Virtual Nature Club For Kids In A ‘Web Box’!
Virtual Nature Club Web Box
Virtual Nature Club
For Kids
In A ‘Web-Box’!
And no subscription necessary…
Autumn Box!
Guinea Pig
Virtual Nature Club In A Web Box!
What on earth is that your likely wondering!
Well it’s kind of like one of those nature subscription boxes that you can subscribe to, and you receive a new box of activities each month or so.
Instead this nature ‘web-box’ is virtual so no need to sign up for anything, or purchase the packaging.
Corgi
Each web ‘box’ will contain 4 or 5 activities that can be carried out during the season, as well as a link to some relevant poems to read, suggestions for stories and books, a few puzzles.
Generally some yummy recipes will be suggested.
Nature subscription boxes are a great way to get your child actively interested in their environment, but they are also an added expense.
Especially when we already have other homeschooling or learning materials to purchase.
So here is where the virtual nature web-box comes in!
Using this virtual autumn box your child will enjoy:
learning about the Rowan tree
finding a local Rowan tree to adopt
sketch in their nature journal
forage for rowan berries
simmer up some rowan berry jam
prepare jam pots for gifts
construct a rowan wood wand
plant apple pips with the aim of growing an apple tree
learn about weather forecasting
construct their own weather station
learn how to give a weather broadcast
listen to vivaldi’s four season music
fill out a music response sheet
learn more about Vivaldi’s music and why we should listen to it
read some autumn poetry
have a poetry/classical music teatime
bake some banana bread or cupcakes
discover new autumn and thanksgiving themed stories from Project Gutenberg
access lots of autumn/thanksgiving/harvest colouring pages
complete some autumn puzzles
create a mega autumn mood board!
and much more!
I hope you and your kids will have fun using these ideas and suggestions. I really appreciate any feedback you may have, just add a comment at the bottom of this post.
Autumn Activities
1. Set up a homemade weather station, take on the role of a junior meteorologist, learn some weather forecasting terminology, and start tracking all that exciting, crazy autumnal weather!
A useful site to track your local weather is weather.com. Just type in your town to the search bar.
For your weather station you can construct a rain gauge, a wind sock, a hygrometer and a barometer. Though you’ll need a shop bought thermometer.
Construct a homemade windsock:
A wind sock tells us what direction the wind is blowing in.
Find out how to create a tissue paper windsock here and a milk jug/ribbon windsock here.
Wind sock
Maybe think up your own materials for making a windsock. You can find out about the science of windsocks here.
Construct a homemade rain gauge:
Next construct a rain gauge so you can measure the amount of rainfall your area has in a day, week, or month!
Rain gauge
The Ecology Centre has an easy peasy rain gauge to create with a plastic juice bottle. Find out more about rain gauges over at Sciencing.com.
Hygrometer
Construct a homemade Hygrometer:
Now that the wind direction and rain measurement, are sorted it’s time to tackle humidity.
Humidity is just the amount of moisture in the air, and can be measured using a hygrometer.
Try making this hygrometer over at Instructables.com.
Find out the science behind hygrometers.
Find out how a weather house hygrometer works.
Weather house hygrometer
Construct a homemade Barometer:
Atmospheric barometer
With a barometer you can see what the air pressure is that day, and predict whether its going to rain or not!
You can find out how to create a barometer over at easyscienceforkids.com
Barograph
Construct an anemometer:
Anemometer
With a homemade anemometer you can test how many miles per hour (mph) the wind is going!
Find an easy anemometer to construct at education.com.
Professional anemometer
Useful sites and print outs for your weather station project:
With these links you can download weather recording charts, and learn how to give a weather broadcast.
Wind direction anemometer
Recording the weather using your own weather station
Record the temperature charts
Weather Recording Chart from PrimaryResources.co.uk
Another weather chart
Wind strength/speed information chart
Twenty weather fact cards
Learn about the wind measuring Beaufort Scale
Learn how to create and present your own weather forecast
Find out more about meteorology by visiting this fun, informative website Weatherwhizkids.com
Rowan berries
2. Go on a nature walk around your neighbourhood, and see if you can find the magical tree called the Mountain Ash. Also known as a Rowan tree.
Another name for this tree is ‘Wizard Tree’ as it has a rich history of magical folklore.
On the Woodland Trust Site you’ll learn about how to identify the Rowan, its mythology, and its important place in the ecosystem.
Rowan tree
Sketch the rowan tree in your nature journal, scrapbook or piece of paper, labeling the different parts. Include the scientific name.
You could take leaf rubbings of the leaves and the tree’s bark.
Additionally, snap some photographs and add these to your journal.
My daughters homemade magickal wands made from sticks, she gave these as christmas presents last year
Another one of my daughters wand creations
My daughter’s homemade wand
If you’re lucky enough to discover a fallen rowan branch beneath the tree, take it home, and dry it out somewhere warm for a few days.
And then create a magickal wand!
Rowan berries and leaves
Rowan wood makes one of the best magickal wands!
Find out here how to craft a cool Harry Potter type wand.
Common places to find rowan trees are inside graveyards and besides houses.
Rowan trees were planted for protection against ghouls and spirits.
Rowan tree
Rowan trees can live as long as 200 years, so if you find a really old tree then it’s guaranteed to be a special tree with lots of stories to tell if it could!
Why not adopt your favourite local rowan tree?
Find a tree adoption certificate and activity list here.
Rowan flowers
3. Go rowan berry foraging, and stew up some delicious rowan berry jam. If your lucky you may even have a rowan tree in your garden. The Woodland Trust site provides handy tips on identification, foraging, and has a yummy rowan berry jam recipe.
Jam simmering on stove
Pot your jam up into some recycled jam jars. Top the lid with some jam covers if you have them, perhaps make some from tissue paper.
Tie some twine, string or wool around into a pretty bow. Construct a label from a cereal box or card.
Now you have an awesome birthday, halloween, thanksgiving or Christmas gift for your friends and family.
Jam
Not to mention some nutritious preserve that you can enjoy throughout the autumn months.
I love oatcakes with vegan ham slices and cheese, topped off with a dollop of rowan berry jam.
Also, try some a spoonful of the jam in your porridge, or make some peanut butter and rowan jam sandwiches.
Homemade jam
Don’t forget to add a photo of your delicious jam to your nature journal pages, beside your sketches of the rowan tree.
Nature subscription boxes tend to provide seeds to plant, so if you’d like to plant something, you could plant some apple seeds.
Apple tree
Use the apple pips left over from the rowan berry jam recipe, or apple seeds from an apple you’ve just muched. Better still use the seeds from a crunchy, sticky toffee apple!
Toffee apples
The type of apple tree that will grow will be an exciting long term project, as you never know what kind of apple will grown from a pip!
Apple orchard
Instructables.com explains how to grow an apple tree from a pip.
Jam jars
4. Listen to Antonio Vivaldi’s autumn inspired music, and fill out an insightful student response sheet. Find the student music response sheet here. The music video is below.
Autumn is a great season, as is any, to read and compose some inspiration poetry. Especially as its National Poetry Day (UK) on the 3rd October, 2019! Find lots of autumn poems here.
Autumn
Why not have a poetry or classical music herbal teatime? It’ll be fun!
Prepare some cucumber sandwiches, crusts on or off is optional.
Bake some fairy buns or cupcakes, or my delicious banana bread cut into slices and spread with various yummy toppings.
Or perhaps some thyme and agave scones, with jam and cream?
Banana bread
Don’t forget the tea! Use a real tea pot if you have one, and brew up some herbal tea, serve in cups and saucers.
Then settle down and enjoy tea, goodies and some good poetry/and/or classical music!
Take turns reciting poetry, and have discussions about what it all means.
You might be inspired to write your own autumn poem.
Or compose your own autumn sounds!
Apples
Vivaldi’s Autumn, from The Four Seasons:
I love this TED-ED video about we should listen to Vivaldi’s 4 seasons!
A YouTube link to the complete Four Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, by Vivaldi.
Bison
5.Create an Autumn Mood Board. This is an amazingly therapeutic and enjoyable activity.
Listen to Vivaldi’s four seasons while you create your mood board!
Fox
To do this you just need a stiff piece of cardboard or card, as large as you like.
Add to it pictures from magazines, leaflets, catalogues, any printed materials that contain words and images that you associate with autumn.
Stag
Paint autumn pictures. These could be abstract, so just the autumn colours that you like, and interesting patterns and shapes.
Cut out your artwork and stick it on to your mood board.
Cockatoo, Australia
Also add leaf prints, made with painting leaves and printing these onto paper. Cut these out and attach to your mood board.
Take autumn photos, especially the first signs of autumn such as rusty coloured leaves, piles of fallen leaves, seeds, and autumn coloured sunsets.
Add a few selfie’s of you splashing in an autumn puddle or kicking up autumn leaves!
You could also stick autumn coloured hand or foot prints onto your board!
Then you’ll be able to compare the sizes next autumn, and see how big you’ve grown in a year.
Horse
Perhaps stick on that toffee apple wrapper, save it from the bin! Wash it first, of course!
Then you can look at it and remember how nice it was!
Add photos of you doing your autumn baking, halloween preparations, trick or treating haul, family thanksgiving dinner or other family autumn get-together.
Hare
Add anything and everything to your autumn mood board that makes you think of autumn and all the fun that goes with it. You get the picture!
Work on your board throughout the autumn months.
Hedgehog
Everything will come together into a giant collage, representing all your autumn fun and special days.
A good place to hang your mood board or prop it up, is beside a nature table if you have one.
When Autumn is over, store your collage away until next autumn.
You’ll start next autumn season off reminiscing about last season, and all the fun adventures you had!
Virtual Nature Club Web Box
Autumn Puzzles
Ladybug
I’ve created an Autumn word search and word scramble puzzle sheets. Enjoy!
Autumn Wordsearch
Download the pdf version here.
Unscramble 44 Autumn related words in this mega word scramble puzzle. Complete with hints!
Word Scramble
Download the pdf version here.
Pumpkins
Elderberries
Autumn/Fall Colouring pages to print:
Chestnut
Old books
A few awesome Project Gutenberg books to enjoy for free:
For nature stories, myths, legends from around the world, and poems:
The Topaz Story Book, Stories and Legends of Autumn Halloween and Thanksgiving, Compiled by Adam Skinner and Eleanor L. Skinner (1917, 1928)
Fairy Tales
A quaint, short book about the seasons, good for the imagination!
The Child’s Book of the Seasons, by Arthur Ransome, (1906)
Fairy Tales
I love this book about trees! There’s so much social history to learn from reading old books, and these books make a brilliant vocabulary lesson!
Trees every child should know, tree studies for all seasons of the year by Julia Ellen Rogers (1909)
Sparkling bridge
I love how old stories are just like reading poetry! You can easily picture the scene:
”When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of all gold, and the corn was husked, and the labours of the season were done, and the warm, long days of Indian summer came in, dreamy and calm and still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning”
Extract from How we Kept Thanksgiving at Old Town, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (p. 86) in:
The Children’s Book of Thanksgiving Stories, By various, Edited by Asa Don Dickinson (1915)
Thanksgiving/Harvest
A collection of lovely short stories answering imaginatively, why certain animals got their stripes, tail, etc. Also has beautiful colour illustrations.
Mother West Wind ”Why” Stories by Thornton W. Burgess (1920)
Chipmunk
Virtual Nature Club Web Box
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