Nature Study Books
Nature study is the study of animals and plants. Being outside and observing these life sciences is a crucial part to gaining an understanding and appreciation of these beautiful gifts from the Lord. We also love having a large collection of good nature books on hand for the kids to read, explore, and extend our more formal lessons on these topics. When we’re getting ready for a new unit, unless the curriculum specifies a certain book, what I usually do is quickly glance through our collection and pick 2-3 different reference books I can keep handy for our unit. Then, I keep these books out in our school room. Periodically throughout the unit I prop the books open to pages that coordinate with what we’re studying. I love this book stand and use it all the time! For example, right now, we’re studying birds so last week I had a page propped up next to our sensory bin from Natural World that was all about eggs. While the kids played in the sensory bin filled with bird seeds and wooden eggs, they matched the eggs to the pictures and it sparked some really natural discussion on bird eggs and life cycles! A few days later, I used a different book, Farm Anatomy, had the page propped open, and my older girls read from it as a short supplement to our lesson on Poultry. We’ll also use these books for art and craft inspiration.
Here are a few of our favorite reference-type books with some of my thoughts. I wish I could list EVERY nature book in our home, but that would take forever - especially to include all the story picture books! But, I did try to get some of the main ones and I also included my wish list at the bottom if you need a few more suggestions.
The Big Book Series: These are in my top 3 of all favorite series we own because they’re simple enough for young children, but are still visually appealing to older children and adults. They lay flat and are loaded with tons of solid and easy-to-read and comprehend facts. It seems like we’re always pulling from these books. We have the first five out of the six in this series.
The Backyard Birdsong Guide: We just added this book to our collection and my kids love listening to all the different birds and I love that they’re reading about the birds while they listen to their call. Another book along these lines is the Birds of Utah Field Guide book which I love because it’s color coordinated. If you can find a similar book for your state, it’s been great.
The Burgess Animal Books: We are currently reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children and my kids are loving it so much that I just bought the Audible box set so we have more stories.
DK Children's Anthologies Series: This is a great series to get when Amazon has their Buy 3 for 2 sale. We have The Wonders of Nature, The Mysteries of the Universe, and An Anthology of Intriguing Animals.
The Good and The Beautiful Nature Books: Supporting a love for nature is one of The Good and The Beautiful’s missions. All of their courses aim to do this and so many of their library and science book packs are also centered around nature. Right now, my five year old is starting to read the first stories out of their new My First Nature Reader and my twins have read the Birds Nature Reader and really enjoyed it. We’ll add the rest to our collection as my kid’s grow. If you go to TGTB’s library and just search “nature” it’ll categorize a bunch of their nature books and stories, but also remember to shop their science books. We just started using The Big Book of Science Stories with my younger boys (mostly my 5 year old) and he is LOVING it! This books goes along with their Little Hearts and Hands Science unit, but it could also be used independently. We also have their Poetry Parties for Littles book which is super cute. If you’re looking for a good Nature Notebook, there are also really simple ones to use. They’re divided into sections for each season.
Encyclopedia of Animals and Atlas of Animal Adventures: For animal specific books, we love both of these and used them a lot with our Zoology study last year.
How the World Works: It must be the pop-ups, because my 5 year old son is obsessed with this book. For a long time he kept it right by the side of his bed and we read it every night before bed. This does have the Big Bang Theory in it, but I am not opposed to talking about other theories so it doesn’t bother us. Just a heads up.
Life Cycles: I love to use this one with our life cycle board and there are so many life cycle figures that coordinate well with the cycles in this book.
National Parks: Both of these books, America’s National Parks and National Parks of the USA are fantastic! We love to visit The National Parks and use both of these books to learn about the places we’re going or want to go. I liked having a beautiful illustrated book, but, even more than that I like the one with real photography because the kids can more easily identify if we’ve been there or, once we visit a place, if we’ve read about it in our books.
Natural World: I added this to our collection last year and used it lots during our Zoology study and we are using it right now with our current Bird study. I like that it’s color-coded: yellow charts tell all about habitats and environments, orange charts about species of the different kinds of plants and animals, and blue charts look at the behavior and characteristics of insects and animals.
Nature Anatomy Collection: This is one of the first sets I bought as a new homeschooler and I still love them two years later. They’re aesthetically pleasing and great for adults and older children.
Sing A Song of Seasons: We use this book every day for our morning time. It’s been a simple way for us to include some poetry into our day and I love that it coordinates with the seasons. I am not a big poetry person, but this is something I am excited to read from each day. The illustrations are adorable and we all enjoy them.
Slow Down: LOVE this book and would highly recommend it. Beautiful illustrations with an overarching theme to slow down and appreciate the living transformations of the world right outside our doors.
Welcome to the Museum Books: Botanicum, Animalium, Planetarium…there are 9 books in this series and we have a few of them. The text is small and way too advanced for children, but they do have some really pretty illustrations that the kids like to thumb through.
WISH LIST
The Book of Brilliant Bugs (we have the sister book a Mystery of Trees which is also great)
Family Nature Treasure Encyclopedias: A Rock is Lively, An Egg is Quiet, A Nest is Noisy…all 6 books
Hello World Books: We have Arctic Animals but I would love more out of this 27 books series for my younger kids.
Let’s Read and Find Out Series: Unlike a lot of these other books, we can often find these at the library, but this is also a series I like alot - there are 48 of these Level 1 books and nearly 100 of the Level 2 books.
Over and Under Series (5 book series)
Do you have any other nature book favorites? Let me know in the comments!
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