Meaningful Minutes: Nature Study

Did you know that nature study was THE elementary science curriculum at the turn of the century? Of course, science has progressed significantly in the past 100 years - but not enough that we should leave this behind.  Nature study helps children enter into the wonder of the world around them.  There are MANY surprising and fun things in nature. Instead of diving straight into manipulating it - why not enjoy it as it comes?  It also encouraged observation and often was tied with drawing and beginning painting.

You can make nature study an "event" - loading everyone in the car with sketch books and pencils and watercolors and guide books.  However, it can just be walking around the block and checking out the birds, squirrels, trees and flowers (the bluebonnets have started popping up around here).  If you take the same walk throughout the year you can help your kids notice the changes (trees, animal habits, etc.)   Just realize that walking with a 2 yo you may not get far - they stop to look at LOTS of things.  Enjoy their pace.  Often it can be helpful to take a picture if you want to identify something later or draw it at home.  I live in an urban area and I think there are at least 6 or 7 different types of trees on my block. 

Calendar of Firsts -  You can either get, make or just record on your current calendar the first time you see or hear something.  We should add our bluebonnets starting up early this year.  If you keep it for a few years you can begin to see patterns and look forward to signs of spring (and fall).  

Nature Journals - If you are so inclined you can combine nature study and drawing/art.  There are lots of resources out there for keeping a nature journal - here are a few:  

Keeping a Nature Journal

Laws Guide to Nature Journaling   (you can listen to him talk about nature here and here and his series of drawing you tube videos) 

Jim Arnosky has a foundational book Drawing from Nature and a series that guides you through the seasons as well.  

If you are looking for more guidance check out the Handbook of Nature Study with the Outdoor Hour Challenge.  

If you want to focus more on birding check out this website (with a whole section on songs).   

If you really want to dive in you can flip through Nature Study: A Manual for Teachers and Students. Intended for elementary teachers - it covers the reasoning behind the study, ways to do it and an 8 year course in nature study (year by year and season by season)!  

There are also many ideas for nature scavenger hunts, playing nature bingo, etc.  I prefer to just enjoy but sometimes a game can spark kids interests. 

Many poets have been inspired by nature.  There are whole volumes that focus on nature themes.  

Poetry of the Seasons 

Poetry of the Year 

World's Best Poetry: Poems of Nature

Of course you can always get field guides to help you identify what you find.  Peterson's and Audobon's tend to be good and can often be found at thrift stores.  Just make sure you check the region they are from so that the flora and fauna included match up with what you might see in your area.  

This is an area I REALLY need to grow in.  That's one reason I am linking all of these things so that I can come back and find them.  I hope that you delight in the arrival of spring with your family this year. 

Wednesday with Words: Lewis, nature and the imagination

Check out what others are reading at the link up at Ordo Amoris.  

This week I started a compilation of essays called The Riddle of Joy.  The essays are from a conference that focused on the lives and works of G. K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis.   I just read my first Chesterton work, Orthodoxy (I had the free kindle edition), earlier this summer and really enjoyed it. I have only read essays by C.S. Lewis (and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when I was in 3rd grade). I have checked The Abolition of Man out from the library though.   The essay called "Some Personal Angles on Chesterton and Lewis" by Christopher Derrick, is his reflections about both men, you see, he knew both of them, in fact, he was a student of Lewis's.  This is one comparison he makes about them. 

Both were prolific and best selling writers, in prose and in verse, equally at home in dialectic and in fantasy; each combined a powerful rationalism of the intellect with an equally powerful creative imagination, a visual imagination in particular.  In Lewis, this seems to have been related to his lifelong passion for countryside and walking, and it operated realistically, even when he had invented the landscapes in question.  (bold mine)

From there the essayist discusses the sense of place in Lewis's science fiction trilogy and the Great Divorce.  He then asserts that Chesterton's imagination of place comes from a different source because "it's entirely absurd to imagine him striding off across the hills and fields and valleys, after the style of Lewis and his friends or of Belloc."

Wait, Lewis didn't become a great writer by cranking out descriptions of his bedroom and the street where he lives?  My introduction to descriptive writing was in preparation for the 4th grade state test. We described all kinds of mundane things and learned how to point the reader around the scene and other such techniques.  My teacher literally let out a yelp of excitement when she saw that our essay topic was a description - we all knew how to do that well.  Maybe my view of descriptive writing would have been better informed by Charlotte Mason's methods.

Today my oldest turns 7 and I have been thinking about CM's list of attainments for a child of age 6. She includes "to be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views."  Honestly, I couldn't think of one view that I could describe; were you supposed to know a place that well?  In her first book, Ms. Mason directs parents in helping children to observe when they are outside.  She wants them to take mental pictures and focus on learning to see.

The same set of skills are called upon in Mason's approach to picture study.  Here, students take time to study a piece of artwork and then describe it in their own words.  Again, this teaches description, but as a way of appreciation and learning the piece of artwork.  It is not just another "writing format" to be learned.

Although I have not been diligent in asking my children to describe views on our walks (the last walk ended with my middle child presenting a full body rash that lasted two days), this quote provides me with great encouragement.  So, although CM does not provide a check box that says "teach descriptive writing" her method apparently worked in forming Lewis's imagination.  That is enough of an endorsement for me.