This term’s nature study is: mushrooms! I found fun picture books about mushrooms, chapter books for me, and added videos and projects. Hard to believe, but this was more fun than our epic study on trees last year.
How did we choose? It all started with a puzzle.
Let me first firmly tell you: we were not a jigsaw puzzle loving family. One day, as we were browsing the local toy store near the grandparents’ house, we encountered a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. And we were stuck for the next thirty minutes completing this puzzle! It was so much fun that I bought a 500-piece circular puzzle with a beautiful drawing of mushrooms. Since that fateful day last summer, we have continued to love jigsaw puzzles!
So when we were trying to think of what nature topic we’d like to explore this fall…we all looked at our completed, gorgeous mushroom puzzle, full of mushrooms that none of us could identify. Bingo! By the way, I still have to frame it but I’m not sure how…
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Nature Study Preparations
Ultimately, the weekly nature walk and weekly nature journaling is the highest priority. (We occasionally miss but the goal is every week.)
These are the other preparations I make for a term’s nature study. I look for:
- Six informative picture books to read every other week.
- Field guides and nature reference books.
- Engaging, living chapter books at the middle grade level for the 12-year olds and myself.
- Field trips or ranger programs at our local parks.
- Games, experiments, and other activities
- Youtube videos; I create a playlist for us to choose from every week.
Picture Books about Mushrooms
If I could talk to authors of nature picture books for a moment: please include identifying information somewhere in the book! Either with the illustration or in a glossary. All of the following provide this information except for Mushroom Rain and If I Were A Fungus (which doesn’t really introduce different types of mushrooms).
- On A Mushroom Day
- Mushroom Rain
- One Day on a Mushroom Farm
- Fungi Grow
- If I Were A Fungus
- Fungalphabet
Field Guides and Nature Reference Books about Mushrooms
- How to Forage for Mushrooms Without Dying
- Pocket Field Guide
- Peterson’s Field Guide to Mushrooms
- Fungi: Discover the Science and Secrets Behind the World of Mushrooms
The last three are full of detailed nature journal drawings. I encouraged my kids to look at these when drawing in their nature journals. The Fungi book is the one pictured below.
Living Chapter Books about Mushrooms
Both of these are written for an adult audience. A little bit of Mother Culture for you. The Secret Life of Fungi could work for ages 12 and up, but I would suggest pre-reading. I’ve listed a few sample cautions below.
The Secret Life of Fungi
An example of why you would want to preread for the 12+ age group is found in the section section “Spread,” Chapter 1. Words describing the Common Stinkhorn as shaped like a male reproductive organ in much clearer words. You’ll be glad you had the teens skip that chapter. Another spot: Chapter 3 uses the word sh** when dung would have sufficed.
Entangled Life:
There are two versions, a full length and an abridged version with photographs. I’ve only tried to read the full length one. It was so interesting but very dense reading. It was also so embedded with evolutionary content that I stopped reading after a few chapters.
Field Trips or Ranger Programs
We found a local mushroom producer with a small museum!! In the gift shop, we bought a mushroom grow kit to grow them at home.
Games and other activities
- Mushroom Playing Cards
- Mushroom Magnetic Poetry
- Make a Spore Print (we did this, I just can’t find it at the moment to take a photo!)
- Mushroom Grow Kit. We bought ours locally, but I have heard of good results from this location: Field & Forest
- Mushroom Ornaments out of air dry clay
Youtube Videos
Here is the playlist that I compiled for this term’s nature study about mushrooms: Nature Study: Mushrooms. I initially searched for the mushrooms in the glossary of On A Mushroom Day. We especially enjoyed the videos by Mushroom Wonderland which are based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.