Nature Study Supplies for Homeschool: Building a Field Kit and Nature Library

Introduction

Nature study is the rare homeschool subject that costs almost nothing to start and rewards a small kit out of all proportion to its price. The method is older than the modern homeschool movement. Charlotte Mason, the British educator whose ideas shaped a large slice of homeschooling today, argued that children should spend long stretches of the day outdoors, as much as four to six hours on every tolerably fine day from April to October, training what she called the seeing eye. You do not need any of the items below to follow that advice; a walk and an open notebook will do. What the right supplies add is range. A magnifier turns a patch of moss into a forest, a field guide turns “some bird” into a chickadee, and a journal turns a single afternoon into a record a child keeps for years.

This guide sorts the field into two halves: the field kit a child carries outdoors, and the nature library that lives on a shelf and answers the questions the field kit raises. Most families build it slowly, one piece at a time, and a complete starter kit can be assembled for less than the cost of a single boxed curriculum. Prices move, so confirm current numbers on the seller’s page before you buy.

At a glance

The field kit

The field kit is whatever a child can carry on a walk and use without help. The goal is a small, durable set that lives by the door, because the kit that gets used is the one a child can grab in under a minute. A simple drawstring bag or a small backpack holds the lot. Below are the pieces worth owning, roughly in the order most families buy them.

Magnifiers and bug viewers

A magnifier is the first tool to buy because it changes how a child sees everything underfoot. The cheapest option is a sturdy kids’ magnifying glass with a shatterproof lens, which is fine for older children who will not drop it on a rock. For younger ones, a closed bug viewer jar is the better buy: it lets a child scoop up a beetle, snap the magnifying lid shut, study the insect from every angle, and then let it go, all without the bug escaping or the lens rolling under the couch. Home Science Tools, a long-standing science-supply retailer, lists a magnifier and a bug viewer among the core tools in its nature study collection (Home Science Tools, retrieved June 2026). For families who want to go further indoors, a handheld pocket microscope bridges the gap between a hand lens and a benchtop scope, though it is an add-on rather than a starter item. Households moving toward formal biology will eventually want a real instrument, which is covered in the homeschool microscope buying guide.

Nets and collecting gear

Catching gear extends nature study from looking to gentle handling, which is where many children fall for the subject. An insect net with a light mesh works for butterflies, grasshoppers, and the occasional minnow in a shallow creek, and it pairs naturally with the bug viewer for a catch-look-release routine. Home Science Tools lists an insect net and a plant press among its nature study supplies, the latter for flattening and preserving leaves and wildflowers a child wants to keep (Home Science Tools, retrieved June 2026). A pressed-flower habit feeds directly back into the journal, since a dried specimen can be taped to a page beside the drawing of where it was found. For families who would rather buy the whole field kit at once instead of assembling it, a young naturalist backpack kit bundles a magnifier, a net, collecting containers, and often a small guide into one bag. The all-in-one route trades a little quality for convenience, but it gets a reluctant starter outdoors the same afternoon.

Binoculars

Binoculars are the piece that turns a backyard into a place worth watching, and they are the single tool most likely to hook a child on birds. The mistake here is handing a child a heavy adult pair; small hands need a light, low-magnification instrument they can actually hold steady. A pair of binoculars sized for kids in the 6x to 8x range is the sweet spot, with enough magnification to bring a feeder bird close and a wide enough field of view that a child can find the bird in the first place. Home Science Tools carries binoculars in its nature study lineup alongside its kits and guides (Home Science Tools, retrieved June 2026). Binoculars pair best with a bird field guide and a window seat, and they are the natural next purchase once the magnifier and journal are in steady use.

The nature journal

If the field kit has a center of gravity, it is the nature journal. The journal is where observing becomes recording, and recording is most of what nature study actually is. A child who draws a leaf, notes the date and the weather, and writes down a question about it has done a complete lesson without a worksheet in sight. The simplest setup is a blank nature journal or sketchbook with paper heavy enough to take a little watercolor, paired with a set of colored pencils that travel well and do not bleed through the page. Families who want a guided structure rather than blank pages often reach for a nature journaling handbook, which teaches the basic drawing-and-noting routine to children and parents who do not consider themselves artists. The journal habit traces straight back to Charlotte Mason, whose method treats the child’s own record of observation as the heart of nature study rather than a textbook account of it (Mason, Home Education, retrieved June 2026). What goes in the journal matters less than the fact that something does, week after week.

A short list of what tends to land in a working nature journal:

• A dated drawing of one thing observed, however rough
• The weather, the place, and the season
• A pressed leaf or flower taped beside the sketch
• One question the child wants to look up later
• The name, once a field guide supplies it

Field guides

Field guides are the bridge from “look at that” to “that is a downy woodpecker.” They are also the supply most worth buying by region and topic rather than as a single thick volume, because a guide tuned to your state and to one kind of living thing is far faster to use in the field. The two great American series are worth knowing by name. The Peterson Field Guides began in 1934 with Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to the Birds and introduced the Peterson Identification System, which uses arrows on illustrations to point at the field marks that separate one species from a similar one (Peterson Field Guides, retrieved June 2026). The Audubon field guides take the opposite approach, using photographs rather than drawings, and are published under the name of the National Audubon Society, founded in 1905 and named for the naturalist John James Audubon (National Audubon Society, retrieved June 2026). Neither is better; some children read drawings more easily and some read photos, so it is worth letting a child page through both before settling on a series.

The three guides most families reach for first cover what a child meets on an ordinary walk:

• A bird field guide, ideally one keyed to your region, since birds are the most watchable wildlife from a window
• A tree and leaf guide for naming what is in the yard and along the trail year-round
• A wildflower guide for the roadside and meadow blooms that change with the season

Younger children often do better with a simpler photo-led guide before they graduate to a full Peterson or Audubon. A regional folding pocket guide that fits in a back pocket and survives rain is a low-cost way to start, and it slips into the field kit without adding weight.

The nature library

The nature library is the shelf that feeds the outdoor habit indoors. These are the books that send a child back out the door, and they pair well with a science program built around observation. The single most recommended title in this corner of homeschooling is the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock, a Cornell professor whose 1911 reference is still the standard parent companion for nature study a century later. It is a teacher’s book rather than a child’s, organized so a parent can look up the maple in the yard the night before a walk. For a child who wants a beautiful book to leaf through, an illustrated illustrated nature anatomy book turns the whole natural world into labeled drawings, and a Burgess Bird Book for Children teaches bird identification through a story, which is the gentle on-ramp many Charlotte Mason families use for the early years.

Read-aloud nature titles round out the shelf. A collection like a Thornton Burgess animal story set carries young children through woodland natural history one short chapter at a time, and a picture book set on the seasons gives the youngest children a reason to notice what changes outside the window each month. Nature study slots neatly into a wider observation-first science plan, and the best homeschool science curriculum guide covers the programs that lean on it, while the Charlotte Mason and classical methods explainer lays out the philosophy behind the journal-and-walk approach.

Where to buy

Most of the items in this guide are available on Amazon, and the links above point there. For families who prefer a science-focused retailer that curates a nature study section, Home Science Tools sells nature kits, field guides, magnifiers, nets, plant presses, and binoculars as its own category, including a young naturalist backpack kit (Home Science Tools nature studies kits, retrieved June 2026). Buying the field kit piecemeal usually costs less than a bundled set and lets you match each tool to the age in the house, but a starter backpack kit is the faster route for a family that wants to be outdoors this weekend rather than next month. The books in the nature library are worth buying used where you can, since titles like the Handbook of Nature Study and the Burgess books have been in print for generations.

Bottom line

A homeschool nature study kit does not need to be expensive, and it should not be bought all at once. If you buy three things to start, make them a magnifier or bug viewer, a blank nature journal with a set of colored pencils, and one regional field guide for whatever your family notices most, usually birds. That trio, plus a regular walk and the time outdoors Charlotte Mason argued for, is a complete nature study program. Add an insect net and a plant press when collecting starts, a pair of kid binoculars when birds take hold, and the Handbook of Nature Study on the shelf for the parent who fields the questions. Build the library slowly from there.

To fit nature study into the rest of the week, the science curriculum guide and the preschool curriculum guide show where it lands by age, and the teaching multiple ages guide explains why nature study is one of the few subjects a whole family can do together at once. If you are still choosing the curriculum these supplies support, the curriculum finder and the editors’ picks are the place to start, and the homeschool room setup guide covers where to keep the field kit so it actually gets used.