As we start the season of autumn, we all rush back to our school books and schedules. However, this season has lots of good, easy science you can also explore with your child. Today, let’s focus on plants and the seasons.

Plan a Hike

Taking children on walks in the woods can be as easy or hard as you make it. You can wander through a wooded area near your home or a local park for 10 minutes. It is also always an option to plan a longer, more serious hike and bring along lunch. Whichever sparks joy and feels the right speed for your kids is the right choice.

When my kids were kindergartners we could just explore the green way near our home for hours. They played in the creek, chased bugs, and picked up rocks. We never actually walked that far. The point was to go into the woods to explore. Exploring as a small child doesn’t have to include the long trip it would for adults.

Pick up Leaves

Falling leaves are good for tons of activities. Let your kids gather them for art projects. Compare and contrast. “This one is big and this one is little.” “This leaf is brown and that one is red.” Point out the veins of the leaves. Explain those carried nutrients to the tree from the leaves of the tree, before it fell off. This autumn color was also there all summer. It was covered up because the leaves were making chlorophyll, which is green. Trees and other plants have this chemical process they go through where they make their own food from sunlight! The process is called photosynthesis.

You probably want to spread out those fun facts I just shared. Small children have small attentions spans, but that doesn’t mean you can’t share them all. Holding the leaves and looking at them while talking about these things is more likely to make an impact than just reading about autumn in a book.

As long as you are on that hike, you can point out the trees that still have green leaves, the ones that will have them all winter. Holly and pine trees are the most common evergreens in my area. Explaining they are “evergreens” because they stay green all year and do not loose their leaves for the season is even more science information.

Easy As Pie

This is what people mean when they say the unschool science lessons. They explore the world with their kids and just explain stuff. We did science this way for much of elementary school. However, we also read some great picture books and took more specific field trips to aquariums and zoos. And when they took end of year tests, they did wonderfully on the science section. Exploring and asking questions taught them more than sitting in a classroom could have.

So relax, let the world help you teach science. It is a lot of fun!