Our Nature-Based Homeschool Curriculum and Resource Picks: Preschool and Kindergarten

Here are our 2020-2021 homeschool curriculum and resource picks for preschool and kindergarten! We’re starting our school year in less than two weeks and I am just as excited as I am overwhelmed. Hah! I’ll share some background information for those of you who are new to the blog. Elliot is currently 4.5 and attended his first year of preschool last year at a Waldorf school where he absolutely thrived. Due to the circumstances this year, we decided to pull him from school to pursue homeschooling. I’ve always considered full-time homeschool to be a viable option for us— last year we did sort of a hybrid where we’d do nature lessons on the days E wasn’t at school, so the transition doesn’t really feel that extreme. Although these definitely aren’t normal circumstances, there are so many amazing ways that children can learn so I know that we’ll find our way.

I’m asked a lot about what methods I will be using, so if I had to describe our year I’d say that we’ll be doing sort of a Waldorf/Charlotte Mason/forest school hybrid. At the core, our approach is very Waldorf driven but we will do a bit more “academically” than if E was at his Waldorf school this year. He loves learning about nature from a very technical aspect and also shows a lot of interest in writing and numbers so those are things that we will be incorporating using nature-based materials. He also loves to garden and to build things outdoors. We tell stories all day long and creative play is highly fostered and encouraged here. We’ll be following a Waldorf-based daily rhythm that we’ve created (read more about how to create a rhythm here) and will split our time between indoor and outdoor learning in our garden. I’ve put together a list of digital printable curriculum and resources that we’ll be drawing from during the year. They all have overlapping nature-based subject matter (but each brings something different to the table) which allows them to blend beautifully together. I hope that you find something that inspires you, regardless of what “school” looks like for your child this year!

The Little Oak Learning

Seasonal rhythms + field guides
The Little Oak Learning’s Waldorf-inspired seasonal rhythms each contain twelve weeks of seasonal stories, songs, activities and recipes. This nature-based curriculum is recommended for ages 5 and under so it’s perfect for both Preschool and Kindergarten age. Topics can easily be further supplemented and many of the activities and prompts are beautifully open-ended. Each twelve week curriculum contains six unit topics, and each unit (referred to as a lesson block in Waldorf curriculum) spans for two weeks. The rhythms are highly adaptable and cover a wide range of topics such as apples, mushrooms (autumn), hibernate, celebrate (winter), spring flowers, nests (spring), butterflies and the sun (summer). Each unit contains daily plans, stories, songs, craft projects and activities. There is a lot of focus on creativity, story telling and all of the materials are really beautifully illustrated— even the instruction pages! The field guides and kits are a great companion to the seasonal rhythms and are offered in a few popular topics such as bees and fungi. We are transitioning from a Waldorf school, so I know that we will be leaning on these rhythms heavily— especially the stories and songs as they will be most consistent with what E has grown accustomed to. We plan to use materials from the field guides and kits to create more in-depth unit studies— our favorites are the weather kit, bee field guide and fungi + mushroom field guide. The weather chart is a favorite of E’s that he has been using since last year. We added velcro dots onto the back of each piece and keep it on the wall where it’s easy to access!

Exploring Nature with Children

Curriculum and journal
Exploring Nature with Children by Raising Little Shoots is a seasonal nature-based curriculum that is based on Charlotte Mason’s method of education. It works well for a wide age range since the activities can be adapted to fit varying levels of ability. This curriculum is easy to use and covers a wide range of popular topics such as seeds, fungus, insects, weather and seasonal changes. Lessons include nature walks, field trips and at-home unit studies and activities. Each week also includes a list of optional books, a poem, a piece of art and suggestions for extra activities that are relevant to the subject matter. The guided journal is a great companion to the curriculum and is divided into seasons with prompts that correspond to each weeks’ subject matter. Something that I love about ENWC is that it is very flexible and emphasizes building a strong connection with nature as a family (i.e. journaling together). If you wanted to take full advantage of the curriculum’s offering, some prep work is necessary but the only big requirement is that you have access to nature to view and collect items. There’s also an entire community dedicated to this curriculum, so there are tons of ideas for supplemental activities floating around and it’s so easy to find support. We based our nature study lessons off of this curriculum last year and there were only a few weeks that we ended up skipping (only because they weren’t relevant for us seasonally). This year we’ll be doing the same— choosing specific subject weeks based on Elliot’s interest and supplementing with other resources such as flashcards and handmade tactile diagrams.

Chickie & Roo

Kinder Nature Beginnings – Math curriculum + unit studies
Kinder Nature Beginnings – Math by Chickie & Roo is a supplemental math program that’s entirely nature-based and designed to be paired with any main curriculum. It is geared towards ages Pre-K through 3rd grade and is designed to introduce early math skills such as counting, addition, subtraction, patterns and symmetry. The curriculum is structured as a collection of worksheets, each containing a nature-based prompt such as counting acorns and drawing the other half of a butterfly to show symmetry. It also contains a numbered set (1-20) of illustrated flash cards. Math wasn’t something that I was originally planning on including in our curriculum for the year but E started to show a strong interest in it and I was thrilled to find a nature-based option. Some of the worksheets are too advanced for him at this age but there are several lower level ones that I can easily add into our nature lessons. Chickie & Roo also has a great selection of mini units— we’ll be using this garden unit study which has some great materials teaching you how to differentiate between vegetables that grow both above and below the soil. I also knew that my monarch loving boy would love these alphabet flashcards the moment I saw that “C” for caterpillar card!

Twig & Moth

learning cards and posters
Twig & Moth’s illustrated learning cards and posters are a staple for your nature study units and are offered in a few popular subjects such as bees, seeds & seedlings and phases of the moon. Each card contains a beautiful illustration along with a few fun facts. We have a couple of their moon phase resources from that we used last year during our harvest moon study and are planning on using again for this year! I love flashcards because they’re so versatile, but this collection is particularly wonderful because they also contain educational facts. I usually pair flashcards with unit lessons or display them on our nature table. We also added these lichen and moss resources to our collection, since that’s definitely a subject we will be covering this year and this earthworm anatomy chart will be perfect for our garden study.

Fiddlesticks Education

unit studies, flash cards, posters, journaling sets
Fiddlesticks Education offers a wide range of beautiful and educational hand-painted watercolor materials that teach concepts such as nature anatomy and counting. Their materials cover a wide range of ages since they are open-ended and the activities can be adapted based on ability. We have several of their journaling resources from last year which have been a great resource! We have used the individual pieces in several different ways and they have been a part of many different lessons. Some of the new resources that we are most excited to add to our collection this year are the bunny burrows nature study pack and rabbit garden math activity unit. They’ll be great additions to our garden unit studies. We’re also planning on using their beautiful map resources such as this tactile US build a map activity.

Full curriculum/resource List:

Exploring Nature With Children
Exploring Nature With Children – Journal
Little Oak Learning – Seasonal Rhythms
Little Oak Learning – Field Guides and Kits
Chickie & Roo – Kinder Nature Beginnings
Twig & Moth – learning materials
Fiddlesticks Education – learning materials

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