your area will look like. This is a powerful free resource for becoming familiar with astronomy. Encourage your students to have some free exploration of the software. They can turn on and off constellations, locate planets, "observe" moon phases, etc. It is especially useful when you are in a situation where observing the night sky is not possible. 

When you look up at the night sky and notice a really bright object but have no idea what you are looking at, you need Google's free Sky Map app. Just point your device at that part of the sky and see it labeled on the app. This can be super handy. (Then once you have identified what you are looking at, turn off the device and enjoy nature!)

Download this free star wheel from Sky and Telescope and print it out. You can turn the wheel to the current date and find out what you should be able to see in the night sky in your area. 

Observe and Track the Moon

A fabulous way to connect with the night sky is observing and tracking the phases and position of the moon. It is a great assignment for kids too. Observe what the moon looks like each night for a month, or even just a few times a week. You'll understand a piece of nature more fully and get some fresh air to boot! 

Assign kids a moon observing and  tracking project. Here are some printable downloads that make great hand-outs for this assignment:

 

• Moon Phases Tracker 
• Moon Observation Logbook 
• Northern Hemisphere Moon Observation Chart 

Astronomy Books for the Science Library

There are tons of astronomy books out there, but here are the three I'd start with in my collection. 

Chet Raymo's 365 Starry Nights : An Introduction to Astronomy for Every Night of the Year is the perfect opportunity to hone your amateur astronomy skills. Something to learn or observe each day of the year, illustrated and clearly explained. 

H.A. Rey's The Stars and H.A. Rey's Find the Constellations are also indispensable classics. Kids will gravitate to the appealing illustrations.  

Now get outside and LOOK UP! I think you'll be glad that you did! 

10 Must-Have Printable Downloads for Fall Science Class

Looking for just the right print out to go along with your hands-on science lesson? Or maybe spruce up an old lesson or unit with something new? Here are 10 fun printable downloads you will find useful year after year during the fall term. We have seasonal and nature topics for early childhood and elementary school aged students covered with: Apples, Pumpkins, Trees and Leaves, Hibernation and Migration. Find some inspiration and discover something new for the new school year! 

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I receive a commission from purchases made through these links, at no additional cost to you. Please see disclosures for more information.

 

 

Apple Lesson Printables

Fall is the perfect time to study life cycles, especially those that result in some delicious treats, like the life cycle of an apple tree!  Check out this apple tree life cycle wheel for young learners who are discovering the steps in an apple tree's life cycle. 

 

After you take a trip to the orchard for apple picking, try this apple experiment and download the free printable science journal that goes along with it. Linked to a book in one of our favorite series, Zoey and Sassafras, it explores decomposition and food preservation using apples. It's a great student-led experiment because they have some freedom in what to use to try to preserve their apple slices. 

 

 

Pumpkin Lesson Printables 

Pumpkins are yet another super fun way to study plant life cycles. Here is a lovely pumpkin life cycle wheel that actually looks like a pumpkin when you are finished! 

Pumpkins are an easy tool for teaching about decomposition. One of my favorite ways is to use the picture book Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell. 

You can read about how I would integrate this story into a long-term lesson in observing the decomposition of a pumpkin here. Included in this post is a link to a free pumpkin observation printable. Or use this decomposing pumpkin study printable to not only set up a science experiment with your own pumpkin, but also integrate pumpkin learning through language arts. 

My all time favorite elementary pumpkin lesson is a multi-day STEM observation of a pumpkin. Weighing, measuring, counting, floating (!?!) tons of science and math skills are used to learn more about a pumpkin. It's always a hit with the kids, especially if they have grown or picked out the pumpkins themselves. You can learn more about this pumpkin STEM lesson here, or find the instructions and observation worksheets in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here. 

 

 

Tree and Leaf Printables

If you live in an area with deciduous trees, then fall is probably one of your favorite seasons for its rainbow of foliage colors. It is a fun time to learn why the leaves change color and study the diversity of trees and their life cycles. 

 

Teach your kids or students tree identification with these simple fall leaf identification cards. They would also be great to take on a nature walk for a leaf scavenger hunt!

You will also want to check out this massive collection of tree printables from WildEarthLab, who creates some beautiful and useful environmental educational and science materials.

Migration Printables

Migration is one of the amazing and miraculous natural occurrences of fall. There are lots of opportunities to observe migration in nature, and also follow migration digitally. 

If you live in the northeastern United States there are many excellent locations for hawk watching as they migrate south for the winter. Download this free guide for non-commercial use to help you identify the hawks you are seeing in the sky. 

Monarch butterflies are migrators loved by many. Check out these ideas for studying Monarch migration in Preschool-12th grade. This is such a cool 3-D paper model download for learning about Monarch life cycles.

 

Hibernation Printables

What are animals doing in fall? Preparing for winter. Along with migration, hibernation is an interesting topic to delve into during the later fall months. 

The illustrations are gorgeous in this Charlotte Mason hibernation lesson pack. It would be great to print and laminate for a think-pair-share (or in this case, "read-pair-share") activity in your science classroom.

Introduce what it means to hibernate and begin to discover the creatures that do so with this free hibernation printable pack. 

Don't Miss These Printables!

If you are looking for other quality sources of printable nature or environmental science downloads, I would highly recommend these:

Tanglewood Hollow Digital and Printable Items

Mother Natured Nature Printables Club

Raising Butterflies at Home and School: Metamorphosis Before Your Very Eyes!

Each spring for the past 4 years we have seen a little bit of magic happen on our kitchen counter. Tiny caterpillars arrive in the mail and over the next week or so grow so quickly you can almost see it happening. One day they find a cozy place to hang and you blink and they are no longer caterpillars, but tiny chrysalides. The rest of the action takes place inside, and we wish we had x-ray vision to let us see. One day, out come butterflies! 

Raising butterflies from an Insect Lore cup of caterpillars is a very easy and fairly fool-proof way to share this magical life cycle with kids at home or school. Read on to find out how simple the process is and my recommendation for purchasing what you need. 

Please note, this blog post was not written in partnership with Insect Lore. My opinions about their products come from my experience with them and I was not compensated to review their products. This post contains affiliate and referral links, meaning I receive a small commission or points from purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you. Please see disclosures for more information.

Butterfly Kits

Raising caterpillars into butterflies is a very easy and foolproof process with Insect Lore's Butterfly Garden kit. We purchased our first kit from Amazon to save a few dollars, but have continued to buy our Painted Lady caterpillars each year directly from Insect Lore. If you want to purchase your butterfly habitat with live caterpillars rather than a voucher to get the caterpillars at a later date, you should buy directly from Insect Lore. I recommend signing up for their newsletter as well and you will find many opportunities for sales like BOGO cup of caterpillars, kits and bonus gifts. (Plus their newsletter is fascinating, it's one of the few company e-mails I receive that I actually read all the way through!)

 

Our caterpillars always come quickly and in good health. The only issue I've had is that once there were only 4 caterpillars in our cup instead of 5. Customer service was very responsive and easy to work with. Our problem was resolved very quickly. I have always been so happy with this company. 

 

Be sure that when you order your caterpillars it is the right time of year and temperature in your region to release them safely and for their health. Your caterpillars will arrive promptly after ordering them and you don't want it to be too cold or too hot for them to be traveling in the mail. You might also want to investigate whether or not you have a natural food source available for Painted Lady Butterflies. Flowers in the mallow and thistle families are good choices. You can learn more about the habitat requirements of Painted Lady Butterflies here. 

Observing Butterfly Metamorphosis

The caterpillars come in a cup that holds all of the food they will need to grow over the next 2-4 weeks. You can leave them enclosed in the cup until they have each made a chrysalis. My one caveat with this is that it doesn't really show children how a caterpillar feeds in the wild. Munching away at some brown gel in the bottom of a cup isn't like munching at a plant. However, since we have young kids this is a really easy way to raise the caterpillars, and it proves very successful. We've only lost 2 butterflies from the 30 or so we have raised. The caterpillars are fascinating to watch and they grow SO, SO QUICKLY. It is mind boggling. It really is kind of like The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

 

Raising the caterpillars in a cup is a great teachable moment to investigate native plants and host plants for insects. You can work on answering the questions: How is this different than the Painted Lady Butterfly's life cycle in nature? What is a host plant? What part of the plant does a caterpillar depend on? What part of the plant does an adult butterfly depend on? 

 

One day the bigger caterpillars begin to hang from the top of the cup in a "j" shape, and that is when you know that they are getting ready to pupate. Soon after there are chrysalides hanging from the lid of the cup where the caterpillars once were. 

 

Then it is time to move the critters to their butterfly habitat while they make their incredible transformation. We are "Waiting for Wings"!

The next 10 days or so will require a bit of patience, so this is an excellent time to learn more about butterfly life cycles. How cool is this 3-D Monarch life cycle printable download? You can try building your own DIY butterfly feeder in the meantime to attract even more butterflies to your yard or school yard. 

 

Painted Lady Butterflies 

One day, those butterflies will emerge from their chrysalides. We have only actually witnessed it a few times, it happens very quickly. We feed our adult butterflies sugar water from a sponge, orange slices, and watermelon. The butterflies love watermelon! It is so cool to see that curly proboscis unfurl and slurp up the sugary liquid. This is a great time to make some observations that would be difficult to observe in the wild. 

 

After a few days we release our Painted Ladies. It's always a bit of a bittersweet moment as we really enjoy having them, but it is also exciting to see them fly away and be free! 

Take an Insect Class! 

If your kids are wild about insects like mine, maybe they would enjoy my "Invent an Insect!" online class on Outschool. Learn the parts of an insect through games, songs and more in a lesson that I've had success teaching for almost 2 decades! Check out the schedule here. If you are new to Outschool, use my referral coupon code: MSSARAH2020 to receive $20 credit towards your first Outschool classes. You can find other coupon codes here.

Poetry and Engineering Inspired by Nature!

I am thrilled to be reviewing Karen Ansberry's new book: Nature Did It First: Engineering Through Biomimicry, as well as sharing some related STEM activity ideas. In this wonderful new picture book you'll find short poems highlighting the impressive adaptations of plants and animals followed by the story of how these adaptations have inspired engineers to solve a human problem. Nature Did It First is the perfect introduction to nature inspired STEM engineering challenges.

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I receive a small commission from purchases made through these links. Please see disclosures for more information. As well as links from Amazon.com you will also find links to Bookshop.org, an online book store that works to support local independent book stores. Shopping through Bookshop links can help you support book stores in your area! 

Nature Did it First: Engineering Through Biomimicry

 
The author of Nature Did It First, Karen Ansberry, is a former classroom teacher and co-author of one of my favorite elementary science curriculum resources, Picture-Perfect Science Lessons. Ansberry is a master of combining science concepts, story and engaging STEM activities. (Not to mention an awesome facilitator for science education professional development, I have been lucky enough to attend her workshops, they are great!)

We really enjoyed reading Nature Did It First: Engineering Through Biomimicry at our house. It is the perfect mix of fun little poems and really interesting information about how animals like geckos and kingfishers and plants like burrs have influenced engineers to solve human problems. I also really like that there are materials and additional resources available for teachers at the end of the book and online, including a free STEM lesson plan found here.

What is Biomimicry?

First of all, what is biomimicry anyway? If you break down the word, into "bio" and "mimic" you probably can figure it out. Biomimicry is the process of designing nature-inspired solutions to human problems. It is mimicking what we find in nature to help us in our daily lives.

Nature Did It First: Engineering Through Biomimicry explores 7 interesting plants and animals and how their natural features inspired engineers in their designs.

Nature Did It First! 

As I read this book to my daughter, I was surprised by many of the ways that animal and plant behavior or physical adaptations have been incorporated into designs in the human world.

Did you know that gecko toes have inspired the development of adhesives?

Did you know that the fins of humpback whales helped engineers design more smooth and efficient windmill and water turbine blades? 

How about this- did you know that the slippery surface of a pitcher plant inspired a material that helps ketchup slide out of bottles more readily?

These are just a few of the wild ways humans have been inspired by nature! You'll find several more fascinating examples when you read Nature Did It First: Engineering Through Biomimicry. This book would be a fantastic introduction to a STEM lesson at school, or the perfect read-aloud for nature-loving children at home. I highly recommend it!

Adaptation and Biomimicry Activities

To get children learning and thinking about the different features of animals, send them on an animal adaptation scavenger hunt! Read about the adaptations of sloths, anteaters and armadillos in this post, then download a FREE adaptation scavenger hunt card (link at bottom of post) that you can use to search for household items that have similar features or uses as these animal adaptations. [If you prefer, you can also download this scavenger hunt for free on my Teachers Pay Teachers page.]

How is camouflage used in the natural world and human world? Explore some fun camouflage science activities and find some related book suggestions here.

Children and students can design an animal in the amazing adaptations art activity included in my International Sloth Day post here.

Don't miss the awesome STEM challenge and teaching materials available in the back of Nature Did It First: Engineering Through Biomimicry and free downloads for grades K-2 and 3-5 found at the book's webpage here. 

In this engineering challenge, students will study nature, brainstorm a problem that can be solved by an idea from nature, brainstorm and design an invention, build a model and share their creation. An added language arts component could be to write a poem about the natural idea they investigated, similar to the wonderful poetry in Nature Did It First: Engineering Through Biomimicry.

Many, many thanks to Karen Ansberry for sharing her wonderful book with me! 
 

40+ STEM Activities Using Materials You Already Have

I've scoured the 300+ posts on Share it! Science to find over 40 hands-on science, STEM or STEAM activities that do not require special materials and can be completed with things you most likely already have at home. In a few cases I have made suggestions of possible substitutions for materials as well. With a little flexibility and creativity we can work together to give your family a fun experience at home (as well as sneaking in some learning...but don't tell the kids!)

Whether you are stuck close to home due to school closures, or just stumped on what to do with your kids over a vacation you are sure to find something here that will keep you busy! So, raid the recycling bin, check out the craft drawer and start learning and having fun.

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I receive a small commission from purchases made from these links at no additional cost to you. Please see disclosures for more information. 

 

Making, Building and Experimenting Activities 

Kids love things that move! You can build a zany Rube Goldberg machine out of recyclables or just about anything else you have in the house. What task will your machine accomplish? Feeding the dog? Cooling you off on a hot day? Squeezing toothpaste out of a tube? The possibilities are endless with this one!

Encourage the kids to be spies and CSI's with this (ink-free) fingerprinting and (heat-free) invisible ink activity! Explore loops, whorls and arches and other unique patterns in your fingerprints and create and distribute some secret messages. You probably have everything you need right in the kitchen!

Have a flashlight, white paper, water, an old cd? Just a few of the things you can use to make a real rainbow indoors! Learn how to make 5 different rainbows from just a few common household items.

Save your toilet paper rolls and try this challenge!  How much weight can a toilet paper tube hold? How about an egg?

Science in the kitchen! This outlines a decomposition experiment with apples, but you could substitute any food you've got on hand. 

Build a marble roller coaster! This is so much fun for kids and adults alike. You might not have the tubes I've used in this post on hand, but you can use just about any recycled container to create a little roller coaster.



This leaf pigment experiment can be pretty magical, and it can be done with markers if you don't have access to fresh leaves- you'll find the directions for the marker experiment at the bottom of this post.

Do you have flowers outside? Learn how to build a butterfly feeder and see who comes to visit! If you don't have the exact type of jar or sponge at home, experiment to see how you can create a feeder that will deliver a slow feed of nectar!

Love bird watching? Here are some ideas for easy-to-make bird feeders.

Challenge the kids to build a solar oven and make some nachos or s'mores! This is wonderful for open-ended design and engineering.

Investigate reflections with mirrors and drawings. You can also challenge the kids to code some secret messages that only a mirror will help them read!

Did you know that your kids can participate in professional science projects in a hands-on way, or online? Here are some starting points for getting kids involved in citizen science projects.

Do your kids know where the trash goes? Build a landfill model and learn what happens in it over time. Great conversation starter for Earth Day!

ARRRGH! Do your kiddos love pirates? Try these pirate optical illusion activities.

Nature, Wildlife and Outdoor Activities

Go on an indoor animal adaptations scavenger hunt! Free printable included at the end of the post.

Go on a math-themed scavenger hunt for the Golden ratio in the flower garden or the park.

Did you know you can grow a houseplant from kitchen scraps? Try growing a grapefruit plant or an avocado plant! 

Learn the parts of a flower through dissection! Ideas included for adapting for all age levels.

Got dirt, mud, sand or snow? Learn some animal tracks and go on a scavenger hunt.

Dream up and design a themed garden! Fun themes for kids are: taco or pizza garden, rainbow garden, and alphabet garden.

Build your own indoor worm composting bin and start composting your food scraps.

Challenge the kids to design and engineer a plant seed from craft materials and see how well it sinks, flies or floats!

Build a creature and learn about animal adaptations with this easy activity.

Did you know bees communicate through dance? Challenge the kids to code directions in a dance just like a bee!

Kids love building? Here are some nature sculpture engineering challenges. Get outside and build!

For bug-loving kids, here are ideas for designing an insect investigation, includes a free printable science journal.

Observe birds at the feeder and keep a tally with this free bird counting printable.

Go on a nature walk and hunt for cool lichen, see what types of fungus you can find, or find an empty bird's nest.

STEAM: Activities that include Art

You'll find several STEAM activities in this post outlining a family STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) event at my school. These are all fun for the whole family.

Grab a container from the recycling bin and build a zoetrope, then have the kids make some simple animation. This is always a hit with older kids. **Depending on the size of your container you may need to adapt the measurements. (We have faith in you!)

Hone the kid's observation skills and practice sketching in this "magnify without a magnifier" art project. All you need is a writing implement, an interesting object to draw and some paper. 

Find some fractal patterns outdoors or online and create a beautiful fractal sun catcher. If you don't have tracing paper try substituting with parchment paper or very carefully with tissue paper.

Activities that Make Use of Technology

Kids on the computer? They can be citizen scientists and participate in projects like Penguin Watch!

Wildlife cameras are a great way to experience animals that you might not otherwise have the opportunity to see. Learn more about the Decorah Eagle wildlife cam here.

These are some videos I have used to teach science. They are all entertaining enough to watch for fun (and learn something too!)

Who doesn't like some fun music? Here are some of my favorite kid's science songs.

Did you know you can listen to an astronaut read you a picture book? Check out Story Time from Space.

Kids can learn coding for free through a variety of programs online (and off-screen as well!).



Looking for more science activities with household items?

Here is a list of companies offering free subscriptions during school closings!

DIY Seed Germination Jar: A Must-Have for Your Plant Unit!

Seed germination is one of nature's little wonders. Giving your kids and students the opportunity to grow a plant of their own can be a magical experience. Unfortunately, we most often stick the seeds in some soil where we cannot see what happens as the seed becomes a tiny sprout. You can easily solve this problem by building a germination jar so that kids can see the entire process in action!

Building the germination jar is easy, and it is the perfect addition to your plant unit at school or in your home-school. This inquiry-based science activity is linked to K-2 Next Generation Science Standards and offers an extension idea to align with Common Core English and Language Arts standards as well. Paired with a wonderful children's book, you'll definitely want to add this to your spring to-do list for school or home!

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I will receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking a product link. Please see disclosures page for more details.
 

Growing "One Bean"

There are so many science lessons and life lessons learned when children grow something themselves. You can make this activity a part of a science unit on life cycles or just an introduction to gardening with children.

First, we read One Bean, a sweet picture book by Anne Rockwell. In this story a boy plants a bean seed and watches it grow. Although told in a narrative style, anyone could follow the process of growing a bean seed themselves along with the story.




The boy puts the bean in a damp paper towel to prepare it for planting. Once it is wrinkled, he plants it in some soil and waits for his seed to sprout. This is where most planting projects become mysterious! The beauty of your germination jar is that you'll be able to watch the process unfold.

Build a Germination Jar 

To build your seed viewer, or germination jar, you'll only need a few supplies:

• clear smooth-sided glass or jar
• seeds (we had great success with fava beans!)
• clear water beads
• water

Water beads are pretty amazing! You only need a few at a time, and you can dry them out and reuse them for other projects.(They would be great to study absorption as well, as they soak up that water and grow to be 100's of times their original size.)

There are many ways to germinate a seed by keeping it moist, including wrapping in a damp paper towel like in the bean story we read. However, I like that by using the water beads, you do not have to cover the top of the jar up with plastic wrap or something else to hold the moisture in. I have used that method many times to teach children about plants. It works, but it can also lead to mold growing because it sometimes stays too wet.

You will have to experiment with how many water beads and how much water to use. The jar we began with ended up being far too large, so eventually we moved our experiment to a smaller glass. Start by using just a few water beads- a tablespoon of them can go a long way. Pour a bit of water on and let them absorb it for a couple of hours before adding anything else.

You want your jar to be moist, but not too wet. You will need enough water beads to hold your seed in place, but not so many that there is no room to grow. This is the experiment within the experiment!

Watch a Seed Germinate

Before you start, soak your bean seed(s) in a glass of water over night. This really helps to get them off to a quick start. We chose fava beans because they are easy for small hands to hold and are large so you can really see what is going on with them.

Once you've soaked your seed and prepared your water beads, place the bean seed so that it is close to the side of the glass and easy to view. Be sure that there are water beads over the top of the seed so that it stays moist.

Then, you wait! Until the seed begins to germinate, you might want to give the jar a little more water each day, carefully pouring it around the outside of the jar where the seeds are. Within a day or so, you should begin to see that first part of the sprout, the radicle, emerging from the seed.

Keep an eye on your jar. If your water beads seem to be shrinking, add just a bit more water. Once you have a green sprout, you can choose whether to leave the seed in the water beads, or plant it in some soil. If you plan on trying to keep your plant growing to maturity, I'd suggest planting it before too long.

If you are lucky enough to have garden space, then that is the obvious place to grow your beans, but for those with space at a premium, particularly schools, I would suggest investigating growing a pocket garden on a wall. Here is one example of a pocket planter.
 

Meet Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards

This seed investigation will work towards meeting these Next Generation Science Standards for K-2.
NGSS K-LS1-1
NGSS K-ESS3-1
NGSS 2-LS4-1

You can also work towards these K-2 Common Core English and Language Arts Standards by creating an observation journal that includes words as well as drawings.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.K.3
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.1.3
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.3

More Plant Science Investigations! 

Learning with plants can continue throughout the spring and summer seasons. It is a great way to investigate biology concepts like pollination with elementary students.

One of my favorite experimental plant projects is growing an avocado plant from its pit.

Try growing a themed garden with kids. Some theme ideas are: an alphabet garden, a rainbow garden, a taco garden, or a pizza garden, or a garden friends companion garden. 

Explore math and science with sunflowers, and learn the parts of the flower with students in preschool all the way through High School by doing a flower dissection. 

Storybook Science Series

This activity is part of the Storybook Science series. You can find more great book-linked science activities in this series on the Inspiration Laboratories blog.  

You'll also want to visit my Storybook Science posts from past years:

• The Dandelion Seed: Design a Seed Engineering Challenge 
• "Here Comes the Garbage Barge" Inspired Landfill Model

Harness the Power of Nature this Fall!

What is not to love about fall? Crispy colored leaves on the ground, acorns, caterpillars, apples, pleasant weather...I could go on and on! It's the perfect time to get your children or students learning in nature.

Nature is a powerful teaching tool. It inspires kids to ask new questions, explore things they have not seen before and spending time outside has been shown to benefit kids overall health and learning. I've pulled together a bunch of resources to help you teach your students outside this fall. From pumpkins and apples to leaves and twigs, scavenger hunts to garden harvests, you'll find all the ideas you need to provide a nature-rich learning experience for your classroom or homeschool.

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I make a small commission (at no additional cost to you) from purchases made from these links. Please see disclosures for more information.

Observe Nature on a Scavenger Hunt

Get outside and put those powers of observation to good use. So many changes come with the turn of the season, there is a lot to see out there! Try one of these ideas:

• Search for Lichen- its everywhere once you start to look!
• Go on a Funky Fungus Scavenger Hunt
• Look Up! Find a nest you didn't know was there! 

Create Nature Art

Take advantage of those fall colors and the abundance of leaves that have dropped to the ground to create some great nature art. In choosing natural supplies for art pieces, students really take a closer look at these items than they might otherwise.

A great way to guide these projects is with this nature printables pack. You can see how we've used our copy here. It is awesome not only for creating beautiful art pieces, but also mastering early math skills like symmetry and patterning.

Study Animal Behavior in Fall 

In the fall some animals migrate, some bulk up for the winter. Explore fall animal behavior with these ideas:

• Woolly bear caterpillars have amazing adaptations to winter! Learn about woolly bear caterpillars here. 
• Monarch butterflies are incredible migrators. Here are some Monarch migration lesson ideas for Pre-K through High School.
• Some birds begin their fantastic migratory journey this time of year too. Find out how you can study bird migration here. 
• Learn more about spiders with these spider STEM activities. 

Learn with Fall Leaves

Leaves are in abundance on the ground and changing colors on the trees. Try these activities with fall leaves.

• Why do leaves change color? Try this leaf color science experiment. 
• Do you wish you could save those beautiful fall leaves? Check out how you can by making a leaf journal.

 

Science with Pumpkins and Apples! 

Experiment with some of nature's bounty this fall. Here are three easy inquiry science lessons that use pumpkins and apples!

• Can you prevent an apple from rotting? Try this easy, open-ended apple science experiment.
• Discover a pumpkin in a new way this year! Counting, measuring, life cycles and more in this pumpkin STEM investigation.  
• Don't throw out that jack-o-lantern! Investigate decomposition with Pumpkin Jack!