Be a Nature Explorer!
Peter Wohlleben, illustrated by Belle Wuthrich
Greystone Kids

The author, once a forester and now running a forest academy in Germany, introduces over fifty activities that will help and encourage children to leave their screens and discover the delights of being in the great outdoors. It doesn’t matter the time of year or where they are – city, town, countryside or their own back gardens, youngsters will find something that will get them interacting with the natural world.
First though, one needs to be prepared and the two opening spreads are devoted to what to take when venturing out and some words of encouragement from the author.

As a foundation stage/ primary teacher who has been involved with regular forest school pursuits, many of the ideas are not new to me; however that will not be the case with lots of parents.

Did you know that there are more life forms in a handful of earth than there are people on earth? Wow! Most of these are so small they can’t be seen with the naked eye but why not collect a few handfuls of soil and leaf litter and investigate the different creatures therein? It’s likely there’ll be beetles, worms, slugs, snails, ants, woodlice for starters.

Identifying trees can be tricky – looking at the bark, fruits and leaves will provide useful clues for young investigators and the book contains helpful photographs of some deciduous trees and conifer as well as descriptions of what to look for.

There’s a wealth of fun learning between the covers of this book – something different for every week of the year.