Curriculum
A nature study curriculum that starts in your own yard
Most nature study programs hand you a book of somebody else's birds. This one builds the year out of what your children can actually walk outside and photograph today — then teaches classification, habitat, food webs, life cycles, adaptation, and conservation from those exact organisms.
How the year is sequenced
Six strands run in order, each one a unit with field work, a lesson at your child's reading band, and a check for understanding. A strand is not marked complete until a real observation backs it up.
- Unit 1 — Classification: kingdoms, groups, and why scientific names exist.
- Unit 2 — Habitats: what a place provides and who it can support.
- Unit 3 — Food webs: producers, consumers, decomposers, and energy flow.
- Unit 4 — Life cycles: metamorphosis, seasonality, and phenology.
- Unit 5 — Adaptations: structure and function as survival evidence.
- Unit 6 — Conservation: native versus introduced, and stewardship you photograph.
Three levels off the same walk
Learning bands change the depth of every lesson and question without changing the subject. Explorer (6-8), Naturalist (9-12), and Field Scientist (13+) siblings can study the same clover patch and each be met at their level — which is the whole reason multi-age families choose nature study in the first place.
What you still supply
Reading, narration, and hands-on lab work stay yours. WildSnap is the life-science spine and the record keeper — it is not a reading program and it will not pretend to be one.
Common questions
How many hours a week does it take?
Two or three walks a week, fifteen to forty minutes each, plus whatever lesson time you choose. Field time is logged automatically from the timestamps on your observations.
Do we need a rural area?
No. The species list is generated from what is actually recorded near your location, city blocks included. Sidewalk clover, house sparrows, and garden spiders are legitimate science.
Keep reading
Start with this week's walk
One photo outside today. By Friday you'll have an hours log, a species list, and a standards table you didn't have to write.
Start — $0 for 7 days