How To Prepare for Using the SoCal Nature Kids family science curriculum

Written By Kelly S

I’m the creator of the SoCal Nature Kids curriculum, and many of the books, activities, and field trips included in the curriculum are things I did with my own children when my oldest daughters were around 5-10 years old.

Meanwhile, my twin boys were in the toddler/preschool range, so they enjoyed joining us for some of the lessons, but for other parts they were in the next room playing with Duplo or just along for the ride in a stroller on field trips.

Back then, we studied these topics as a family through books and activities, I took notes on what we did, and then afterwards I put them all together into a tidy little curriculum document to share with you all.

Now that my sons are headed into 3rd grade, it seems like the perfect time to go through the SoCal Nature Kids lessons with them now that they’re old enough to fully participate and remember the lessons. Happily, this time I get to use my own pretty, organized lesson plans!

So, as the new school year approaches, I thought I’d walk you through how I’m preparing now over the summer to use the curriculum this year. There’s not a ton of prep to do, but it always feels good to enter a new school year with a bit of preparation of books, supplies, and lesson plans under my belt.

Step One: Choose which of the three SoCal Nature Kids volumes to use - Land, Water, or Sky - and purchase.

There are three different editions of SoCal Nature Kids, and each one contains twelve lessons on the following subjects:

  • Land (Volume 1) - ecosystems - deserts, mountains, chaparral; energy, earthquakes, agriculture, Native people of California

  • Water (Volume 2) - watersheds and water access, freshwater wildlife, tide pools, beaches, boats and harbors, islands, marine mammals

  • Sky (Volume 3) - birds, insects, astronomy, weather

The 3 volumes are loosely designed to do in order - for example, Lesson 1 of Land (Volume 1) contains an Introduction to Southern California Nature lesson.

So, if you don’t have a strong opinion, I’d suggest starting with Land. I decided to use SoCal Nature Kids: Land with my third grade sons this year, and plan to hopefully move on to Water in fourth grade and Sky in fifth grade.

However, if you’re really interested in the topics for Water or Sky, you can certainly start with Volume 2 or 3 instead. Or, you could pick and choose different topics from each of the volumes if desired.

One other thing to mention that may influence your decision- since Sky (Volume 3) is the newest one, I made some light improvements to Sky. While all 3 volumes contain field trip ideas for LA, Orange County, San Diego, and the Inland Empire, for SoCal Nature Kids: Sky only, I also included field trip suggestions for additional Southern California counties, including Ventura, Santa Barbara, SLO, Kern, and Imperial Counties, so if you live in those areas you may want to start with Sky first.

Also, each lesson in Sky contains a “poster” you can print and display with pictures that correspond to that topic (for example, a poster of Southern California birds or what to look for in the SoCal night sky). The design of Sky is a little visually different too - more color!

I do hope to eventually update Land and Water with these bonus parts (additional field trip ideas plus posters), but as of right now (summer 2025) they haven’t been updated yet.

Have you decided whether to use Land, Water, or Sky? If so, then you’re ready for the next step.

Step Two: Purchase the curriculum and print as needed.

Of course, I was able to skip the first part of this, haha - perks of being the creator of the curriculum!

I have a spiral-bound copy of the curriculum (the one I usually show as a sample at homeschool conventions) that I can refer to as needed, but I’ve actually discovered that in general for all subjects, I like just having a few weeks’ worth of lessons printed and stapled in the corner. There’s something about just having a few pieces of paper that feels more accessible and it also makes it easy to mark up, cross-off completed lessons, add notes, etc.

So that’s what I plan to do - print one or two lessons off at a time.

In case you’re looking for more info on how to buy or print the curriculum, here are a few thoughts!

How to Purchase the SoCal Nature Kids Science Curriculum:

Once you’ve decided whether to use Land, Water, or Sky, you can purchase the curriculum via the SoCal Nature Kids web site - each one is sold separately, or there’s a discount for buying more than one volume at the same time.

When you purchase on the web site, you’ll receive a link to download the digital PDF from Google Drive. You can save it to your computer or add to your own Google Drive to use from there.

(By the way, if you ever have any issues with getting your downloads, please send me an email!)

Deciding How to Print/Access the SoCal Nature Kids lesson plans:

If you’ve been homeschooling for awhile, you probably already have a preference for how to access digital lesson plans - just stick with whatever works for you!

Much of the lesson plans are meant as a resource for you as the parent, and don’t need to be viewed by your children. However, there are some pages that students will need, and I recommend printing those.

  • Some people like to use their computer or iPad, or even a phone (if you have good eyesight!) to view the lessons.

  • Others like having a printed book to refer to. I really like The Homeschool Printing Company for inexpensive, quality printing - they have great customer service too! (I’d print double sided color with a spiral binding, personally!) Of course, if you have a printer and spiral binder (or want to use a 3 hole punch and a binder) you can use that too.

  • You can print off one lesson at a time (around 5-10 pages per lesson), use those papers for the lesson, then when you’re done with the lesson you can recycle or file away for the future.

Whatever method you use for your own lesson plans as the parent/teacher, you’ll probably want to print the student pages off separately - these include birdwatching logs, board game pieces, science experiment note taking pages, etc.

The student are marked with a little pencil icon at the bottom of some pages of the curriculum. There are usually 1-4 student pages per lesson, and you’ll want to make sure you have one copy for each student.

Have you purchased SoCal Nature Kids? Did you print it off (at least the first lesson or two) or do you have a plan for how you’ll access it? If so, then you’re ready for the next step.

Step Three: Decide how frequently you want to do a SoCal Nature Kids lesson + plan out your schedule (if desired).

Earlier this summer, I took a look at the school year and plotted out our schedule for the year. I know not everyone likes to plan out exactly which dates they’ll do school, but I find it helps to know when to schedule dr appts or vacations, and we can always tweak it a bit if something else comes up.

This year we’re trying something new - a rhythm of 5-6 weeks on, 1 week off, which works out to about 6 sections of 5-6 weeks of school. Since there are 12 lessons in SoCal Nature Kids: Land, I assigned two lessons per 5-6 week period, which works out to around 2-3 weeks per lesson.

In general, I think this is likely a pretty good time frame for most families doing SoCal Nature Kids - I recommend aiming for around 3 weeks per lesson. Of course, if you’re a family who likes to do a lot of schoolwork each day, you could complete it in more like 1 week per lesson, or if you want to be more relaxed, you could just work at your own pace.

When you purchase the curriculum, the introduction explains a bit more about possible schedules, so feel free to look there if you’re still having trouble figuring this out.

You also may want to consider how frequently you’ll do SoCal Nature Kids during your week. Every family is different in whether they have a weekly list of assignments to complete, a daily schedule of independent tasks, a loop schedule, or just winging it! So there’s no right or wrong way to include SoCal Nature Kids into your schedule, in my opinion.

For my family, I have working on SoCal Nature Kids scheduled into my sons’ weekly lists for two mornings a week. That’s when we’ll do the Discover activity together, study a local animal using Wild LA, do the hands-on activities, make time to write in our nature journals, etc.

Then we’ll do a weekly adventure day (sometimes connected to SoCal Nature Kids, sometimes not), and I’ll plan to read some of the picture books during our family Morning Time every day (my 7th grade daughter will join us for those books and Adventure Days, but she has a more formal middle school science curriculum she’s doing otherwise).

Have you decided your schedule for doing SoCal Nature Kids? (or did you decide not to do a schedule at all?) If so, you’re ready to move on.

Step Four: Gather books and supplies you’ll use throughout the curriculum.

Now comes the fun part! I don’t know about you, but my favorite part of homeschool planning is always getting the shiny new books and supplies!

SoCal Nature Kids intentionally doesn’t use a ton of materials - and books/supplies are pretty consistent among the three volumes - but there are a few things that get used throughout the curriculum.(There is a page in the curriculum that lists these out under “Supplies Needed for All 12 Lessons.”)

Of course, I already own the books, so I just needed to grab them from my office and put in our homeschool area instead. You’ll want to purchase these if you don’t already have them, and make them somewhere easy to access all year long:

The one new item I wanted for my boys is a nature journal. They have some from when they were younger, but those have gotten a little messy, so I thought a nice new one would be a fun start to our more formal study of SoCal Nature Kids.

I landed on these sketchbooks (7 x 10 size) because I liked that they have mixed media paper that will hold watercolor or paint if desired. You can see more options here, or just stick with a simple 80 cent spiral lined paper notebook.

The remaining supplies are easily available in our daily life so I didn’t need to gather them up at all:

  • a pencil and colored pencils or watercolors for journaling

  • a computer or smart phone to access recommended videos and web sites as a family

  • basic "nature field trip" supplies like a first aid kit, snacks, and water bottles (these will get addressed a bit more in Lesson 1 of Land)

  • and a spirit of adventure!

Do you have your books purchased and gathered? Did you get a nature journal for each student? If so, you’re ready to move on.

There are other supplies needed for individual lessons, but I am just going to gather those up as we go along throughout the year… which leads to:

Step Five: Prepare for the first couple lessons.

The final thing I want to do is prepare for the first two lessons more fully before the school year is underway. This will include placing books on hold at the library, gathering any supplies we need for specific activities in those lessons, and deciding on a couple adventure days to do. (After those two lessons are done, we’ll have a break week, so I’ll prepare for lessons three and four during our break week).

I’ll share more about how those lessons go soon!

Kelly S
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