Nature Books for Children in My Collection

 

My Collection of Nature Books for Children

One of my favorite book topics is nature study! Plants, animals, gardening, woods, ponds, roots and leaves… I am always hunting for the best nature books for my children.

You can thrift them, yard sale them, book store search, Amazon them, trade them and so on.

I frequently go through our whole collection of books, to sort out anything that isn’t meeting the mark. Frankly, I’m kind of picky about books. I want my kids books to be beautiful, or meaningful, or nostalgic or vintage… Books have to meet at least one of those criteria or it’s into the dreaded grocery sack and out the door to the thrift shop.

I especially love books that are beautiful AND meaningful. Meaning they teach or illustrate something useful, like character building stories, science and art information etc… That’s probably why nature books for children are especially appealing for me to collect.

I like to have enough that, with supplemental books from the library, I can cover different nature study themes and topics in our homeschool.

If you are interested in our homeschool, check out this post —> Homeschool Kindergarten Plans 2018-2019

 

 

 

Getting Nature Books for Children at the Library

is a great way to bulk up your book selection too!

Read my post all about how to Fall in Love with Your Local Library! We get to enjoy soooo many cool nature books because of our fantastic local library.

I have always had a thing for books,

since I was a little girl, stacking up piles of picture books to check out of our little local library with my mom.

I continued my infatuation with children’s books as a preschool teacher. Weekly paying a trip to the library to carefully select which books would be read aloud that week in the classroom and coordinating them with the season, holiday or theme of the week.

Fast forward to parenthood, now I have a bonafide excuse to actually purchase and collect my beloved children’s books! Yay!

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A Homeschool Mama’s Favorite Nature Books for Children Video:

 

 

 

Here is my curated list of my (so far) favorite sweet and lovely nature books for children.

(Check out my video for this post, you can get a peek inside the books!)

Nature Anatomy by Julia Rothman

You know this had to be on here. I’m always blabbing about this book, but it’s because it’s that fantastic! Simple yet stunning watercolors artwork, depicts beautiful nature topics throughout this thick, softcover book. High quality paper, beautiful colors and almost a handwritten journal essence, this nature book is never far from reach.

 

Books By Kate Messner, Over and Under the Snow, Over and Under the Pond, Up in the Garden, Down in the Soil.

These are the sweetest books about nature topics. I love the illustrations!

 

 Berenstain Bears Book of Science and Nature

Remember I mentioned nostalgia? I grew up with the Berenstain Bears and I’m making sure my kids do too! This book is perfect for ages 3-6ish. Lots of interesting science and nature info, but not too much detail to make it overwhelming for a young child. and of course it is written in the usual, charming story style the Berenstain Bears are known for.

 

One Small Square: Woods

You get to play detective in this edition of One Small Square. Investigate, solve puzzles and find clues. This books gets more into detail and would be great for elementary age kids. This series has many more editions… Pond, backyard, arctic tundra, rain forest and others!

 

 

National Audubon First Field Guide to Wildflowers

This little book was one of the first books I remember getting really excited over as a kid. I would sketch the flowers in a little notebook, and I remember taking it on camping trips. There is a whole series of these First Field Guides and a lot of them are available on eBay for cheap! Now that I’ve gone to look at them, I think I might order a couple more for our home library. I’m thinking perhaps the bird one and the insect one.

 

My First Look at Nature

I was so excited to actually have found this sweet little book on Ebay as well! This one is perfect to share with your toddler or young child. There are pretty photos of many different nature items, and creatures with each item labeled with a word. Toddlers love to sit and look at a book like this, learning how to say each item when you point to it.

 

My Big Book of the Outdoors

Also on ebay at the moment, this is a big, vintage book, chock full of illustrator Eloise Wilkin’s cherub faced children scenes is such a gem. I love any book illustrated by her, and this one is no exception. Another one that’s great for toddler and preschool age children.

 

Linnea’s Almanac

Last but not least… I love Linnea! Do you know her? Linnea in Monet’s Garden is my favorite children’s book. This follow up book, Linnea’s Almanac, has each month of the year, with activities and facts about things that might be happening with birds, plants and in your backyard or local park. Linnea is the sweetest book character and definitely started my love of impressionism and Claude Monet. There is the sweetest video that I had as a child on VHS, that is available on YouTube! Watch it with your kids when you’re learning about gardens or Monet!

Linnea in Monet’s Garden Video

 

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