Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Environmental and Outdoor Education

Our new home is a Charlotte Mason enthusiast's dream. Our 2008/2009 school studies will be heavy on nature studies. This week I've begun laying out my plan for the year.

One place I turned for help was 4-H. They have a lot of resources available for education in the out of doors. For example, I found an 80-page guide titled The Walk: Taking Your Youth Outdoors for Environmental Stewardship and Learning. After clicking on the hyperlink, scroll down to find it. You can print it off on your home computer for free. You can three-hole punch the paper or get fancy and comb bind it. If you live in Michigan it's very possible your 4-H office offers the bound book for free, so it'd be worth a phone call to save on printing costs.

Also helpful were these study sheets to be used in wildlife identification. These I printed off on three-hole punch paper for the kids to put in their nature notebooks.
Tree Study Sheets
Wildflower Study Sheets
Rock and Mineral Study Sheets

I hope to share more with you as we move forward with this study.

ADDENDUM: The Walk is not available free from the extension office after all. It's a $14 book. So, it is cheaper to download and print.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

4H does make for a good activity for the kids to be in and I like the project books stuff. Like getting a free science lab or home ec. book and other stuff included in the membership.
When we were looking for a Catholic homeschooling group, a priest directed us toward a 4H group of other Catholic homeschoolers. Unfortunately the group is breaking up, the older kids are graduating. and the other group we now know of has kids around the age of my younger 4. But our oldest daughter is caught in the middle of not having any her age.
Trying to see about the 4H in town here, but the contact parent never checks her answering machine :O May just have to show up for a meeting. I hope there is a Cloverbuds here in town or that my oldest can participate.