Nature in a Nutshell for Kids: Over 100 Activities You Can Do in Ten Minutes or Less

Nature in a Nutshell is a handy book for parents who want to inject some educational experiences in their child's daily learning routine. The book contains one- hundred and twelve total activities relating to nature and education and most of them can be performed quickly and easily, using items available inside or immediately outside of most homes.The activities offered in the book are mostly simple and there are few materials necessary. Some activities are more complex, but most are basic and can be completed in a matter of minutes. The activities are divided up based on season and while this is a good way to organize, I think it would be better to organize based on difficulty level: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. This way, parents could slowly build up, from the easy to the more challenging, and increase their child's learning and confidence in the process.The book is recommended for children between the ages of eight and twelve, but I don't see why parents would want to wait this long to introduce their children to these learning activities. Younger children, in the four to eight age group, will enjoy the activities also. I admit that the explanations offered for the outcomes of these activities are likely going to be too complicated for children in these younger age categories, but children will still enjoy them and even if they retain only a small amout of information, they will have a head start over other children their age when they eventually enter school.I like that this book includes a reference section in the back, but one fact that puzzled me at first is that the list of important nature- oriented organizations doesn't include any web site addresses. All you get is the name of the organization, the address of the organization's headquarters, and its phone number. A little research confirms the reason: The book was published in 1995. That explains the lack of web sites, but the publisher still deserves a small amount of criticism for not offering an updated version of the book in such a long period of time.Nature offers much to learn about and Nature in a Nutshell for Kids is a very good guide for young children who are eager to learn more about the world around them and parents who want to encourage education. The activities in this book are generally quick and simple and they all offer an important lesson about the natural world. Don't wait until your child reaches elementary school age- introduce your young boy or girl to the activities in this guide at the preschool level, and provide them a jump- start toward a life of education that will improve knowledge and instill the love of learning at a young age.

I am a parent who belongs to a parent cooperative preschool and I've used this book with my own children and as a reference for setting up science experiences for young children at the school. While some of these projects are for the older set (5-8), I'd say at least 90% could be done by 4-year olds and more than half by 2 year olds. Any of them could be adapted to the preschool setting with little effort.For instance, take the experiment "Soil Creation". I placed the materials--sheet of white paper, two rocks, magnifying lens out in four places around the table and when the children came to the station, we'd say "rub the rocks together and see what happens". They rub the rocks, they create dust, they look at it under their magnifying lenses.For me, the best part are the very simple scientific explanations. I think these make it easy for other parents who feel intimidated by science (or who are just so tired they can't think of an explanation!) to explain what's happening to their young children. For instance, the soil creation explanation is as follows "Soil is made up of plant and animal debris and of tiny pieces of rock. Sometimes rocks are broken by ocean waves or by river and creek water washing over them. Sometimes the wind blows across rocks, loosening the top layers. Sun and rain slowly cause rocks to crumble. The dust you made by rubbing the two rocks together could be one component of soil." You could change "component" to "part" to aid the 2-year old comprehension, but for the pre-k set, the word "component" could be an interesting talking point in and of itself.

We first got introduced to this book using Wee Folk Art Simple Seasons preschool curriculum for kids ages 4-6 as part of our nature studies. We are a homeschool family and it was an awesome introduction to nature studies. I loved how simple and non intimidating the experiments were for me as a mom to pull off and that they were totally appropriate for early elementary and preschool age kids. I used it when my oldest two children were 4 & 6 and it was great for both kids science. I plan to use it again with my littlest three again and am looking forward to using it again!

As the Chinese translator for this book, i do not like it very much. There are a few scientific mistakes in it. For example, the author confused "moss" and "lichen" in one chapter, and in the other chapter the explanation about why ice floats on water is wrong. i have persuaded my cousins not to buy my translated version for their kids although i really did try to rectify these mistakes or even provide a re-written version for some parts while translating.Good part about this book is that it is a fairly nice instruction to explore the nature around in different seasons and encouraged the children to gather samples, isolate specimens, look up species in field guides, and make good notes.

Lots of great projects for kids to try. I love that the projects are broken out by season. We will start with winter projects and work our way through the seasons. My 7 year old daughter got this as a Christmas gift and is very excited to try everything today. We homeschool and will use the book for fun projects

Lot's of fun activities that we can do on a whim with stuff lying around the house. Perfect for our home school room.

I love all the hands on activities for my child in learning about nature. I recommend this book to everyone.

with minimal prep work, and it opens up avenues for lots of further leaning and exploration

I bought this book to help with home schooling my son and we've had lots of fun learning about nature by doing the simple experiments! The explanations of how and why things happen are simple and to the point and easy enough for my 7 yr old to understand!

An interesting and informative book full of ideas for entertaining the children and introducing them to nature's wonders.

Good book

My Grandson loved this, I thought it could have been enhanced by a few coloured pictures, but liked the way it was sectioned into seasons

Excellent value. Plenty of activities diveded into seasons. Looking forward to working through it with our grandchildren ages from 4 to 8.