The changing season is a great time for homeschool students to learn more about the environment. As the weather transitions from Summer to Winter, so many different changes can be seen just outside your homeschool class window. Now’s a good time to head outdoors and do a few of these activities related to both flora and fauna.
Collecting Pine Cones to Paint
Take a hike and bring an empty bag to collect all the pine cones that you can find. These can be painted in the homeschool classroom to form a beautiful fall ornament. You can also use them in your Halloween decorations. Plus if you have a fall bonfire, adding the pine cones is always a good touch. You can get a lot of good ideas on Pinterest when it comes to projects using pine cones. Get creative and allow your homeschool students to come up with ideas of their own.
Conducting a Leaf Study
The leaves change color in the fall and are often found littered on the ground. Make it a point to explain exactly what all changes the leaves experience in their life cycle to your homeschool students. You may also like to include a study of plants that tend to go dormant during this part of the year. Take pictures of the plant every three months for the homeschool students to be able to really tell the difference.
Foraging for Berries
Taking a trip to a park where they have bushes with berries is a great way to let homeschool students indulge in nature’s harvest. Make it a day’s picnic and see what all you can gather. The fall is a good time for finding blackberries, elderberries, rosehips, crab apples, sloes, hazelnuts and sweet chestnuts. Of course the best part is getting to eat what they harvested on the picnic.
Helping Feed the Birds
With the lack of seeds and the changing season depriving them of fruits, birds will really appreciate a feeder put out in your garden. Let the homeschool students learn about what kinds of grains different birds prefer and then decide what they would like to place out in the feeder that they build.
