We follow a curriculum from @raisinglittleshoots called Exploring Nature with Children. Each week of the year has a different, seasonal theme to base your nature study around. If you’d like to discover more search the hashtags #ENWC and #ExploringNatureWithChildren.
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- This blog post gives you some resources you may find helpful for each week in January as well as journal pages to complete.
- As always these posts get added to each year as we go through the cycle of the curriculum again.
- You might like our poetry recommendations for January here.
- Join the Facebook group to be updated when new resources appear.
- If you are on Pinterest you might like to check out my ENWC Pinterest board here.
January 2025 Exploring Nature with Children Dates
You can find the full calendar of dates for the year here.
- 6-12th January – Winter Sky Week
- 13-19th January – Moon Study Week
- 20-26th January – Winter Tree Study Week
- Penguin Awareness Day (falls into this week)
- 27-2nd February – Candlemas Week (Candlemas is 2nd Feb)
- Lunar New Year falls in this week on the 29th January 2025 – year of the Snake
- Some years Winter Pond Study falls into January so you’ll find resources for this also
January Topics – Ideas & Resources
Use the contents list below to help you navigate to specific resource topics or continue reading to discover all of the January resources.
Exploring Nature with Children Winter Sky Week
Winter Sky Cards
Winter weather cloud and types of precipitation Montessori style three part cards. Just print two copies and on one copy cut the word from the picture.
Audio Books – Yoto Cards
Audio players for kids are brilliant. If you’ve not discovered them yet head to this post. Here’s a few cards that would work well for some of the January Exploring Nature with Children weeks.
Exploring Nature with Children Moon Study Week
Great Books
Helpful Blog Posts
Exploring Nature with Children Winter Tree Study Week
Resources
Great Winter tree identification quiz from the Woodland Trust here.
Great Books
Above are blog post review links. Below are books we love. Clicking on the book will take you to more info and inside images.
Exploring Nature with Children Candlemas Week
Helpful Blog Posts
National Penguin Awareness Day 20th January
National Penguin Awareness Day is the 20th January. Here’s a free set of Penguin flash cards to download below.
They’re Montessori style so you can print out two copies and make them into three part cards. I think my favourite has to be the fairy penguin.
Emperor of the Ice by Nicola Davies and Catherine Rayner
Emperor of the Ice is an incredible book written by expert Nicola Davies and sublimely illustrated by Catherine Rayner – the dream team in children’s books. It’s a highly recommended book from us. You can find other favourite penguin books and resources here.
Penguin Crafts
If you’ve visited my blog before you’ll probably know I really love crafting. I’m particularly into iris folding at the moment. Bethan on Etsy has a lovely penguin template here.
Perfect Tonie Character for Penguin Awareness Day
Exploring Nature with Children Winter Pond Study Week
This topic is often in January but it’s 3-9th February this year. I’ve left it in January in case anyone is still planning on doing pond study this week.
Pond Spotters
Great Books
More Nature & Topic Resources for January
Early Spring Flowers
Early Spring three part Montessori inspired cards
Story – Flossie and the Snowdrop Fairy
A little seasonal story to get you ready for Spring. The story of the Snowdrop fairy waking up the flowers. You can read the name of your child instead of Flossie when reading the story to personalise.
An audio version of the story – if you can cope with my accent is below!
Winter
Winter flash cards. Can be used in so many ways, introducing new vocabulary, print two copies and make into Montessori three part cards.
I’m so tempted to start a Wheel of the Year. This pack is from Fiddlesticks and I’ve also seen people do beautiful embroidered phenology wheels. Let me know in the comments if you do one and what you do.
Lunar New Year
For inspiration of understanding and celebrating Lunar New Year head to this post. In this post you’ll find a story in both written (dyslexia friendly font available) and audio. You can find out how to make a simple lantern here. I’ve got a really exciting iris folding project that I’m working on that I hope to have available in the next week.
Journal Pages
There’s four sets of journal papers that link with Exploring Nature with Children and other awareness days throughout January but could also be used at other times of the year. The layout means you can draw or write responses – whatever is your preference.
Great Books
Find out all about the wonderful book Snow? Jo Surman.
Exploring Nature with Children through the Year
You can find more resources for different weeks in the ENWC curriculum by clicking on the links below:
