Books
🌿🌻Who’s Hiding in the Woods? by Katherine McEwen
This sturdy lift-the-flap board book features over 20 short facts about many forest animals. Learn about deer, woodpeckers, squirrels, foxes, and many more in this beautifully-illustrated book!
🌿🌻Forest Mamas & Babies by Stan Tekiela
This photo-illustrated board book shares facts about forest animals native to North America, including wolves, deer, cougars, moose, bears, and porcupines. For a quick read, just learn the names for each baby animal (like kits, cubs, joeys, and porcupettes). For a longer read, you may learn about the number of babies, where they are born, how parents care for them, and how fast they grow.
🌿🌻Little Mushroom by Willow Green (illustrated by Gisela Bohórquez)
This cute, illustrated board book explores the life cycle of a mushroom from airborne spore to soil-bound mycelium to fruiting mushroom. Learn about the underground symbiotic relationship between mycelium and trees and how fungal networks are a balanced part of their ecosystems.
🌿🌻A Year in the Forest: Bear by Katarzyna Pietka
This interactive board books walks young children through facts about bears and their lives. Compare page spreads of the forest animals in winter and summer and help the bear sleep through the winter, find food in the spring & summer, and prepare to hibernate again in the fall!
(see also, A Year in the Forest: Badger, A Year in the Forest: Beaver)
🌿🌻Mrs. Peanuckle’s Hiking Alphabet (illustrated by Jessie Ford)
I’m no great fan of alphabet books for young children, so believe me when I say that the Mrs. Peanuckle alphabet books offer quality content with a great thematic message. This book will absolutely be joining my personal library soon! (see also, Mrs. Peanuckle’s Tree Alphabet)
🌿🌻Leo on a Hike by Anna McQueen (illustrated by Ruth Hearson)
Leo & Daddy go for a hike with a snack, finding leaves, prints, a feather, and many other special things. For part of the hike Leo is carried by Daddy, and for parts of the hike he walks. This book features simple text and nice illustrations by Ruth Hearson.
🌿🌻Owl Babies by Martin Waddell (illustrated by Patrick Benson)
In this classic board book, three young owlets wait and wish for their mother owl to return to their nest in the tree. As they wait on a branch, they try to reassure themselves that she will be back soon!
🌿🌻The Great Outdoors by Yuli Yav (illustrated by Laura Bee)
With short rhyming rhythmic sentences, this book follows the experiences of a family on a hike into the woods. Soft-edged illustrations depict a multiracial family with a distant perspective that captures our little place beside tall trees in the big natural world.
🌿🌻Little Minnesota* by Kathy-Jo Wargin
If you live in Minnesota, this board book of riddles is a great way to get to know famous natural features of our state with a young child! If you don’t live in Minnesota, Sleeping Bear Press offers books for many other states in the US).
🌿🌻Big Ideas For Little Environmentalists: Preservation with Aldo Leopold by Maureen McQuerry (illustrated by Robin Rosenthal)
With long sentences and simple art, this board book describes Aldo Leopold’s role as an environmentalist who explored people’s connection to the land and encouraged others to reconnect with nature through wilderness preservation and the visiting of natural spaces.
🌿🌻Little Naturalists: Ansel Adams and His Camera by Kate Coombs (illustrated by Seth Lucas)
This board book tells the story of a young Ansel Adams, who photographed the U.S.A.’s national parks with his camera, inspiring generations to see the beauty in our natural landscapes and helping to preserve more of our wild spaces.
🌻Oakley the Squirrel: Camping 1, 2, 3* by Nancy Rose
This cute, photo-illustrated board book counts off different gear used for camping and features scenes of squirrels exploring a miniature campsite.
🌿Into the Outdoors by Susan Gal
This book guides children through the process of camping and hiking using different positional words. I love pointing out different woodland creatures scattered throughout each scene of this book.
🌿Looking for a Moose by Phyllis Root (illustrated by Randy Cecil)
Have you ever seen a moose? Reminiscent of “Going on a Bear Hunt,” this illustrated book leads children into the woods with their deep-woods clothing to search for a long-legged, branchy-antlered moose. Can you spot the moose eluding the children in the pages?
🌿Tracks in the Wild by Betsy Bowen
This book details many birds and mammals native to the North Woods of the United States. Each page provides factual descriptions of the featured animal, images of their tracks, and an anecdote about seeing them in the wild.
🌿Gray Fox in the Moonlight by Isaac Peterson
Curious George Goes Camping by Margaret & HA Rey (illustrated by Alan J. Shalleck)
While camping with man in the yellow hat, George explores fire safety and accidentally angers some other campers by extinguishing their fire. When he runs from them and gets lost, he finds animals fleeing a small forest fire and is able to put it out before it gets out of control.
Olivia Goes Camping by Patrick Resnick (illustrated by Jared Osterhold)
Olivia brings her friend Francine along on a family camping trip–and Francine is not keen on getting dirty. Olivia walks her friend through the different things she believes are essential to a great camping trip.
Creative Art Opportunities
🫎 Wildflower collage
🫎 Starry night contrast painting (white on dark paper)
🫎 Marshmallow prints (there are also vegan marshmallows)
🫎 Collage with red/orange/yellow tissue paper
🫎 Paint with red and yellow on brown paper
🫎 Collage with sticks
🫎 Collage with twine
Hands On Experiences
⛅️Make S’mores
⛅️Build a stacked pile of sticks as if for a campfire
⛅️Try laying in a sleeping bag
⛅️Explore with woodland animal figurines
⛅️Taste toasted marshmallows
🌿 Explore a small tent in the yard or park
🌿Use binoculars to look for birds, squirrels, and other animals on a walk
🌿Try a hike along a dirt path (no stroller)
🌿Hang in a hammock beneath the trees (in approved spaces)
Songs to Learn and Sing
“I Love The Mountains”
I love the mountains
I love the rolling hills
I love the flowers
I Love the daffodils
I Love the fireside
When all the lights are low
Boom-dee-a-da, Boom-dee-a-da,
Boom-dee-a-da, Boom-dee-a-da
(repeat)
“I See the Moon“ – English nursery rhyme adapted to music with several variations
I see the moon and the moon sees me
Over the leaves of the old oak tree
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the ones I love
Over the mountains and over the seas
That’s where my heart is longing to be
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the ones I love
“Camping Holiday” by Claudia Robin Gunn
NIYN – Camping on Spotify
All playlists are works in progress and are actively curated when I have a unit in play or preparation, so new songs may appear and old songs may be removed if they don’t suit my designs.
Nature In Your Nurture 