Climate Controlled Nature Study (for when the weather is icky)

August is quite possibly my least favorite month. For those heat-lovers out there, I know that sounds crazy, but the heat and humidity really bug me. My second least favorite month is actually a combo of two months - it's the four week stretch that encompasses late February and early March (unless, of course, early March is unseasonably pretty).

So, we aren't outside as much as usual these days. When we are out on really icky days, we're at the pool or it's after dinnertime. You might think nature study had gone out with the rising temps, but we have a few tricks to get our nature study in an air-conditioned, climate controlled environment :) From this location, we are able to watch goldfinches gather nesting materials and seeds, songbirds bathe and drink, hummingbirds feed from our nectar sources and feeder, and butterflies flit to and fro... right in our comfy, cool house!

Our Nature Window!!!

This window looks out at our backyard from our family room. We've arranged the furniture so the window is accessible - even for our littlest guy. Yikes - very dark photo - sorry!



In subsequent posts, I hope to follow up on how exactly we have used this space outside our Nature Window. For now, I'll just include one more picture to get your mind thinking on how you might be able to use a similar space in your own yard. You can click on it to make it a little bigger :)

Now, off to the pool! :)

Using the Comstock Handbook of Nature Study

I have a favorite quote from The Handbook of Nature Study. It's on page 177 and is a quote from L.H. Bailey, the woman to whom the handbook is dedicated. It reads as follows:

"In the early years we are not to teach nature as science, we are not to teach it primarily for method or for drill: we are to teach it for loving - and this is nature study. On these points I make no compromise."

Nature study, then, is for the purpose of bringing our children to a love of nature. In our family it is also to bring them face to face with the realities God has revealed through His creation. It is for loving :) How precious!

I highly recommend the first section in Ms. Comstock's book - The Teaching of Nature Study. It is on pages 1-23 and, toward the end, she details how the book is intended to be used. The handbook is really more for you than for the children. It is a tool to educate the teacher so that she can wisely lead the investigations and observations of her children. I think this may be the part that gets many mothers intimidated about nature study. "You mean I have to learn everything beforehand?! There's no way!!!" It's been so encouraging for me to remember back even just four years ago to how little I knew about the natural world around me. I have so much more to learn, but I have come along gradually. We can all learn little by little :)

I hope to encourage you with two little stories from our week that might help illustrate how we carry nature study out in our family. The first shows just how easy nature study can be. We were playing outside at a local park and, eventually, walked over to a large field of grass covered in violets. The children got so excited picking them! I was sitting in the grass with the baby and they were bringing handful upon handful to me (there were plenty left, believe me!). Finally, I had the idea of taking some home to press them. We brought some home and pressed about 15-20 of the nicest ones. They are still pressing between two paper towels with several heavy books on them. While we were in the field, I had the older children (7 and almost 6) take the time to really look at each violet. Where do you think the pollen is kept? How do you think the bees get it? What does the flower look like to you? Having read the Comstock section on violets to myself one evening prior (not planned - just providence!) I could remember just a few things. I pointed out how the lines on the flowers led the way for the bees to find the pollen and I showed the children the leaves and asked them to describe them for me (they are heart-shaped). Then, we thought of the little poem about roses being red and violets being blue. I never thought they looked blue; they always looked purple to me. So, I had the children describe the colors they saw in the violets.

That's all! :)

Even if we hadn't pressed the violets, it was still a very good time of observation and description. My oldest daughter could have drawn a violet for her nature notebook at home, but, since we were pressing them, we decided to just wait and arrange the pressed violets into pretty shapes for cards instead. If we are not going to draw something, I spend extra time having the children verbally describe it and closely observe it. We do not come anywhere close to drawing all of our nature finds. That would be impossible! If I had not known the name of the violets, we would have still done the same observation and description "lesson", but then we would have spent some time at home with field guides, trying to identify the flowers. We basically did this with an unknown weed we found last week. It turned out to be Wintercress. We had a simple study with a cutting of it in our kitchen, and we've been seeing it everywhere since! Now the children "know" violets and wintercress :) Nine times out of ten our nature study is simplistic and unplanned. More than anything, plenty of time outside is the number one requirement. Once you get outside more with your children, the number of interesting things to observe far exceed the time you have to study them! From dandelions to clouds, you're never at a loss for something to study.

Now, for a more "serious" example. This has been one of our very coolest nature study endeavors :) We were out in the backyard on Monday when my five year old yelled out that she found a toad... a big toad. (Two years ago when we had toads I could barely bring myself to touch them, but practice makes perfect, lol). I carried it inside to the basement and brought up an empty 10 gallon tank. The only thing I knew about toads was that they like to burrow in the dirt, so I instructed the children to fill the aquarium about 4" deep with garden soil while I quickly Googled "toad aquarium" online. I read some useful instructions and we finished making our little toad home. We watched the toad, held the toad, and took a really, really good look at the toad. What do you notice about the toad's feet? What color are her eyes? Can you describe them? Basically, we were taking mental pictures of the toad and narrating her appearance and behavior. We washed our hands when we were done ;)

During the children's rest time, I read the Comstock section on toads to myself. I really knew nothing about them! Armed with new toady knowledge later that afternoon, I could lead the children through a few more observations, telling them a little here and there while encouraging them to make guesses all along. We plan on letting our toady go this afternoon (Wednesday), but first we'll draw her into our nature notebooks while the littlest ones nap. I draw along with the children; they seem far more interested this way. We'll take a few pictures and then let her go. They will, no doubt, remember some things about toads from this study. I suspect, though, the most educational aspects have been their deepened interest in toads and a desire to take care of them as stewards of God's creation. I knew nothing about toads three days ago!!! Thanks to observing and caring for Cleopatra (our toad) this week, now I know a ton! Well, comparatively anyway ;) The most it took from me was a 10 gallon aquarium, the guts to catch the toad in the first place, and one afternoon with The Handbook of Nature Study.

Again, I really recommend reading the front section of the Comstock book. It helps show how nature "study" should and can be very natural. We just need to get outside more! Little by little, truly, it's not overwhelming :)

It's Spring In My Kitchen (Forcing Bulbs)

Two years ago, my sister-in-law gave this shallow glass bowl filled with paperwhite bulbs to me as a Christmas gift. It was one of the best gifts I've ever received! :) Every gardener begins pining for something green and growing in the wintertime!


We have started our own bulbs in the same glass bowl and decorative pebbles each winter since, and have loved the little bit of early "spring". There is no soil - just rocks and water! The bulbs contain all they need to grow except for light, warmth, and water. We provide those :) Can you see the roots toward the bottom of the bowl? Isn't that fascinating? I tell the children that those are like little straws drawing water up into the thirsty plants.



This year, we had paperwhites that bloomed from just after Christmas until they faded a few days ago (the photo above is from when they were in bud). They were so lovely and cheerful, we decided to "plant" some other bulbs in their place. I have a little bag of Muscari (grape hyacinth) that I set aside last fall just for this purpose. I'm hoping to plant those with Punkin as a special one-on-one project tomorrow. Home improvement stores may still have their bulbs for sale, by the way. Hint, hint. It's worth giving them a call to find out :)


If you're interested in trying this with your children (it's really easy!), here's a great link with some more detailed instructions. It's nice to have a magnifying glass around, too, so the children can get a really good look :) What a fantastic indoor nature study lesson for those way-too-cold-outside days (or sick days). SweetP even drew the bulbs in her nature journal before we put them in the bowl, and she recorded their progress in a small journal as they grew. You can see how there could be several weeks of easy nature study in this simple project. And, as I mentioned before, they're so pretty :) Hope you get to try this!

Project FeederWatch

Have you heard of Project FeederWatch? It's a great way to do nature study on those cold, blustery days of winter. The Project for 2008 began on November 10th, but you can still sign up to take part in this large scale research program sponsored by Cornell University's Department of Ornithology. There is a registration fee of $15 for United States citizens (not sure about the fee for Canadians, but I know you can participate!). Sign-up is really fast and easy - you can pay with any credit card. The research schedule officially runs from November 10th, 2007 through April 4, 2008. We joined today, and should receive our data collection packet in a few weeks. What a useful time frame for Ambleside Online's second term, which for Year One focuses on - you guessed it - BIRDS!

Also, don't miss out on the special link for homeschooling resources :)

If you decide to sign up, I'd love to know about it :)

Happy Birding!

Peterson First Field Guides

Our main book for Nature Study has been the AO recommendation, The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock. I love the Comstock book, and have found it to be very valuable in taking nature study to the next level. It has plenty of detailed information on a wide variety of subjects - many of them pertinent to nature in our area.


Next to the Handbook of Nature Study, this series of Peterson First Field Guides has been my favorite nature study resource. Have you seen these handy little books? They are great for a number of reasons, not the least of which is their appropriateness for children of elementary age. My children love these books, and we have been able to use them to identify caterpillars, trees, and wild plants that are not covered in the Comstock book. I know more about nature than I did a short 5 years ago, but I still have far more to learn. For a mama like me, who can't necessarily spout off useful information from the top of her head on every twig, bug, and berry we come across, these little gems are a great find :)

Now, those of you who are already familiar with Charlotte Mason will know that the books are only part of the nature study lesson - and not the greater part. The education that comes from "things" is the primary sort of education in nature study. Children must actually be outdoors, and often, coming across the little wonders in nature on their own, personally dealing with the natural world through their senses. Books do have their place in nature study, but they are secondary to physical interaction with real things. This is especially true for the younger children.

If you'd like to hear a bit more of what Miss Mason might have to say regarding books like these and their relationship to nature study, I'd like to reference a section of Volume One. Regarding scientific classification and the use of naturalists' books, Miss Mason writes the following:

"For convenience in describing they should be able to name and distinguish petals, sepals, and so on; and they should be encouraged to make such rough classifications as they can with their slight knowledge of both animal and vegetable forms. Plants with heart-shaped or spoon-shaped leaves; leaves with criss-cross veins and leaves with straight veins; bell-shaped flowers and cross-shaped flowers; flowers with three petals, with four, with five; trees which keep their leaves all the year, and trees which lose them in the autumn; creatures with a backbone and creatures without; creatures that eat grass and creatures that eat flesh, and so on. To make collections of leaves and flowers, pressed and mounted, and arranged according to their form, affords much pleasure, and, what is better, valuable training in the noticing of differences and resemblances. Patterns for this sort of classification of leaves and flowers will be found in every little book of elementary botany.

The power to classify, discriminate, distinguish between things that differ, is amongst the highest faculties of the human intellect; and no opportunity to cultivate it should be let slip; but a classification got out of books, that the child does not make for himself and is not able to verify for himself, cultivates no power but that of verbal memory...

...The real use of naturalists' books at this stage is to give the child delightful glimpses into the world of wonders he lives in, to reveal the sort of things to be seen by curious eyes, and fill him with desire to make discoveries for himself. There are many to be had, all pleasant reading, many of them written by scientific men, and yet requiring little or no scientific knowledge for their enjoyment." -Home Education pgs. 63,64

Interestingly, these guides are the perfect size for stocking stuffers (hint, hint grandma and grandpa). At only $5.95 per book, they are very reasonably priced as well :) They are a great addition to help round out your nature study lessons and bolster the children's interest in the natural world all around them. Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Happy field guiding!!!

A Child Gets Knowledge By Means Of His Senses

"Watch a child standing at gaze at some sight new to him––a plough at work, for instance––and you will see he is as naturally occupied as is a babe at the breast; he is, in fact, taking in the intellectual food which the working faculty of his brain at this period requires. In his early years the child is all eyes; he observes, or, more truly, he perceives, calling sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing to his aid, that he may learn all that is discoverable by him about every new thing that comes under his notice. Everybody knows how a baby fumbles over with soft little fingers, and carries to his mouth, and bangs that it may produce what sound there is in it, the spoon or doll which supercilious grown-up people give him to 'keep him quiet.' The child is at his lessons, and is learning all about it at a rate utterly surprising to the physiologist, who considers how much is implied in the act of 'seeing,' for instance: that to the infant, as to the blind adult restored to sight, there is at first no difference between a flat picture and a solid body,––that the ideas of form and solidity are not obtained by sight at all, but are the judgments of experience.


"Then, think of the vague passes in the air the little fist makes before it lays hold of the object of desire, and you see how he learns the whereabouts of things, having as yet no idea of direction. And why does he cry for the moon? Why does he crave equally, a horse or a house-fly as an appropriate plaything? Because far and near, large and small, are ideas he has yet to grasp. The child has truly a great deal to do before he is in a condition to 'believe his own eyes'; but Nature teaches so gently, so gradually, so persistently, that he is never overdone, but goes on gathering little stores of knowledge about whatever comes before him.

"And this is the process the child should continue for the first few years of his life. Now is the storing time which should be spent in laying up images of things familiar. By-and-by he will have to conceive of things he has never seen: how can he do it except by comparison with things he has seen and knows? By-and-by he will be called upon to reflect, understand, reason; what material will he have, unless he has a magazine of facts to go upon? The child who has been made to observe how high in the heavens the sun is at noon on a summer's day, how low at noon on a day in mid-winter, is able to conceive of the great heat of the tropics under a vertical sun, and to understand the climate of a place depends greatly upon the mean height the sun reaches above the horizon."

The Weekly Nature Walk

I know. Four to six hours a day outside sounds absolutely NUTSO to some of my dear blogging pals. That's okay :) You know what, though? I'm not going to go on and on about multiple hours outside tonight. I'm going to talk about one little half hour. Thirty minutes that comes around just once a week. A weekly nature walk. Educational. Fun. Outside.

For a weekly nature walk, you don't need an old quilt or a half dozen bottles of water. You don't need a 90 acre park nor do you need a travel potty (well, usually not). You may need a little sunscreen or herbal bug spray before you leave, but all you really cannot do without is - a slow pace and nature eyes. "Nature eyes" simply means eyes that are ready to see anything - to really observe it - and to see it with great attention.

The goal is to walk slowly around your own neighborhood for 30 minutes one day a week.

Look up and down, listen carefully. You may want to let each child take a brown paper bag along to collect natural treasures they find along the way. If your children turn out to be voracious little naturalists, you may want to buy a small plastic bin lined with a paper towel or a cardbox for them to empty their bags into after you return home. If your child picks up an acorn, take a moment and gently help him really see the acorn. Examine it. If you pop the top off, what does it look like? What part do you think a squirrel eats? What tree did it fall from? One acorn can easily lead to ten full minutes of observation and play beneath the oak tree. We learned late this summer that each type of oak produces an acorn with a characteristic shape. A red oak acorn looks differently than a burr oak acorn, for instance. SweetP has made a little game of learning to identify them. Shug and Punkin just knock them around with sticks :)

The key is to go slowly and to really exercise the skills of attention and observation.

Stop and watch the little flock of sparrows. Why do they keep flying over to that tree? Can you tell what kind of tree it is? What do they have in their mouths? There are even clouds above to watch and talk about and dandelions that your neighbor would gladly let the children pick. That's the third monarch butterfly you've seen flying in that direction. Where are they going? In what direction are they headed?

Now, if you have energetic little ones (as I have) it may be a good idea to allow an extra ten or fifteen minutes at the beginning of the walk for an all-out run. This, of course, is excellent exercise. We can count it in our school day as Phys. Ed.! :) Once they have run a bit, they'll be a little more inclined to go slowly and pay more attention. It's not something to pressure them about, only lead them gently to look more closely and for just a little longer. After a few weeks of practice, they will begin developing more of an interest in their findings and attention will naturally increase.

The point is to enjoy God Almighty and His creation - to "consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air".

Even a short walk outdoors offers countless opportunities to marvel at the awesome (in the true sense of the word) creative imagination of our God. Maybe it would be well if we asked the Lord for eyes to truly see His creation when we go out with our children. It is all around us, but we know so little about it. It's so encouraging, though, that the more we learn the more we want to learn.

Isn't that what education is all about?

Blessings,

Jacci

Check out this website dedicated to helping parents get

their children outdoors in nature for one hour a day.




AND... did you know that this week is Take A Child Outside Week?

Visit this website to learn more :)





*I feel that I should warn you of something inevitable. There is almost no getting around it. If your children have any interest at all in nature, you will have to identify at least one of the findings you bring home. Sometimes I tell the children before we even set out on a walk, "We will not be able to identify all of these leaves this afternoon, but I will be certain to set aside time next week to find out their names". I've been building up a collection of nature fieldguides to help me with our naming projects, but the internet works too :) My neighbor is constantly looking up this leaf and that bug on the internet with her daughter. There is no lack of information out there :) Happy nature walking!

Rainy, Breezy, Lovely Day

Am I the only one who has really enjoyed the drizzly, chilly weather this week? I'd take this over 96 degrees any day! The girls and I got outside more in the last few days than we have in weeks simply because the heat magnified any ickiness I was feeling. This cold front is a welcome relief for me :) Not to mention, it makes me feel like fall is coming. I love the fall!!!

This morning, Hubby and I took the girls to a late breakfast at the Bagel Cafe. It was "late" because they slept in. Isn't that a wonderful gift from God on a Saturday morning? After the bagels, and despite the sprinkling drizzle, we went to the arboretum. Sam had wisely brought along the girls' jackets, so they were toasty - although still not completely dry. We went to see the caterpillars and butterflies in the Butterfly House. This is the last Saturday it's open. In fact, it closes altogether on Monday so we were glad to get out one last time for the year. If you haven't gone, it's worth the trip next summer. Especially in late July and early August when the weather really begins to get hot.

Two summers ago, when I was expecting Punkin, a Black Swallowtail landed on my big ole' belly and rested there for quite a while! It's a neat place, well operated. The most knowledgeable volunteers always seem to be there on the weekend, just a tip.The girls each got to hold a caterpillar and asked the volunteers lots of questions. Hubby and I even learned a thing or two :) For instance, when a monarch's "antennae" start to look shriveled, it means he's ready to shed his last skin and make a chrysalis. Isn't that amazing? The whole process is amazing. Nature has plenty to offer in evidence of a caring, powerful Creator. I love to see my girls enjoying the natural world our great God has made :)

It was a beautiful day.