2 Simple Ways to Love Learning with Outdoor Activities

Springtime. The weather is gorgeous and you want to be outdoors. Why not take your homeschool outdoors and encourage a love of learning?

My kids loved being outdoors, so I used their desire to go outside in our homeschool. As an added benefit, my kids enjoyed their homeschool more when they were outdoors.

What kind of outdoor homeschool activities can you use? Let’s take a look!

Unit Studies

Even if you don’t use unit studies all the time, spring is a terrific time to do an outdoor unit study. Unit studies are one of my favorite ways to homeschool for the love of learning.

Find what your child is interested in and center your studies on that topic. Notice I said, “what your child is interested in”, not what you’re interested in. If you want your children to grow in a love of learning, use their interests, not yours. If you have several children, rotate the topics for your units.

To create an outdoor unit study, think of topics that are outdoors. A few you might consider are plants, astronomy, bugs, beach geography, ocean life, lake life, local history or flight science (paper airplanes, bikes jumping ramps).

Take five minutes with your kids. Ask them what they want to study this spring. Let them offer ideas and narrow down to one to get started.

To plan a unit, follow this 3-step process:

1. Read about your topic.
2. Write about your topic.
3. Create your topic.

This allows reading, writing and hands-on activities. When homeschooling high school kids, you might also let them create unit studies for their younger siblings, following this process.

Now that it’s springtime, I would do most of our unit activities outdoors, even reading outside on our deck.

Go to the library & get books on your topic. Then, plan your writing activities. Depending on the ages of your kids, have them write about their book in one of these ways.

• Young Kids – Narrate to mom what they read. Mom types out the narration. The next day have your child copy his narration.
• Middle-Aged Kids – Write narration themselves.
• Older Kids – Journal “about’ their readings. Write their thoughts about their readings.

One of the easiest spring unit studies you could do outside is centered on gardening. Your garden could be in your yard or on your porch in pots, depending on where you live.

Read about gardening. Write about gardening. Do projects about gardening. The easiest project is to plant a garden. Here’s a short unit study on gardening that you could adapt to your own homeschool.

Research: Find books at the library about gardening or the type of garden you want to plant

Reading: Let your kids read at least one of those books

Read Aloud: Choose a book to read aloud as a family

Language Arts: Copywork, narration or reading journal about their book

Math & Science: Research and plan your garden

Math: Buy what you need to plant your garden

Hands-On: Prepare the area and plant your garden

Writing & Science: Keep a journal to record the growth of your plants

Writing: Write a paragraph about your garden. You might choose from a variety of writings, such as how to plan & plant a garden, describe your favorite plant (use your senses), or summarize your book in one to three paragraphs.

Art: Draw, color, paint your plants or flowers after they grow

Nature Studies

When following a Charlotte Mason homeschool, you’re encouraged to use nature studies as a natural way to learn Science. Spring is the perfect time to get started. All you need are your eyes, your feet, your hands and an art journal to record our findings. Actually, you’ll use all your senses when you’re outside doing nature studies (see, smell, hear, feel, taste)

A super-easy place to start nature studies is in your own backyard.

Let your kids explore the grass, the dirt, the trees, the birds, the bugs. Depending on what you find, your younger kids can take nature and glue it in their journal. My kids included pine needles, pine cone pieces, flowers and so forth. As my kids got older, I asked them to draw or paint what they discovered.

After time outside, your kids can choose one discovery to research. Go to the library or your family stash of books to learn more about a specific plant, bug, bird, or constellation.

After exploring your own yard, you have a multitude of places to explore.

Our city park had a pond, so we were able to explore water life and earth life at the same time. I packed a picnic lunch and our art journals; then headed to the park. We spent the day exploring and learning.

Hands-on learning like nature studies or unit studies are the best strategies to encourage your kids to love learning and get your homeschool outdoors this springtime.

Which tip will you use to homeschool outdoors?

Don’t Leave Without Claiming Your Freebie!

I want to give you my How to Create Homeschool Unit Studies guide for free this month. Our guide includes an expanded version of the Gardening Unit Study, a list of gardening books and our Bean Plant Experiment for Kids. All you need to do is enter your name & email below. Available FREE for a limited time only thru Tuesday, March 24, 2020!  This free offer has expired.

Kerry Beck helps you get past the perfect Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook image and get on to real life…real life ways to inspire your kids to grow in Christ and love learning. She wants to help you inspire your kids to love learning, giving them a superb, Christian education . . . where they will think critically & Biblically. You can connect with Kerry at her How to Homeschool My Child blog and at Mom’s Monday Lunch Bunch weekly Facebook Live. She also hangs out at Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram. Feel free to email her at kerry@HowToHomeschoolMyChild.com