Fall nature study and walk

Fall is my absolute favorite season. The weather is cooler. The air feels more crisp and clean. The smells of wood and leaves and cinnamon hang in the air. The colors of the falling leaves, golden, burnt red, yellow, orange, and brown. Did I mention…pumpkins?

I love to study nature with my boys and go on nature walks. We spend as much time as we can outdoors. The fall gives us such a wonderful perspective of nature. We go to the library and check out as many nature books as we can. We devour them while we sit on a blanket outside.

Some of my favorite things to study in the fall are:

It may seem so simple but studying these dead and falling objects is so fascinating. They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. They make a once dull area come alive with movement and color. We gather leaves on our nature walks and bring them back to do rubbings and drawings in our nature journals. We label each one and look them up in our many nature books from the library.

Yup. Bugs. I really don’t enjoy bugs very much but my boys do. We have noticed that a lot of bugs either die or go away during the cooler weather. We find dead bugs in our yard and put them in our nature box for further study. We draw them in our journals and label them. We read books about each one and study how they live and move and eat. Bugs can be really cool to study if you have the right books and the right attitude.

You wouldn’t think to study seeds in the fall but there are plenty of them. We found grass seeds, apple seeds (from the fruit of our apple trees), flower seeds that were falling off, and a few others. We gathered some of our favorites and journaled them. We also “dissected” a few seeds to see what was inside of them. It was very interesting. There are so many books about seeds as well.

My favorite! We usually go on a field trip (or two or three) to our local pumpkin farm. We get a few small pumpkins and cut them open. We examine the insides and draw the different elements in our journals. There are more books about pumpkins than I can even name. After we study the insides and take them out, we carve a funny face on each one. It is the perfect combination of nature study and craft.

We already talked about studying leaves. Trees are also a fun way to see how nature changes in the fall. The bark becomes darker. The limbs are now bare. You can see where bird and squirrel nests were for the summer. We love to draw trees in our journals.

I found the cutest little starter journal for anyone wanting to delve into nature journaling: My Fall Journal is available on rainbowresource.com. I encourage you to pick one up and go for a walk in your yard or local park. There is so much fun waiting to be experienced through nature. Happy Fall!