As you perhaps search for ways to add structure to days spent at home, why not create some routines around spending time in nature, or set up a low-stakes experiment your family can check on regularly? Now is the time to search for signs of spring!
As you head OUTSIDE, try these ideas:
- Encourage family members to choose a sit spot. This is a nearby place that you visit frequently for quiet observation. You can draw, write, or just listen and watch as you do so–what matters most is making it a habit.
- Start a nature journal. Make your own, or download a free printable nature journaling template in our A Snowy Owl Story teaching guide (pdf). My family also keeps a copy of The Naturalist’s Notebook, a five-year calendar-journal from Nat Wheelwright and Bernd Heinrich, handy for recording seasonal changes in our yard.
- Try marking a plant or twig with string and checking on it daily. If you don’t mind a little pollen, you could even clip a second twig and put it in a jar of water indoors. Which develops more quickly?
To bring the learning INDOORS, try:
- Last fall’s acorns are beginning to sprout. We put some in a jar with a damp paper towel and have been watching their roots grow longer each day.
- Ask friends and family, especially those in other parts of the country, what signs of spring they’ve been noticing. My parents down in Rhode Island recently saw their first Osprey of the year!
- Take inspiration from knitted temperature scarves and create your own visual representation of the weather. Choose colors to correspond to temperature ranges or different weather conditions, then add a new link to a paper chain or bead to a string each day.
Please comment below to show us the view from your sit spot, or let us know what signs of spring you’re seeing at home!
