A Free Week of Christian Nature Study You Can Teach This Week

Yes, you can teach a full week of Christian nature study this week without spending a dollar. I give away Week 1 of Eden’s Table: five full lessons on one plant, with the Teacher’s Guide, the Student Notebook and a read-aloud, sent to your email as PDFs you can print tonight.

It isn’t a sampler or a few preview pages. It’s the same week families teach from when they buy the whole year. Here’s what’s in it, how the week runs, and what to do once Friday is done.

What do I get in the free week?

You pick a grade band and the week lands in your inbox in about a minute. No card, no obligation.

• Sprouts (K-2), Week 1: Lavender. The Teacher’s Guide, the Student Notebook, and the read-aloud “Meet the Family,” the story that opens the whole year.
• Seedlings (3-5), Week 1: Elderberry. The Teacher’s Guide and the Student Notebook, plus Story Seven as a bonus read-aloud.

The Sprouts Teacher’s Guide for Week 1 is six pages: a Week at a Glance page, then one page for each day, Monday through Friday. The Notebook is five pages, one per day, and your child writes on every one of them. The read-aloud is on a small storybook page you can print or just read from a screen.

Which week should I pick for my kids?

If your kids are in K-2, pick Sprouts. If they’re in grades 3-5 and herbs are new to your family, pick Sprouts too. Sprouts and Seedlings teach different plants, 36 each, and the Sprouts plants are the ones Seedlings builds on. If your older kids already know the basics, go straight to Seedlings. Kids in both bands? Teach Sprouts to everyone together first.

If you want to see every plant before you choose, the scope and sequence lists all 72 by week and unit. There’s also a page for each grade, from kindergarten to fifth grade.

What do I need to set out before Monday?

Not much. Print the pages and look at the Week at a Glance page first, because that’s where the kitchen lab supply list is. For the Sprouts lavender week, the list is dried lavender buds, hot water, a mug, honey, and a cloth square with a tie. That’s it.

You don’t need a garden, either. Friday’s garden activity works in a yard or with a windowsill plant. And you don’t need to know anything about herbs. The read-aloud is scripted, the discussion questions are written, and the memory verse is already chosen for you.

How does a week of nature study actually run?

Every day has one job. Here’s the Sprouts lavender week, the way it’s written:

• Monday, Read-Aloud and Discussion. You read “Meet the Family” together and meet Vovó and PopPop on their Tennessee homestead, their family, and Bear the dog. The memory verse is Psalm 139:14, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works” (NASB).
• Tuesday, Discovery. Your child rolls a dried bud between two fingers, smells it, feels the leaves, and then draws a lavender spike and labels the flowers and stem. They meet the Latin name too, Lavandula angustifolia.
• Wednesday, Kitchen Lab. You make lavender tea together. Measure a teaspoon of buds, a grown-up pours the hot water, you count five minutes of steeping, strain it, stir in a little honey, and taste it once it cools. Then you tie a few buds into a little cloth sachet. In the Notebook your child writes down the color, smell, taste and texture and colors in stars to rate it.
• Thursday, History and Art. The Romans scented their baths and laundry with lavender, and its name is traced to the Latin lavare, “to wash.” Your child draws lavender in front of Roman arches and finds the Mediterranean and Italy on a map.
• Friday, Garden and Review. Go find three living things in a garden, a yard or a windowsill pot, then talk through the week’s review questions.

Every day also has a line for Little Sprouts and one for Older Sprouts, so a five-year-old and an eight-year-old can do the same lesson at their own level.

The Seedlings week has the same five-day shape. Monday opens with Psalm 100 read aloud together, and Wednesday is an elderberry syrup lab. Story Seven is the reading that falls in Week 2, so you’ll have it ready if you keep going.

What should I watch for during the week?

Watch your kids more than the pages. Are they asking questions? Do they want to smell the jar again? Does anyone pick up the Notebook without being asked? Here’s what one mom said after teaching the free sample at her own table:

“I just wanted you to see how into it they are! No complaining and actually asking to do their ‘learning’!!” (Kati, former nurse and paramedic)

A good week doesn’t have to look perfect. If your kids still remember the smell on Friday and can tell you who Vovó is, the week did its job.

What do I do after the free week?

If it fits your family, keep going. There’s no pressure, and nothing has to be bought in order.

• The Starter Unit, $39. Weeks 1 to 9 as an instant download: the Teacher’s Guide, the Student Notebook and the storybook readings for those weeks. You’ve already taught Week 1, so this carries you straight on through Week 9. Get it for Sprouts or Seedlings.
• The printed year, $249 plus $12 shipping. All 36 weeks in three books, printed to order and at your door in about two to three weeks. See the printed sets. Extra Student Notebooks for siblings are $39.99 each.

In Sprouts, the first unit, In the Garden God Made, runs six weeks and closes, and weeks 7 to 9 open the second unit. So the Starter Unit lets you finish a whole unit and see how the year moves into the next one.

One thing to know before you buy the download: because it’s digital, it isn’t refundable once the files are downloaded. That’s what the free week is for. You get to teach a real week before you spend anything.

Using an ESA or scholarship? Eden’s Table is an approved or registered vendor in seven programs, and the ESA page shows how buying works in each state.

Get Week 1 free here, print it, and teach it this week!