Silent Winter Nature Walk

Have you ever tried taking a silent winter nature walk with your children? You will be amazed at how it focuses their attention!

I often find that I personally get a greater appreciation of nature when I am silent. Of course, this is certainly not always (in fact almost never) possible when you have children, who are full of the joys of being outside with you but it’s well worth giving it a go and seeing what they notice by fine-tuning their senses of sight and sound.

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I think that this is a perfect challenge for those days with a fresh snowfall. The earth is covered with its white blanket and seems strangely silent. Yet if you go on a silent nature walk you notice beautiful things with your senses that you might not have noticed if you were running along.

Now I’m not saying that your whole walk should be silent for the natural joy that wells up in a child being outdoors and running free is impossible to and indeed should not be contained! I recommend a bit of balance and some clever organisation by mum!

You Can Help Focus Attention By Giving a Little Direction

On our silent nature walk, I thought that although our walk was to have the aim of being silent, I would give the girls some direction in the form of a Winter Scavenger Hunt or you could use this lovely Winter Hunt download

This turned out to be quite a hit. Not only did it encourage them to be more purposeful in their observance of nature. I added the pre-request that once they found something on the list they were to pause at the place of their find and listen to what was going on around them.

What We Heard On Our Silent Winter Nature Walk

• Birds Trilling in the Branches
• The sound of the babbling brook
• The creak of bare branches in the breeze
• The splash of our boots as we sploshed through puddles along the country lane

What We Saw On Our Silent Winter Nature Walk

• The bare branched trees stark against the icy blue winter sky
• Moss and Lichen covering branches, stones and an old lock gate
• A Robin singing in the branches, his bright red breast all puffed up and looking splended
• A few stray seeds hanging on a branch
• A Skeleton leaf nestled amoungst the autumn leaf fall.

So with temperatures dropping and most of the ‘treasures’ found, we returned home to have a cup of hot chocolate to warm up and admire our finds.

More Winter Nature Study Posts:

• Nature Study on Frosty Weather
• Homeschool Nature Study on Lichens
• Snow Nature Study

My Recommended Nature Study Basics:

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