Throughout the late fall and winter when we were forced inside because of the cold weather I wanted to make sure I reinforced all of the things my little one had learned in the garden. In our house we are a big fan of books and I used as many of our nature/ science/ gardening books to ensure my toddler remembered as much as they could about the garden.
I've decided to share some of our favorite books with you here. For your convenience I will link the books to amazon where you can buy them. I DO NOT make any money from these recommendations and all of these books are books we have read with my toddler and have enjoyed.
This is one of our all time favorite garden/ nature books. The illustrations are so beautiful and dynamic that it feels as though you are immersed in art as well as nature as you are reading the book. This book also has excellent information regarding the importance of pollinators, how flowers are pollinated and of course all the parts of a flower.
This book also gets a gold star for good and correct science. I find that many children's books tend to use simple terms or don't use scientific terms when introducing new topics. I don't think that these terms need to be simplified for children. When they're young their minds are like sponges and they will learn whatever we teach them, so why not teach them correct terminology from the get go?
Here's another book with absolutely beautiful illustrations that are guaranteed to get your kids' attention. The Big Book of Bugs features many of the the insects we regularly find in the garden and talks about their roles within their ecosystems ad predator and prey relationships. Zommer also does an excellent job using using taxonomy to organize the insects in the book.
This little book has been absolutely wonderful to read and play with during the fall and winter months. Many of the birds featured in the book are non-migratory (native to the northeastern U.S.) and have visited our bird feeder all winter long. Matching the bird song with the picture of the bird has allowed both my toddler and I to learn their calls. Now, if there are birds are singing we know which birds are in our garden even if we cant see them.
There are other books by these authors with different types of birds. We also have The Little Book of Backyard Bird Songs which is every bit as good as the woodland bird song book.
Ok, so this one isn't strictly about gardening or nature. It is however, an excellent book to encourage kids to keep asking 'why,' or 'how' and it helps them to understand the scientific method in a very organic way. I also like how the main character, Ada, is an african american girl. Representation of women in science (women of color especially) is so important. When I was growing up many of the books I read about scientists were about men. And although things are beginning to change, women are still sorely underrepresented in the sciences. I especially love how Ada isn't presented in pink frilly frothy dresses or illustrated with big goofy eyes and rainbows. Women should wear whatever they want but I don't think EVERYTHING aimed at young girls needs to be pink and sparkly.
As a scientist (and a generally curious person) I have many field guides stacked on my bookshelves. I noticed that if I left one lying around, my toddler (as a one year old) enjoyed flipping through the pages and looking at the pictures. I decided to move all of them to a low bookshelf so they could reach the guides and look at the pictures whenever they wanted. My little one frequently pulls them off of the shelves and peruses all of the different plant and animal life. Now that they're a little older we look at them together and I tell them all about what we see in the pictures. Sometimes (as with birds and flowers) we will see things we saw in the books in our garden which is very exciting for my kid (and fun for me to see them make connections).