Nature Study Ideas for Creative Kids
Do you have a creative kid? A creative kid could be described as one who appreciates the artistic side of life a little more than the practical side, perhaps.
When you think of creativity in the realm of homeschooling, you might picture children who love art, music, dance, drama, writing, storytelling, and the like. Imagination and creation are usually high on their priority list.
Read more: A Day in the Life of Homeschooling Creative Girls
It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that creative children also love logical thinking. However, subjects like math and science may not be tops on their homeschooling wish list.
I’d like to help you change that today! I’ve been teaching science and math creatively (and successfully to creative kids) for a long time. Now I’d like to share some nature study ideas for creative kids.
Nature Study Ideas for Creative Kids
Nature study IS science. It easily includes biology (plants and animals) and earth and space science – and can be stretched at times to include physical and chemical sciences. It also happens to be active, open-ended, and has a bazillion opportunities to include creativity.
Consider for a moment the typical view of science. Our minds often turn toward pictures of boring textbooks with boring tests that make our creative kids zone out completely. It doesn’t have to be that way!
Nature study offers creative kids the chance to think in ways that promote their natural tendencies. Here are a handful of nature study ideas for creative kids!
- Allow artistic kids to use their nature journal to create magnificent works of art. This promotes detailed observation skills which are key for scientists. Encourage note-taking, but allow for the notes to be written in artistic ways – flowery lettering, on craft paper that’s glued into the nature journal, or as poetry.
- Musical kids may want to create songs about the things they see on nature walks and the facts they learn. They could even be prompted to create rhythms to represent the patterns they see in nature.
- Kids who love dance, drama, writing, or storytelling can take what they learn in nature and create presentations about a nature walk in their “creative language”. Much observation and understanding of the scientific concepts will be required to create a truly stunning presentation. (I call that sneaky learning.)
Making artistic creations during a nature walk can keep creative kids happy, too. Building a fairy fort with things collected on the walk or storytelling that coincides with things along the path are both great examples of detailed nature observation used creatively.
To get in some scientific knowledge during a walk, allow your creative child to read aloud facts from a field guide or a picture book. The very act of taking on a leadership role through reading fills the creative bucket for some kids.
Read more: The Best Butterfly Books for Kids
If that’s not your child’s cup of tea, use the field guide or book as a challenge to include some of the information in their other creative endeavors. For instance, they might use five facts from the field guide to include in the poem they’re writing in the nature journal. Or, after listening to you read aloud from a picture book before the walk, they might continue the story through storytelling during the walk.
Read more: 12 Engaging Picture Books about Bees
There are so many wonderful options to do school in ways that meet the needs of our children! That’s one of the best parts of homeschooling, really.
Over the years, I’ve created several different types of nature study curriculum – all with creative ideas – to meet the needs of various types of learners in 1st-8th grades. I hope you’ll check them out whether you have a creative kid or not.
- The NaturExplorers series is a creation-based science curriculum that allows your children to “dig deep” into a particular nature topic. There are creative nature walks, hands-on ideas, kid-friendly writing and research projects, book lists, printables, poetry, art, music, and more!
- 100+ Creative Nature Walks is a grab-n-go curriculum that allows you to choose a creative nature walk idea and head out the door with very little prep at all.
- 40 Nature Walks: Science Labs On-the-Go includes print-n-go nature journal pages that are self-contained, no-prep science lessons.
- No Sweat Nature Study DIGITAL is a series of curriculum that the entire family can do around the kitchen table. No outdoor time is required! There are several extension ideas (including nature walks) for families that want to linger on a topic.
- No Sweat Nature Study LIVE is a unique membership where I teach your children science through online nature study lessons twice a month. All live lessons are recorded and placed in a video library that members can access at any time. There are tons of previously recorded lessons in the library ready for you to watch right now!
Remember at the top of the article where I mentioned science and math can be taught creatively? I don’t have time to go into the topic of math today, but you can certainly check out Loving Living Math, a guide to help cast a vision for math that can benefit creative learners.
While it can sometimes be challenging to keep the attention of kids who seem to desire creating instead of “learning”, think creatively yourself and you’ll be amazed at how much learning can take place!
About the author:
Cindy West has homeschooled three children over the last 19 years and doesn’t regret a minute of it (even though there were hard days). She writes about creative homeschooling at OurJourneyWestward.com and would love to connect with you there or on any social media platform @ourjourneywestward.
Read more in the 10 Days of Nature Study Ideas series:
- Morning Baskets with Teens - July 25, 2024
- How to Easily Build Your Own Homeschool Curriculum - July 23, 2024
- Homeschool Records: How to Make a Transcript - July 17, 2024
