Treehouse Nature Study: Summer, Primary Years (Small Group License)

If you intend to use this curriculum with a small group, you will need to purchase a Small Group License. You may select a group size from the drop-down menu below. This listing is for the small group license. If you wish to purchase an individual copy of the curriculum, visit this page.

A Charlotte Mason and Waldorf-Inspired Seasonal Nature Study for the Whole Family

“We are all meant to be naturalists, each in his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.” - Charlotte Mason

Treehouse Nature Study is a seasonal nature study curriculum designed with family-style learning in mind. It is a gentle guide meant to invite various ages to connect with each other and the world around them through living books, nature notebooking, hands-on projects, and beauty subjects such as poetry, picture study, and folk songs. 

From preschool through upper middle school, it appeals to every age and is easily used with multiple ages at the same time. It would be a great fit for your preschool or kindergartener’s core curriculum or your whole family’s home education Morning Time and Nature Study. It also provides supplemental work for your children’s language arts through poetry memorization, recitation, copywork, and notebooking.

Summer Nature Study Themes

Each week of this 13-week guide is focused on a Summer nature theme. The themes are:

• Soil and Composting
• The Sun
• Summer Solstice
• Bodies of Water
• Marine Mammals
• Sharks and Fish
• Mollusks and Crustaceans
• Seashells
• Summer Flowers
• Storms
• Beetles
• Reptiles
• Landforms

Teacher's Guide Overview

The Treehouse Nature Study Teacher's Guide is a 59-page overview with everything you need to guide your children through each day's nature study lesson. Each week of this 13-week study includes a weekly grid with daily lesson instructions making it easy to follow along. Each week has a themed folk song, hand rhyme, poem, and picture study. The daily lesson plans walk you through engaging with these beauty subjects in a new way each day. They also include links to Spotify and YouTube where you can listen to the folk songs together and learn the movements of the week's hand rhyme.

In addition to the beauty subjects, the teacher's guide includes step-by-step instructions for each week's Nature Connection Activities including recipes, experiments, and handcrafts. There are detailed material lists for each week making it easy to quickly prep for the week's activities.

At the core of Treehouse Nature Study is a focus on living books. Each week in the Teacher's Guide includes fiction, non-fiction, and reference books that correlate to the week's theme. The guide highlights relevant reference pages from The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock and the books in The Julia Rothman Collection. Your digital purchase of Treehouse Nature Study includes a Master Book List with over 150 books organized by theme.

Student Sheets Overview

What sets Treehouse Nature Study apart from other studies are the beautiful, vintage illustrations and true-to-life diagrams. The student sheets include folk song lyrics, hand rhyme lyric and motion sheets, poetry and poetry copywork, and classic art picture study sheets. These full-color, high-resolution display sheets feature vintage botanical and nature illustrations including nature anatomy and life cycle posters. In addition, the student sheets offer hands-on activities like 3-part cards, scavenger hunts, investigation worksheets, and more.

Reference Materials

It is our desire to make Treehouse Nature Study as "open and go" as possible. In addition to the Master Book List, your digital purchase also includes mini-biographies of each artist and poet organized by week. The introduction of the Teacher's Guide includes detailed instructions on how to tailor the study to different age groups so you can easily use it with the whole family. In addition, the introduction includes a Picture Study Guide and Nature Study Notebooking Guide to teach you how to guide your children through these activities that may be new to your family.

Digital Download Details

This file is a digital download and will be sent to the email address you use to checkout. The curriculum is a compressed .zip file that contains folders with the Teacher Guide, Student Sheets organized by week, and Reference Materials. For best quality print results, I recommend you print using Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free application.

Download a free sample week of Treehouse Nature Study!