My lesson at our local homeschool co-op on a Friday before Chrismas Break was "Is There Any Nature in the Wintertime?" & "What Do Animals Do Now?"  I have been teaching Nature Study since this September, and have just loved this little group. 

  Honesty Point:  I’ve taught up to TWELVE 3 to 8 year olds in this class some weeks!  Talk about everybody everywhere!   Thank goodness for the mommies who help me out.  To also help with the “chaos control”, I used a little lesson about our senses.  Before we started each week, I would say and have them point to each part of the body we talked about and we did little actions:

”Our EYES are for LOOKING.”

“Our BRAINS are for THINKING.”

“Our EARS are for LISTENING.”

“Our MOUTHS are for QUIET when Miss Karla is talking.”

“Our HANDS are for FEELING & FINDING.” (And “raising” when you have a question – something we are working on, but in all honesty, I love how they get so excited that they just can’t contain it.)

“Our FEET are for WALKING when its time to WALK.”

“Our BOTTOMS are for SITTING.”

  As six bouncy and sweet 3 to 8 year-olds made spiders at the craft table from foam circles and black thin pieces of paper (along with my 2 yo son who ambled back and forth in the room from the craft table to the toy box), all of them answered my first question with: "Miss Karla, there's no nature to see any more!" 

  I said, "Hum....  yes, the earth can look pretty brown & dead right now with it being so cold."  So we used that time to review: "What does happen to trees in the winter?" and the kiddos were able to recall what we had learned about leaves turning colors, how trees "rest" in the winter and how the sap goes down to the roots -- along with how in the spring it comes up and brings us maple syrup!  Hurray, kids, for remembering all that!

  “So you guys think all of nature is done?”

“Yes!”

 "Did any of you get a Christmas tree?"

“Yes!”

 "Do you see birds in your backyard?”

“Yes!”

 “Are they nature?”

“Yes!”  And then it clicked:  “There IS still nature to see!” they said excited.

  “So you can STILL see nature.  There are still trees with needles like your Christmas tree, and there are leaves on some, like the live oaks and holly.  But what happens to the animals?”

  And from there, we learned about HIBERNATION and MIGRATION and how some animals ADAPT and still come out in the winter months.  I told them we made the spiders because when our family had gone to the mountains in November, we had visited a cavern and saw how the daddy longlegs had crawled in the crevices of it and huddled together.  I love how learning just flows – we got to talk about caverns, how they stay the same temperature year round, what animals live in them, etc.

  From there, someone mentioned that BEARS live in caves.  Smart kids – exactly what I wanted to talk about as an example of HIBERNATION!

  After our talk about that, we discussed MIGRATION and reviewed about BUTTERFLIES, which we had learned in October, and how they go to Mexico.  I showed them the flight paths of geese, and how some come right down to OUR AREA of the Carolinas and the Atlantic South for the winter!  I also shared with them about visiting Desoto National Wildlife Refuge when I was a little girl growing up in Nebraska, and how you could see hundreds of geese, sandhill cranes, etc as they took their flight south.  (For more information, go to http://www.fws.gov/midwest/DeSoto/)

  Finally, we talked about how animals ADAPT.  Some rabbits turn white, animals grow more hair and are fat from eating all summer and fall, some sleep when it’s cold and come out during warmer days.  The little ones added their excited comments and chatter, all squirming with the important things they wanted to share.  I showed them a picture of a squirrel’s nest, and encouraged them to look for them this week at home.  One little girl said, “We have a TON of those!”  (Of course, I’m envious, because I haven’t seen any yet down here – guess I’ll have to “put my eyes on” too.)

  Finally, I showed them a piece of holly with berries that I had brought from my house, sharing with them about how God made the berries for the birds to eat in the winter months (with a caution that God made them for the birds, not little kids). 

How sweet it was to wrap up our class for the semeseter by reviewing about the critters and plants we've studied this fall, what happens to all of them in the winter, and how God provides for them!