Top Nature Study Series and Field Guides for all Ages

We just purchased an annual membership to our local arboretum. It's a wonderful oasis of nature smack-dab in the middle of our town. Thursday nights often find us hiking or biking together as a family, and the woodsy trails of the arb provide not only a lovely backdrop for our evening strolls but plenty of opportunity for nature study.

Since one of our "gentle schooling" activities is to complete a summer-long nature study each year, hiking trails often become our outdoor classroom. I'm not naturally a nature-girl, but, I've grown to love learning about God's creation right alongside each of my kids.

We have an embarrassingly large number of field guides and nature books and almost always have one packed for our family hikes. Our favorite pull-out is, of course, Nature Anatomy. Who doesn't love the beautiful illustrations in this book? And because they are all hand-drawn, they provide a wonderful example for kids to copy. (Unlike some field guides that use photographs which are great for study but harder to mimic.)



Along with Nature Anatomy, we have several shelves jam-packed with other nature-themed books, there are a few that we seem to come back to again and again. If we don't currently own them, we borrow them from the library often.


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Nature Series for Young Learners

(Please note that each series featured is not limited to ONLY the books shown in the photograph.)

Let's Read and Find Out

This is a science-based series of picture books, each with a different theme. Most are nature-based and are graduated in reading level. 

Who Pooped in the Park

Don't let the crass title fool you. This is an excellent series of books that details the scat and tracks of specific animals. Each book features the wildlife of one of the country's major national parks.

Take Along Guides

Each book in this beautifully illustrated series is a step up from a traditional picture book but not quite as thorough as a field guide. I would consider them a "my first field guide" series. 

One Small Square

I love the premise of this series. One square of a particular ecosystem is dissected from all layers and aspects. 

National Geographic Kids

Like most National Geographic books, this series is full of beautiful photographs but also littered with evolutionary points of view. As a young-earth creationist, I sift through these with caution. Many of them do not even mention a timeline of biological history, but a few do. That being said, the graduated reader-style writing and colorful pages make this series quite appealing to young learners. 

Usborne Discovery

In full disclosure, not all of the books in this series are nature...or even science...related. But, like almost all Usborne books, they are well worth owning. 

Scholastic Nature Readers

Similar to the National Geographic for Kids series, Scholastic Nature Readers are photographed-based graduated readers for preschool through second grade. 

Field guides for all ages

A quality field guide is a must for nature study. Although a young child may not be able to read yet, he/she can be encouraged to find similar characteristics in color, size, shape, texture, etc. between a drawing on the page and a real-life specimen. 

My five-year-old received a regional-specific field guide a couple of months ago and has carried it with him ever since. Recently, on an afternoon shopping trip to a local farm/feed store, he flipped through the pages of his new guide, trying to identify the taxidermic animal mounts on display around the walls.

Here are my top picks for family-use field guides.

• Peterson Field Guides
• Kaufman Field Guides
• National Audubon Society Field Guides
• The Golden Field Guide Series- This series is out of print but can be purchased on Kindle and is often found at used book sales.
• Eyewitness Handbooks