Nature Study with June: Winter

About this printable

Winter isn't the end of nature study. It's the best time to see what's usually hidden. Bare trees show their buds, snow shows who walked by in the night, and the birds come close to the feeder.

Nature Study with June: Winter is an 8-week, 65-page printable nature study for ages 5–10, built around permaculture: designing like nature does. Every week has a story, real hands-on science, and a recipe, formula or project to try at home.

8 weeks, one big idea each

• Sleeping Trees: adopt a tree and read a winter twig
• Who Was Here?: animal tracks and nature's patterns
• Feathered Friends: winter birds and a bird count
• Leave, Sleep or Stay: how animals survive winter
• The Secret of Snow: snow crystals and a melt experiment
• Green in the Snow: pine, spruce or fir, plus a pinecone weather station
• The Garden Sleeps: snow as a blanket and winter compost
• The Light Comes Back: daylight tracking and windowsill pea shoots

Every week has 7 pages

• A story to read together: an illustrated scene with June and Nana, Find Dot the ladybug, and a true Nana's Note fact
• A grown-up page: the big idea, supplies, steps, questions to ask, and easier and harder options
• A kids' worksheet: observation logs, tallies, experiments and sorting
• A labelled diagram: winter twig, track chart, parts of a bird, under the snow, snow crystal shapes, evergreen ID, the winter garden, why we have seasons
• Winter Kitchen & Workshop: a permaculture principle plus a real recipe, formula or project (measure a tree with a stick, pinecone spirals, bird suet cakes, root-cellar soup, ice lanterns, a seed germination test, the compost recipe, windowsill pea shoots)
• A coloring page of the week's scene
• A nature journal page

Also inside

• How-to guide and "Permaculture, kid-sized": 8 of Holmgren's design principles explained simply
• Winter walk kit, nature-walk rules and Dot's 24-item winter hunt
• 12 Montessori 3-part vocabulary cards
• Find Dot answers, worksheet answers, and an "Official Winter Naturalist" certificate

Made for real families

• Ages 5–10: easier and harder options on every lesson, so siblings learn together
• Little or no shopping: sticks, pinecones, jars, snow and kitchen scraps
• No snow? Every week works in a mild winter too
• Facts checked against university extension, USDA, the National Park Service, Audubon, NOAA and museum sources

What you get

• 65-page PDF in two sizes: US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) and A4, portrait
• Print in color, or print worksheets and journal pages in black and white
• Reprint worksheets and journal pages as often as you like

This is a digital download. Nothing will be shipped. Download from Purchases and Reviews on etsy.com in a web browser (the Etsy app can't download files).

Good to know

• Personal-use license: print as many copies as your household needs. Teachers and co-ops: please buy one copy per classroom. Please don't resell or share the files.
• Same characters as the June picture books and the Little Food Forest Unit Study.