Homeschool Seaside Nature Nature Study, Living Books, and Nature Journal Pages

Nature study, if you are not careful, can fall by the wayside (as can composer and artist study) in favour of exam subjects. 

If these things are important to you then you simply have to plan them in. There is no need to lose the joy of learning just because you are homeschooling a high schooler. 

I confess that our own nature/composer/artist studies have been sporadic at best this year and we can definitely feel the difference in the joy of learning as a result. So it is with a determination that Fridays will once again be set aside, as it always has been in our home, for these and other studies. 

I believe that good living books can be enjoyed at any age. 

My grandmother and I share that simple joy that is picking up a Beatrix Potter/AA Milne/Kenneth Grahame/Jill Barklem, and a myriad of others, book. I really don't see why, for the pure joy of reading these beautiful books, you would neglect to enjoy them because they are aimed at younger readers.

So for the pure joy of it, my daughter and I are enjoying reading Enid Blyton's 'Nature Lovers Book'. Because it is a living book it is instructional although it is our field guides and observational skills that we turn to as a matter of course. 

Today I had planned for us to take a walk to the beach and see what we could find. We started by reading from the 'Nature Lovers Book'. It gave us a starting point on what to look out for which was quite useful as we have not done a marine nature study before. We learnt throughout reading about various shells and seaweeds that we could possibly expect to find - a great starting block.

The footpath down to the beach is just at the end of the lane, then it's a 1/4 mile walk down to the beach.

Once there we found copious amounts of kelp and seaweed. Immediately we were able to identify three different types based on our reading. If we had not read that "children's" story we would have identified a whole lot of nothing. Are you seeing the value of good living books being ageless yet?

We found Oar Seaweed [Laminaria digitata], Sea Lettuce, a Kelp Holdfast which we identified at home after a bit of research, and some Bladder Wrack which we had read about in our reading too.

We found 3 of the 5 different shells mentioned in our reading...

Whelks, Limpets and Periwinkles.

We learnt that 'Whelks' is a generic name given to sea snails and the shells can vary drastically. 

We even found skate egg cases amongst the seaweed! Another thing that was mentioned in the reading so we had a huge amount of learning and discovering in today's lesson.

We brought all beach-combing treasures home to document in our nature journals. My daughter simply printed off the photographs and wrote a narration in her journal as she really does not like drawing or painting. I've mentioned that here before. For years I insisted she draw, but really, the joy was not there for her. Last year I decided that I would rather have her enjoy engaging with nature and keep a journal that works for her. So that's what we do.

I, on the other hand, love keeping a nature journal as you know. So I sat down to a good two hours of recording our finds...

When we lived in South Africa, we were literally only a mile from the beach. Beach-combing in all weathers and searching rock pools was a weekly activity. I hadn't realised until today how much I miss that! Now that we live so close to the ocean I am looking forward to picking up our beachy pursuits once more.