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Nature-Based Word Scramble for Early Spring in New England

What is it? Where is it?

Allow this free word scramble printable to lead curiosity during April! Support language arts by unscrambling the letters to identify what’s in each picture. In early Spring, look for these treasures in nature throughout the Hilltowns of western Massachusetts and around New England.

Use this printable to encourage local engagement in the natural world by searching for native and invasive species, identifying seeds from different trees, and supporting interests in ornithology, botany, and mycology.

Engaging in the natural world, a community-based educational resource available to everyone, supports a sense of place. Make learning relevant to where you live!

Hilltown Families Printables is sponsored by Curly Willow on the Westfield River. Nestled in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains on the east branch of the Westfield River, Curly Willow on the Westfield is an emerging space for the passionately curious. A convergence of mindfulness and community-based education. Member, Community-Based Education Network™.

Category: Hilltown Families, Printables Tags: Botany Printable, Language Arts Printable, Massachusetts, Native Species, Nature Based Learning, Nature Printable, New England, phenology, place-based learning, Printable, Scavenger Hunt, Sense of Place, Word Scramble

Great Backyard Bird Count Supports Nature-Based Learning

Let your interests in ornithology, local habitat, conservation, and citizen science take flight this year by participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count!

Category: Citizen Scientist, Hilltown Families, Nature Based Education Tags: Bird Watching, Birds, Great Backyard Bird Count, Native Species, Ornithology

February is National Bird Feeding Month

Category: Community Based Education, Hilltown Families, Nature Based Education Tags: bird feeding, Bird Watching, Birding, Birds, Citizen Science, National Bird Feeding Month, Native Species, Ornithology

Land Trusts & Native Species: Community-Based Educational Resources to Support Self-Directed Learning

Self-guided hikes are a great way to keep your family active outdoors and engaged in nature! They’re also excellent ways to support learning via community-based educational resources, including land trusts & native species!

Download this free interpretive trail guide Hilltown Families created with the Hilltown Land Trust for the Bradley Sanctuary trail in Williamsburg, MA.

Category: Hilltown Families Tags: Hiking, Homeschool, Land Trusts, Native Species, Nature Based Learning, place-based learning, self-directed learning, Sense of Place, Social Distancing, Unschool

CBEdu Resource: Native Trees & Forests

Understanding our Native Tree Species German author Peter Wohlleben’s recent book The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate has sold more than 800,000 copies in Germany and is now on the best-seller list in the United States and elsewhere. Wohlleben’s book is popularizing revolutionary new scientific research demonstrating conclusively that trees communicate with each other. Through what some scientists are calling the ‘wood wide web,’ intricate underground fungal… Read More

Category: Hilltown Families Tags: Dendrology, Forest Bathing, Native Species, Trees

CBEdu Resource: Bees and Flowers

Bees and flowers have an amazingly close relationship. Flowers need bees to reproduce, and bees need flowers to feed their colonies. Take away one, and the other would disappear too. It begs the question: When it comes to evolution, which came first, the bees or the flowers?