BFB Nature Study Review
If you’ve been following along our school year it will probably be no surprise that Seasons Afield from Beautiful Feet Books has been my favorite study of the year. If you need an introduction to this nature + art curriculum be sure to head over to my original blog post on our curriculum picks that I posted last summer: 2023-2024 Curriculum Picks: Family Style Science + Art. In this post I went over in detail what you’ll need to get started with the curriculum and we did use everything I recommended. I also have two story highlights on my IG called Seasons Afield and 2Seasons Afield with lots of little peeks into the curriculum and how we used it.
Supplemental Resourses
I am more electric in my homeschool style and I like to pull from all different places which you’ll see in some of my other posts. However, there is very little I changed with this study and I actually stayed really close to the curriculum. There are a few things we used along side the curriculum though:
Nature Notebooks: So, we used these Nature Journals instead of the journals Beautiful Feet recommends (which are basically just lined notebooks). The ones we used worked fine and they’re a good option. We taped in our field notes and watercolor projects. But, I will say, if I were to just do it again - I would’ve taken the Field Note & Watercolor Card Set (which, yes, you do need - one packet for each kid) and just cut down the watercolor cards so they were the same size as the field notes and then spiral bind all the loose papers together. (See my spiral binder set up here.) I didn’t love having four packets of papers to manage all year with the kids and it would’ve been so much more simpler to just bind them all from the beginning and then have the kids record their nature journal notes (like the weather, the moon phase, their observation notes) all on the back of the pages.
Nature Backpacks: I got four of these for the kids as a fun back-to-homeschool gift and we love them. We have gotten a lot of use out of them and we will continue to do so!
Nature’s Art Club: This is a fantastic resource to go along with this study. Definitely don’t feel like you need to add in extra art to this curriculum, but I like to mix things up and really enjoy this resource. I would say it’s best for upper elementary age, but there are definitely a few things that early elementary kiddos can do. We have a lifetime membership to this course so we can pull from it when we need to.
Deep Space Sparkle: Sparklers Club I learned about this art resource half-way through our school year. One of the first packages I unlocked was a seasonal themed bundle so we could use with this study which was super fun. One thing you should know about this resource though is that enrollment for this curriculum ONLY opens twice a year in August and January. It is JAM PACKED with resources. You can learn more about the subscription here: The Sparklers Club.
Nat-Theo Podcast: This is the perfect biblical child-friendly podcast to go along with this study.
Seek: We’ve been using this nature app for almost three years now and love it.
Books: The great thing about this curriculum is it comes with all the books you need, but, admittedly, I LOVE adding more seasonal books so I have a whole list of favorites you can find here: Fall Books, Winter Books, and Spring Books.
More Nature Favs: I’ve compiled some of my other nature favs on this list…you’ll find pocket microscopes, magnifying glasses, whistles, bug catchers, field guides, watercolor pencils, ect.
Also, one last note, a lot of you have asked about the All That He Made Nature Card Set from The Good News Brand (formally Wrk & Wndr), but, sadly, they’re no longer available. They seriously were one of my favorite things about this study and I am so sad they don’t offer them anymore - if I ever see them come back though I’ll for sure let you guys know.
Study Schedule
As I mentioned in my review of Story of the World 2 Highlights, we usually do history and science family style. You can read more about how we break down our school year over there, but basically we spend about 4-6 weeks studying history and then switch and study science for 4-6 weeks. Sometimes it’s a little shorter and sometimes it’s a little longer. So, on that note, that’s how I approached this study and it worked really well.
This curriculum is broken down to six units: Autumn Story & The High Hills (great for the autumn months), The Secret Staircase & Winter Story (great for the winter months) and Spring Story & Poppy’s Babies (great for the spring months). Each unit has four study topics and each study topic has four lessons. So essentially there are 32 lessons in each season you study. If you average two-three lessons a week, it’ll be a study for the entire homeschool year. I think if you live in a place where there aren’t very distinct seasons - this would work just fine, but if you do live in a place with seasonal changes then you’ll want to plan accordingly. Also for sure plan for the unpredictability that sometimes seasons bring. For example, we had the perfect opportunity for a winter and snow study in January this year and I am so glad I ceased the moment and did it because the rest of the season we just didn’t have as much snow as we have had in past years. Here in Utah it worked well to do our autumn sections in September, winter in January, and spring at the end of April and early May.
Another thing to keep in mind is that most of the lessons are pretty short - definitely under 30 minutes. This works great for younger kids, but because they’re so simple and short it is also really easy to combine the lessons. There were quite a few times I combined 2-3 lessons into one longer lesson. Since my girls are older, like I mentioned, I added a few more advanced art projects for them and also brought in some additional YouTube videos to add a little more depth to certain topics we were studying.
Final Thoughts
One of the main reasons I wanted to do this study was so that we could learn more about our Father in Heaven and His creations and I really feel like we drew closer to Him. This study really was the perfect balance of some indoor school work, some hands-on projects, and outdoor fieldwork. It is so easy to adapt for older kids and rich with stories. Next year we aren’t going to do a more formal nature study like this, but being outdoors and learning more about the world around us is definitely something we’re going to continue to embrace. If you do this curriculum, let me know what you think!
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