The Spring Homeschool

It is almost spring! I hope you can feel your homeschool coming back to life with a refreshed energy to finish the year well. The authors here at The Curriculum Choice are feeling that renewed energy and have set out to encourage you with wonderful ideas for your spring homeschool.

From spring holiday celebrations and nature study to meaningful art and literature themes, we hope you’ll find at least a few fun ways to enjoy the season!

~Don’t miss the spring-themed giveaway at the end!~

The Spring Homeschool

First up, several of our authors have pulled together some of their best spring homeschooling posts. These ladies are veteran homeschoolers with really magnificent thoughts and teaching ideas!

Cindy from Our Journey Westward

Because the world comes to life again and gives us a million opportunities for meaningful outdoor learning, spring is my favorite homeschooling season. It also happens to contain my favorite holiday and I can see the light at the end of a wonderful (but often long) school year. As some of our regular lessons begin to wrap up, we often use the renewed days of spring for some out-of-the-box learning, too. I love spring!

• Meaningful Easter Homeschooling Traditions – Find a list of our favorite literature, get ideas for Easter themed nature study, and see the activities that have been worth it year after year.
• Rosy Cheeked and Resourceful: Charlotte Mason and Outdoor Play – Learn why outdoor time is incredibly important for your children.
• Simple Field Guide Hint for Nature Study – This fun little tip will help you document nature finds for years to come.
• How to Teach High School Dissection – Sometimes we wait until the last minute of the school year to do some of the things we know we need to do, but don’t necessarily want to do. If dissection is one of those things, this post will make it much easier to tackle than you might imagine.
• 7 Tips for Starting a Nature Club – Spring is the perfect time of year to get a small group of friend together for weekly or monthly educational nature walks. It’s easier than you think to start a club.

Heidi from Starts At Eight

The big thing we look forward to in the springtime here in NY is finally being able to get outside again! Therefore we spend more time in the spring months outside doing nature study type of projects that we can’t engage in here during the winter. We typically bust out nature journals, go for nature walks, learn about gardening, plants, and animals, etc.

 

• Nature Study: Daffodils – Dissection, Poetry & Drawings
• A Spring Chalk Pastels Art Tutorial & Spring Nature Study Resources– This study includes art, science, reading, nature study and so much more!
• Bluebird Nature Walk – Includes Facts & Nesting Boxes
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate – This is a great book that opens of the world of the microscope as well as life in a pond. We did some fun dragonfly art projects and more that are included in this article!
• How to Eat Fried Worms – Yet another great fictional read that lent itself to learning outdoors with an exploration of earth worms!

Heather from Blog, She Wrote

Another upstate NY family, we look for the more subtle signs of spring. Just because the weather might not seem spring like, nature tells us otherwise. Birds get noisy, our migrating friends return, snow melts, the mud dries, and eventually it really feels like spring…even if it’s not till May!

• Gardening as a Tool for Teaching Science– How to use your garden to teach horticulture, biology, ecology, and more.
• Art & Nature with Beatrix Potter– Learn about Ms. Potter, her art and her nature expertise and enjoy the study of art and nature the way she did.
• Adventures with Flower Pressing & Identification– An oldie but goodie on resources and materials for pressing flowers
• How to Make a Plant Journal– Spring is a wonderful time of year to begin some plant collecting and studying in the form of a plant journal.
• Nature Journal Calendars– A year long opportunity to study nature and record observations in a simple printable calendar. There is one for every month of the year.
• The Salamander Room: Amphibians & Reptiles– Spring is a wonderful time of year to discover amphibians and reptiles and vernal pools! And enjoy a lovely children’s book.
• Entomology: The Science of Insects– An introduction to the study of entomology and the tools of the trade.
• The Beginner’s Guide to Studying Ferns– How to get started finding and studying ferns, including a video on how to use a dichotomous key.
• How to Collect & Find Animal Tracks– Good for any time of the year, but tracking mud prints in the spring is an easy endeavor!

Annie Kate from Tea Time with Annie Kate

For us up in Ontario, some unseasonably warm weather is convincing the trees that it’s maple syrup time.  We hope that that won’t lead to a disaster for the trees if another cold snap or snow storm shows up.  And that is how our family homeschools in the spring:  we live along with nature, noticing it, enjoying it, thanking God for it, and bringing its freshness into our home in a gentle way.

So we dream of the week when the hundreds of crocus bulbs we planted last fall begin to bloom.

We also look forward to wandering the woods and seeing the different plants, like bloodroot, tell us what time of year it is.

Although we won’t be floating down the river this year, that annual springtime phys ed adventure is among my favorite homeschooling memories.

Finally, we will do only a little bit of spring cleaning.  Instead, we will focus on noticing the beauty around us.

Tricia from Hodgepodge and ChalkPastel.com

• The whole earth is full of His glory! Isaiah 6:3 It seems to me that we are always talking about making memories with our children during the summer. Or over the Christmas holidays. But memory-making lasts year ’round. Spring can be the time to burst outside and enjoy. To build a new tradition. So I put together some ideas for you on how to make memories this spring.
• Spring is also a great time for a seasonal assessment. Have some fun and get some things done!
• Resurrection Rolls are such a special, memory-making recipe to make the week of Easter.
• Nana’s Coconut Cake is a tradition at Easter. Even my fellow gluten free friends could use a gf boxed cake mix.
• As the days get warmer, you and your gardeners might enjoy making a wagon garden.
• There is SO much to capture in nature this time of year. So pull out the chalk pastels and enjoy some Spring and Easter Art Lessons – St. Patrick’s day, Easter, spring weather, Dr. Seuss, spring trees, birds and more. Nana also shared a video art lesson on How to Draw a Daisy in Chalk Pastels.
• At ChalkPastel.com we have Easter and spring video art lessons – even Preschool Spring video art lessons (all on sale for 25% off this week) for you to enjoy. You can try a free sample of each – including our Bird Video Art Lessons. Paint a bird’s nest in chalk pastels!

Spring Curriculum Reviews

We’ve pulled a few pertinent curriculum reviews from the Curriculum Choice archives, too.

• Homeschool Nature Study Curriculum
• 100+ Creative Nature Walks
• Picture Books for Lent
• Homeschool Field Trips
• Gardens: A Unit Study by Amanda Bennett
• Wrapping Up a School Year

You can also find so many great ideas gathered on our Pinterest boards:

• Nature Study
• Homeschool Field Trips
• Celebrate Spring

Spring Homeschool Giveaway

We’ve put together a fun giveaway (valued at $60!) for your spring homeschool! Included:

Cindy West of Our Journey Westward is giving away both 100+ Creative Nature Walks AND NaturExplorers Beautiful Birds AND

Bird Video Art Lessons from ChalkPastel.com

Simply follow the instructions in the rafflecopter widget below to enter…
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enjoy your spring homeschool! These are precious days bursting with life and activity that will make for great learning and unforgettable memories.