Best Nature Study Supplies for Kids
When you surround children with nature and give them quantifiable and dependable nature study supplies, they will be unable to avoid learning. They will start asking questions, examining, observing, and experimenting, usually without even realizing what they are doing, or that they are learning.
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Best Nature Study Supplies for Kids
A few useful tools can help motivate children to get outside to have fun learning.
Give your naturalist all the supplies they need to explore the natural world. Exploring nature is a great place for children to adults to learn about the world around them.
A Sketchbook
It doesn’t matter how you’d like your book to look. No matter your style, we have explored using a triple-ring binder with low-cost printer paper, clipboard boxes, and even a spiral-bound artist-quality notebook. My favorite style is a hardcover, which contains many pages and allows you to write or draw on them.
Drawing/Writing Utensils
Most of the time, our writing essentials include simply pencils, a sharpener, and an eraser. There are times, however, when we cart along watercolors, oil pastels, chalk pastels, colored pencils, and the like. Whether you stick with pencils or want to pack an entire set of various art media is completely up to you and your child.
Field Guides
A good nature guide book can help make the educational part of a nature walk a better experience. I have a series of nature guide books in the bookcase from lots of years’ worth of acquisitions, but I started out by borrowing them from a library collection.
Binoculars and a magnifying glass
Nature study can improve your aptitudes to magnify a subject. Once you wish to check out the pollen in flowers or check out the feathers of a bird high in a tree trunk, you will oftentimes find yourself wishing for binoculars or magnifying equipment. We tend to bring these with us on all our excursions.
Digital camera
Any kind of digital camera will do – even the camera on your smartphone – but you NEED a camera. Why?
First, to save incredible pictures of your children playing, you’ll want to capture moments throughout their childhood. As you walk through with these questions in mind, the images will allow you to make off-template pages for school research, guides in your nature notebook, printouts for your nature journal, and so many more.
Plastic bags and gloves
You shouldn’t be surprised that I mentioned a pair of gloves on my list of top 10 items because you never know what types of creatures your child might want to acquire hold of. Or, how many times they’re planning to use a sharp stick! Why plastic bags, though? My naturExplorers have always been keen to bring new prized possessions home with them, and bags made of plastic are very useful for extra-carrying, or carrying muddy shoes.
A Backpack to carry your supplies
With all this “stuff” you might (or might not) bring on your nature walk, you’ll want a sturdy bag.
Don’t load your bag full each time you step out the front door. As long as you’re carrying illness, the children will be jogging around you to make it simple for them. Your things will remain organized in the exact place if it has a dedicated spot, so you won’t have to struggle to hold containers together.
Water, sunblock, bug spray, hat, sunglasses
Now we’re down to the absolute essentials. Always be prepared (even if you just keep these things in your car) with outdoor safety supplies. I probably should include a first aid kit, too.
