nature study

Along with The Tale of Peter Rabbit printables, I’m also sharing fun hands-on activities during my spring unit study with Mr. MunchKing. Also look at my page Best Homeschool Unit Studies.

He is such a sweet kid to mentor, and he had so much with this spring unit study. It is one of his favorites already.

Before I started blogging or had a website, I used parts of Five in a Row unit study curriculum with my three homeschooled grads. FIAR uses The Tale of Peter Rabbit as one of their literature studies.

Doing the same unit study years later allowed me to dig deeper, to make it fit another generation, and to use my own unique ideas.

I planned this unit study with my ideas and ideas from other educators. Why invent the wheel when so many good unit study printables and subtopics abound on the internet? A pinch of my own way of teaching and add in other wonderful ideas and it’s a fantastic fun study.

Tale of Peter Rabbit Unit Study

One more thing about Five in a Row is that many unit study providers have come along since I started 25 years ago, but Five in a Row remains one of my very favorite for elementary and middle school.

The way they use hands-on for all subjects is head and shoulders above many other so called unit study providers.

Keep in mind that this delightful book can be used all the way up to high school as well. Topics can be slanted to teach children like figurative language, drawing inferences, and an introduction to analysis.

Don’t think it’s just a young child’s tale; a picture book is one of the best tools for teaching beginning analysis in the middle grades.

Now, let’s dive into this fun spring unit study about The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

First, look below at my unit study planning page from my Ultimate DIY Unit Study Planner of how I adapted the tale to fit what I want Mr. MunchKing to learn at the PreK/K level.

My unit study planning page is just a guide, but is not everything you cover. Again, as a guide it gives you a framework of important points while following your child’s lead.

Unit Study Concept/Ideas for Peter Rabbit Tale

In addition, I start with unit study idea concepts which are usually like one or two words for me to glance at to use as a springboard for another teaching idea.

Look at some of the unit study idea concepts or word glances for The Tale of Peter Rabbit which fits the age of Mr. MunchKing.

• England, country garden, farm animals
• rabbits, berries, sparrows
• types of robins, fir tree, obedience, and
• various cultures.

Next, look at various activities and ideas for each homeschool subjects. Beginning with language arts, the best part is reading the book over and over again.

Watch and listen to this beautiful read aloud of Peter Rabbit on YouTube using an English accent.

I have included a few more videos to help the book come alive:

• The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny film 1/2
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny film 2/2

Peter Rabbit Unit Study Language Arts

Learning how to tell back a story builds fluency in reading and comprehension. It begins with excellent literature.

Further, I created this fun printable story telling cube which can be used in different ways. Reading should be hands-on to allow your child to listen while using his other senses.

This storytelling cube is a subscriber freebie.

I used this printable in several different ways:

• ask questions about events in the story and have your learner find it on the cube
• read a part in the book, ask who was talking in the story and have your child find it on the cube
• tell your child to choose a character or event on the cube and retell what is the picture illustrating
• have your child “roll” it and play guess what the picture is illustrating
• let your child listen and follow along showing the correct illustration

Free The Tale of Peter Rabbit Book

And you’ll love having access to The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter for free here at Gutenberg.

More Tale of Peter Rabbit Resources

Free Literary Terms Notebooking Pages

Because I know how hard it is to find things for older learners, I’ve created 3 free literary terms notebooking pages based on the book.

Please hear my heart when I say that I don’t encourage any literary evaluation until a child is in middle school. Young child will struggle with understanding literary terms. Wait until they are older.

The first notebooking page is Fiction versus Nonfiction. Have your child write under the correct column which key words match the correct column.

For the second notebooking page, Elements of Fiction, have your child research the definition of each of the elements of fiction.

Literary terms is the third page. I have included a brief definition of a few terms on that page.

Help your older leaner to understand the definitions and then find examples of each one in the story. For example, to explain foreshadowing point out this part below to your child.

NOW, my dears,” said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, “you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.”

On the last part of the third notebooking page there is a part to add specific genres like mysteries, science fiction, historical fiction, realistic fiction and epic poems to name a few. I hope these brief explanations about each page will help you guide your child.

These notebooking pages are subscriber freebies.

HOW TO GET THE FREE STORYTELLING CUBE AND 3 PETER RABBIT NOTEBOOKING PAGES

Now, how to grab the free notebooking pages and the storytelling cube. They are subscriber freebies.

11) CLICK HERE ON THIS LINK TO SIGN UP ON MY EMAIL LIST & TO GET THIS FREEBIE.
2) Grab the freebie now.
3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

To further enhance language arts skills for Mr. MunchKing, we added dot printables and other fine motor skills craft fun.

Fine Motor Activities for The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Also, look at some of these fine motor skill activities we added.

How to Sew a Felt Carrot

First, Mr. MunchKing sewed an adorable little felt carrot. You don’t need much to do this and your little learner can make many of the vegetables in Mr. McGregor’s garden.

Begin by gathering felt, a plastic sewing needle, yarn, scissors, and some stuffing.

You can use cotton or whatever you have on hand for the stuffing. As some of our school supplies, we add to our craft supply and added a pack of felt. You’ll need two colors, orange and green.

There are a few easy steps:

• First, our square had to be cut into a wide triangle.
• Fold over the triangle to form the shape of a carrot.

• Thread the needle with a long piece of orange yarn and have your child sew on the long side.
• Don’t cut off your yarn yet. Leave enough room to stuff.
• Next stuff the carrot and use a pencil to push it down to the bottom of the point.
• Then, lay the carrot aside without sewing across the top yet either.

• Take the green felt and stuff it inside the carrot with the stuffing.
• Sew the sides and tie. Thread the needle again and sew across the top of the carrot
• Lastly cut the green felt to make leaves.

How to Use The Vegetables in Mr. McGregor’s Garden for Playing to Learn

Too, we cut free hand from the rest of the felt the other vegetables in Mr. McGregor’s garden.

Next glue them on popsicle sticks and now your can use the vegetable sticks in many ways.

• your little learner picks up the correct vegetable when he hears that part in the story
• try to count how many vegetables are in the garden
• name the vegetables after they’re mentioned in the story
• poke holes on a shoebox lid and put the sticks through and color the lid like dirt to make a pretend garden

Geography for The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Of course, some of the best subjects to include in this unit study are science, nature study, art and even geography.

Because the author Beatrix Potter was born and raised in England, many of the illustrations in her books are of the English countryside. If you want to know more about Beatrix Potter, the Victoria and Albert Museum has a huge collection of her drawings, letters, and work.

Comparing the English countryside to where your child lives gives your child a foundation of beginning geography. For beginning geography, some of the fun hands-on activities we included was making an edible peanut butter dough map of England and focusing on mapping Mr. McGregor’s garden.

How to make Make an Edible Peanut Butter Dough England Map

Start by making an edible map with peanut butter dough and form the country of England. You could also use cookie dough from the store, bake it and then add icing.

I’ve waffled between these two recipes during the years doing variations of each. So, mix and match until you have the taste your child loves.

 Mix until you have a smooth consistency. We have peanut butter lovers here, so a little bit of licking and a little bit of learning is the way to learn about maps at this age.

Next, grab a printed outline of the country of England after you locate it on a globe or map and talk about the pictures in the book.

Tape a clear piece of parchment paper on top of the printable map, so your little learner can follow the lines with his fingers. As your child grows, he can pencil in the border of the countries and landmarks.

Locate the cottage garden in the book, explain about the English countryside and explain what is a country setting versus a city setting. Then let your little learner form the map with the peanut butter dough.

In addition, another easy hands-on geography idea is to map Mr. McGregor’s garden. I loved this idea over at Children’s Book and Reading.

Mapping Mr. McGregor’s Garden for Fun Geography

Drawing pictures of what your child is learning cements the story line and you know that your child is understanding. It has been my experience that many older readers who struggle with reading didn’t have enough time to visualize parts of the story.

When a young learner can draw, he visualizes key details. In addition, maps are great visual aids.

Having your child map his backyard is another fun way to begin mapping. Geography comes alive because your child is connecting the story to his life and surroundings. It’s fun to see what your child focuses on too.

Then we downloaded the sweet printable over at Children’s Book and Reading which contains empty vegetable patches. As you begin to read the story, have your child follow along on his map.

You can do geography of the garden other ways too. Using a white board, have your child use his fingerprints and thumbprints to draw pictures of where the vegetables are as he hears the story. We grabbed the washable paint colors orange, red, green, and brown.

This activity was a two-pher as I call it. Teach your child about geography while painting and using his fine motor skills. What fun we had.

Finally, there are many nature and science activities to plan from book.

Nature and Science from The Tale of Peter Rabbit

We had a hard time narrowing down what nature and science activities we wanted to do. The first science activity which was to compare soils best for growing plants came from Inspiration Laboratories.

Compare Types of Soil To Grow Plants In

It’s also an easy activity because you need just a few materials most of which you have on hand at home.

Too, your child can begin with this hands-on science and observe the growing process each day to record in a journal if they are writers. If they are budding writers, a picture of the day-to-day growth works too. It encourages pre-writing skills.

Grow Seedlings Like Mr. McGregor’s Vegetables

Another fun idea for a spring garden is to grow seedlings. With a young learner, you don’t need to plant a whole garden unless you want to. Mr. MunchKing really loved this activity as he watched his babies grow each day.

If you do this with a young learner, try to get seeds which sprout fast, so you child has fun instantly. I don’t have a green thumb by any stretch, but I’ve always managed to introduce gardening to each child.

And in my experience fast growing seeds work best. We just used what we had on hand which was an empty egg carton, seed packets, and potting soil. Seeds like beans, radishes and peas can grow quickly.

This was a huge unit study for us; we did it for several weeks, stepped back, and then came back to it.

If you’re planning this unit study, do the garden projects first so children can observe while you do the language arts portion and other fun ideas.

Add these fun videos about vegetables to your day.

• Vegetable Song For Kids
• Vegetables We Love You | Vegetable Song

Tale of Peter Rabbit Printables

While we were working day to day on the fun activities, we found this beautiful lapbook at Homeschool Share.

The beauty of lapbooks is that your child can create them anyway they like to. We used some of the free printables from Homeschool Share and added Mr. MunchKing’s work he loved about Mr. McGregor’s garden.

Besides memory keepers, lapbooks are hands-on tools which aids recall.

While true that I don’t hail to be a crafty mom, I do know the value of mess and play learning.

Lapbooks fit into this category for me. Have you ever seen a child filled with excitement as he explains a worksheet? But turn that worksheet into a mini fun book folded into a creative way, and now you have an engaged learner.

Look at my video How to Lapbook EZ on my YouTube Channel.

So The Tale of Peter Rabbit lapbook is a fun way for a child to remember the information in a fun and natural way.

Peter Rabbit End of Unit Tea Celebration

Finally, always try to end your unit study with a memorable activity. I found this adorable tea set which has is a 15-Piece Woodland-Themed Tin Tea Set, Includes Teapot, 4 Plates, 4 Cups, 4 Saucers, Serving Tray and Carrying Case for our spring tea. And what better way to remember this unit study than to have a tea party. Plus we can use it for many more themed parties!

We served raspberry muffins and rabbit shaped cookies. Also, you could serve scones, but the muffins and cookies were great hits.

Mr. MunchKing dressed up in his Sunday finest and we pretended Peter Rabbit invited us over for tea. What a fun time he had!

Finally, here are a few more fun things I found to help make your The Tale of Peter Rabbit Unit Study memorable.

More The Tale of Peter Rabbit Free Printables and Activities

• Download these precious and free I Spy printables to use while your child watches the movie and listens to you as you read aloud.
• Fun pop up garden paper plater craft.
• Lettuce wraps for kids.
• Grab these printable ABC carrot patch.
• And there are even more ideas here at The World of Peter Rabbit site. You won’t be short for ideas.

Free Literature Printables for The Tale of Peter Rabbit for Older Learners

As you can see we had an awesome time with this fun unit study using beautiful literature. Do you think you’ll try it?

You’ll also love these other hands-on posts about gardening, spring, and beautiful literature.

• Kinder Gardening to Celebrate Nature and Science
• Easy Seed and Gardening Unit Study for Kids (Middle – Upper Elementary)
• 26 Free Nature Unit Studies for Multiple Ages
• How to Make an Easy Nature Paint Brush With Kids
• 20 Nature-Inspired Kids’ Novels to Nurture Interest In the Outdoors
• How to Easily Make a Simple and Fun Kids DIY Flower Press
• How to Easily Make Fun Seed Tape With Kids
• Fun Kids Activity How to Make Wildflower Seed Bombs
• How to Make a Fun Kids Root Viewer
• Hands-On Mixed Media Flower Art Fun Nature Study