Study the Natural World with Beautiful Children's Books

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I was delighted to discover beautiful children’s books from Candlewick Press about the natural world!

I received free books and was compensated for my time. All opinions are my honest opinions and I was not required to post a positive review. For more information, please read my disclosure.

These books are perfect for augmenting our biography lessons and strewing around the house.

Natural World: Past

Dinosaurium | Dinosaurium is a huge and beautiful book modeled after museums. Browsing the pages is like wandering through the galleries of a museum. Each page has large, beautiful, and detailed illustrations of dinosaurs which bring these fascinating creatures to life.

Each gallery, or chapter, discusses a different type of dinosaur from sauropodomorpha, ornithopoda, marginocephalia, and even a few non-dinosaurs. Some exhibits (pages) feature dioramas the recreate the world as the dinosaurs would have seen it. Others show you the skeletons and how the continents moved over time.

Use beautiful children's books to study the natural world with your kids! Great for a nature study unit study or simply for strewing around the house. #naturestudy #naturalworld #childrensbooks #homeschooling

My kids keep disappearing with Dinosaurium to spend hours browsing the pages and learning about these fantastic beasts of the past.

In the Past | In the Past is a great way to introduce your kids to poetry and the creatures in prehistoric eras. We’re talking about creatures such as trilobite, meganeura, apatosaurus, and mammuthus.

Each creature has a poem that describes it. And the illustrations are delightful!

Expansion Activities

Read through In the Past as a part of poetry reading. Do poems have to rhyme? What are your favorite poems in the book? Now choose one poem to memorize and share with family and friends.
Create a poster about a favorite dinosaur with sketches and descriptions to hang in your bedroom.

The Natural World: Present

Animalium | Animalium is another large and gorgeous book modeled after a museum! As you browse through the galleries or chapters, you see invertebrates, birds, and mammals. There’s even a huge page showing the tree of life and how different animals are related. You can see how the species evolved over millions of years.

Some pages show animals in their natural environment. Another page shows the life cycle of frogs! Other pages show you the skeletons of the creatures or the different internal organs.

Animalium is a fascinating look at the natural world!

Fabulous Frogs | Have you ever heard of a flying frog? What about a hairy frog? Fabulous Frogs introduces us to the many, many different types of frogs in the world. From the huge goliath frog of western Africa to the tiny frogs of Papua New Guinea.

Your kids will love learning about the various types of frogs in the world.

Expansion Activities

Head to the local pond and hunt for frogs. Then head to the library and research what type of frogs live in your area.
Use the pictures from the books to sketch your favorite animals and write a short entry about them.

Botanicum | Botanicum is a large and beautiful museum book about the plants of Earth. It begins with the first plants before moving on to trees. You’re introduced to palms, herbaceous plants, orchids, and more!

You’ll see the exotic and weird plants of the world.

There’s even a tree of life so you can see the relationship between the different types of plants. If you look carefully, you’ll see plants from your garden and local parks!

Botanicum is the perfect place to begin studying plant life.

The Things That I LOVE about TREES | The Things That I Love About Trees is a delightful book written in two parts. The first part is written in large print. A child talks about all the things she loves about trees throughout the seasons. For instance, in spring she loves the changes that begin. At the close of the book, she’s describing how she loves how bare the trees are and being able to look all the way to the top.

Explanations are given on each page in small print. You learn about bees visiting the blossoms to collect nectar, that only deciduous trees lose their leaves and more.

You can read the book to your children focusing on the story in large print. Later you can read it again and focus on the explanations in small print. Some kids will even want you to read both the story and the explanations at the same time.

Drawn from Nature | Drawn from Nature features Helen Ahpoensiri’s intricate artwork. She uses hand-pressed plants to bring the different seasons to life.

In addition to beautiful art, kids are introduced to different parts of the natural world. Such as hares hopping in the spring, herons, and dragonflies in the reeds during summer, and the bare branches of the winter.

The book is filled with information about nature during the changing seasons. It’s a wonderful book to read before you head outside with your kids to explore nature.

Expansion Activities

Try your hand at pressing and drying plants. Head outside to gather plants, leaves, and flowers. Carefully press them between wax paper or parchment paper in a large book. Leave them for 7-10 days. Now use these plants to create your own scenes of the natural world!
Read about the changing seasons before going on a nature walk. How many different signs of the changing seasons can you find?