Handbook of Nature Study Archives

Posted on August 8, 2008 by Barb — 6 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #25 Housefly

“The housefly is one of the most cosmopolitan members of the animal kingdom. It flourishes in every land, plumping itself down in front of us at table, whether we be eating rice in Hong Kong, dhura in Egypt, macaroni in Italy, pie in America, or tamales in Mexico. There it sits, impertinent and imperturbable, taking its toll, letting down its long elephant-trunk tongue, rasping and sucking up such of our meal as fits its needs.”Handbook of Nature Study, page 358

Flies are a nuisance and bother to most people but they do have a purpose. After reading this week’s Handbook of Nature Study pages, you will have a better understanding and appreciation for these particular insects. I was fascinated by the information that Anna Comstock shares about something that is literally right under our noses during our everyday life. It is like most things….what we don’t focus on, we can’t see clearly. Take some time this week to be on the look out for houseflies.

Here is a link to a YouTube video of a fly eating part of a sugar cube. Totally awesome photography.
Housefly Video
(You may want to preview this video, it is a really close-up look at a housefly, sort of creepy.)

Don’t miss this opportunity for nature study this week. If houseflies do not appeal to you or your children, just have some outdoor time together. See what you can find to be interested in together.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #25
Focus on Insects-Housefly

1. This week read about houseflies in the Handbook of Nature Study, pages 358-361. This reading is important this week since we rarely take the time to observe a housefly close-up. Highlight or underline interesting facts as you read so when you introduce the housefly this week to your children you will have a way to remember some interesting tidbits. I know some families like to read the sections together but it works just as well if you find a few points to share with your child after you do the reading yourself. The observation suggestions on pages 360-361 give us specific things to look for. Remember our focus right now is on insects so if you don’t find a fly to observe, you can always look for other insects to study.

2. Your 15-20 minutes of outdoor time this week can be spent looking for insects. We always end up with flies when we eat outdoors. I also have one window that always seems to have a fly buzzing around it. Keep your eyes open for a housefly to observe. Do not worry if you don’t see any this week. If you do your reading, you will be prepared when you next come across this insect.

3. Give the opportunity for a nature journal entry for the fly. If you need ideas for alternative nature journal activities, please see challenges 2 and 3. Keep it simple and let your child draw what interests them in their journal. Help with the writing if they need it.

4. If you observed some other kinds of insects during the week, give the option for making a nature journal for those too. Make sure to pull out the Handbook of Nature Study to see if the insect you found is listed and you can read more about it there. If you are keeping a running list of insects you have observed during this focus period, add the insect’s name to the list.

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Barb — 6 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #24 Crickets

Let’s take a look at crickets this week in our mini-focus on insects using the Handbook of Nature Study. Summertime is the perfect time to go outdoors in the cool evenings, listening and tracking these creatures close to home.

“The haunts of the cricket are usually sunny; it digs a little cave beneath a stone or clod in some field, where it can have the whole benefit of all the sunshine when it issues from its door.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 344

If at all possible, try to spend some of your outdoor hour time outside during the evening hours to see if you can hear some crickets chirping in the twilight and evening.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #24
Focus on Insects-Crickets

1. This week read about crickets in the Handbook of Nature Study, pages 344-349. Most of us have heard crickets in the evenings and children will be very interested to learn more about these insects that play music with their legs for us to enjoy.

2. Try to spend some of your outdoor time in the evening air. Our family likes to sit on our deck and watch as the stars come out after sunset. This is a perfect activity to couple with listening for crickets because it is just about at the same time that you will begin to hear crickets singing their evening songs.

3. After you have your outdoor time, provide an opportunity for working on a nature journal entry. Use the Handbook of Nature Study or a library book to find an illustration or photo of an actual cricket to draw in your journal. Have your child label the entry with a title, the date, and the place that you made your observation. Parents can always help the child with this part if needed. This is a good time to work on using descriptive words as described in Outdoor Hour Challenge #2. The more you use the proper names for subjects you see during your nature study, the sooner your children will learn and remember them for themselves.

4. If you observed some other kinds of insects during the week, give the option for making a nature journal for those too. Make sure to pull out the Handbook of Nature Study to see if the insect you found is listed and you can read more about it there. If you are keeping a running list of insects you have observed during this focus period, add the insect’s name to the list.

Post an entry on your blog sharing your experiences. You can link up by clicking the carnival button or you can send them directly to me: harmonyfinearts@yahoo.com.

You can find another cricket challenge by clicking the button below.

Amazon.com Widgets

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Barb — 10 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #23 Moths

This week we will continue our mini-focus on insects with a study of moths. The Handbook of Nature Study has several sections on moths that you can read whether you think you will find those particular kinds in your area or not. I found the information very easy to read and now I can apply the suggestions for observation with just about any kind of moth. We do have Isabella Tiger moths in our area so I will be especially on the lookout for those when we do our observations. We will be going camping soon so it will be a perfect time to watch the moths that come to the lantern.

“Not only are insects numerous when we regard individuals, but the number of species is far greater than that of all other animals taken together. The number of species in a single family is greater in several cases than the number of stars visible in a clear night.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 295

Outdoor Hour Challenge #23
Focus on Insects-Moths

1. In this challenge we will continue our mini-focus on insects. Turn to the table of contents in the Handbook of Nature Study and skim down the list of moths discussed in the book. Read those sections in the Handbook of Nature Study on moths, pages 310 to 329. I personally don’t know much about moths so I am going to read through all the sections and see what I can learn. Here is some general information.

Moths
Wings not attached
Nocturnal (active at night)
Wings flat when resting
Feathered antennae
Fat abdomen
Form a cocoon

Butterflies
Wings hooked together in flight
Diurnal (active in the day)
Wings upright when resting
Straight, plain antennae
Thin Abdomen
Form a chrysalis

2. This challenge will need to be completed in the evenings. Turn on a light outside or take a flashlight outside. Moths are attracted to light so you should have some success if you are patient. Make sure to look on walls and plants near the light for moths.

Try this website for further techniques in attracting moths.
Attracting Moths
http://www.mothscount.org/uploads/How_to_start%20_mothing.pdf

If you are unable to complete the challenge this week for moths, please feel free to take your outdoor time at a time that works for you family. Use your time to look for insects and to enjoy the summer air and sunshine.

3. After you have your outdoor time, provide an opportunity for working on a nature journal entry. This might be a good time to discuss the differences between butterflies and moths. If you didn’t see any moths, you can record in your nature journal any other kinds of insects that you found during your outdoor time.

4. If you observe more than one kind of moth this week, make sure to start a list of moths in your nature journal. I like to keep a running list in the back of my nature journal. If you observed some other kinds of insects during the week, record those too.

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Barb — 15 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #22 Butterflies

“If children are terrified of bugs, it’s usually because they caught the fear of adults around them.”
Charlotte Mason in Modern English, volume 1 page 58

Spending time outdoors at this time of the year usually brings us into contact with a butterfly or two. I know for our family we just about every day see some sort of butterfly in the garden. Little white ones, little bluish-gray ones, and big Tiger swallowtails frequent the many flowers and bushes we have blooming in our yard.

Let’s take this week to start looking for butterflies to learn about and talk about in our nature journals. If you have never learned about the life-cycle of a butterfly, check your local library for a good book on the topic. The Handbook of Nature Study describes the cycle with words but it is much more interesting to have a picture book that illustrates the most interesting of life-cycles.

Another way to study butterflies is to purchase a kit to hatch your own. This is the perfect way to observe each of the stages of life that the butterfly goes through.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #22
Focus on Insects-Butterflies

1. This challenge starts the beginning of our mini-focus on insects. Read in the Handbook of Nature Study the introduction to insects, pages 294-300. The Black Swallowtail and the Monarch Butterflies are specifically covered in the Handbook of Nature Study. You can read over those sections before your outdoor time in case you encounter those particular butterflies and to give you ideas for observing any sort of butterfly that you may have in your local area.

2. Use your 10-15 minutes of outdoor time to look for insects and in particular butterflies. Spotting butterflies might need to be done as you go about your daily activities and then taking the opportunity to do your observations at that time. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see a butterfly this week but look at this as an ongoing challenge as the summer progresses.

Here is a link to an article on how to attract and catch/release butterflies.
How to Catch Butterflies

3. After you have your outdoor time, provide an opportunity for working on a nature journal entry. You might consider drawing a butterfly and labeling its parts as a way of narration of the points you have discussed this week. If you found a different kind of insect, you can make a nature journal entry for that one as well.

4. If you observe more than one kind of butterfly this week, make sure to start a list of butterflies in your nature journal. I like to keep a running list in the back of my nature journal. Keep adding to your list of other insects as well.

For more insect nature study ideas: Insects on the Handbook of Nature Study

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Posted on July 1, 2008 by Barb — 11 Comments

Grasshopper on the Daylily (Katydid)

As I was watering the garden this afternoon I noticed this big guy on the daylily. He was rubbing himself in the pollen and thoroughly enjoying himself. He didn’t seem to mind that I was watching him and taking a few photos. Amazing….simply amazing.

Look at those really long antennae.

What a great discovery this hot summer afternoon. The flower is just gorgeous too…..if you didn’t notice. 🙂

“When any creature has unusually strong hind legs, we many be sure it is a jumper, and the grasshopper shows this peculiarity at first glance.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 339

There is a section on grasshoppers starting on page 338 of the Handbook of Nature Study.

Edit to Note: Makita helped me realize that this particular insect is actually a Chaparral katydid. So now here is my question: Is a katydid a kind of grasshopper? In my field guide it says, Chaparral Katydid, Platylyra californica, grasshopper order. Are grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets all related or am I reading my field guide and misunderstanding? Insect identification is my least favorite thing to do in nature study.

Posted on June 20, 2008 by Barb — 2 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #19 Seeds and Germination

“Leigh Hunt said to imagine what if we had never seen flowers, and they were sent to us as a reward for our goodness. Imagine how carefully we’d watch the growth of the stem and every unfolding of each leaf in wonder. And then imagine our astonishment when a bud appeared, and began to unfold in all its delicate, colorful beauty. Well, we have been seeing flowers for years-but our children haven’t.”
Charlotte Mason volume 1, page 53

Before we finish up our eight week study of garden flowers, I wanted to do a little experiment that every child should do at least once their lifetime. Germinating seeds and watching the progress is something that will fascinate some children, not all but some. I encourage you to give it a try along with finishing up your garden flower journal entries with your lists of flowers observed, drawings of some garden flowers, and emptying out your flower press and putting them into your journal.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #19
Seed Germination

1. This week take a few minutes to go over the mechanics of seed germination. On pages 458-459 of the Handbook of Nature Study you will find a short explanation of how a seed really just holds a little plant struggling to get out.

Try this activity in addition to your Outdoor Hour time this week:
The Germinator
http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/germinator.html

2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time in your garden, yard, or a near-by park. Look to see if you can find any seeds. Remember that cones and acorns are seeds and that beans are actually seed pods. You can also look in any fruits that you eat this week for seeds like an apple, orange, grapes, or strawberries. Nuts are actually seeds too so if you eat almonds or walnuts or anything similar you can talk about seeds.

3. Add any new garden flowers to your list in your nature journal.

4. You can encourage your child to sketch some seeds in their nature journals. Or they can draw the progress of their seed germination experiment for their journals if they wish. Record your flower seeds’ growth (from challenge 12) and/or record your sunflower’s growth (challenge #16) for the week.

This challenge is part of my Garden Flowers ebook. This ebook has ten garden related challenges that will walk you through a study of garden flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study. In addition to the challenges already written, there will be more photos, nature journal examples, book lists, and totally new notebook pages designed to go with each of the Garden Flower Challenges.

Posted on June 8, 2008 by Barb — 4 Comments

Why Use the Handbook of Nature Study?

“A mother should read these kinds of books to herself, not just to collect little bits of knowledge to pass on to her children as they come across things she’s read about, but so that she can learn enough to answer their questions and help the children with their observations….Children will love a person who knows the things they want to find out about and such a person may influence a young mind to have a passion for nature that will be retained for life…”
Charlotte Mason, Volume 1 page 64

That is a clear reason that the Handbook of Nature Study should have a solid standing in our science and nature study materials. This book makes it so easy to look up something we observed outdoors and flip to those pages and read a little to ourselves. I know some families enjoy reading the selection together but it is not necessary. The meat of each section is the section for observations. I love to read through those questions and learn how I can better guide my child to their own understanding of the subject.

Our goal:

“And this is exactly what a child should be doing for the first few years. He should be getting familiar with the real things in his own environment.”
Charlotte Mason, Volume 1 page 66

If you need help getting started with the Handbook of Nature Study, please join us for the Outdoor Hour Challenges posted every Friday. Or if you want an example of how our family uses this book, read through our responses to each of the challenges and you will see how easy it is to use once you get the correct idea about what it is for.

So even though you might look at the copyright date of this book and wonder how it could still be relevant today, you have your answer: It helps you to your goal. Your goal of helping your child become more acquainted with nature close to their own home.

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Barb — 13 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #13 Flower Parts

“The points to be borne in mind are that children like to call things by their names because they are real names, and they also like to use “grownup” names for things; but they do not like to commit to memory names which to them are meaningless.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 456

This challenge will continue our eight week group focus on garden flowers. Please feel free to continue with your own focus if you are in the middle of something your family is enjoying. You can save the garden flower challenges for a future time if you wish.

Our family has found renewed interest in gardening this past week. We continued working on a new section in our butterfly garden and we also planted some new and interesting things in our vegetable garden. Each week I think I know what we will learn or discover with each challenge but then something new comes up and I am pleasantly surprised. There is always something new to learn about.

This week’s challenge seems simple enough and even though we already know the names of the flower parts, I am going to challenge my boys to actually use the correct labels as we spend our time in the garden.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #13
Practicing the Flower Parts

1. Continue with the eight week long focus on garden flowers. Read page 456 in the Handbook of Nature Study-How to Teach the Names of the Parts of a Flower and of the Plant.

“All the names should be taught gradually by constant unemphasized use on the part of the teacher; and if the child does not learn the names naturally then do not make him do it unnaturally.” Handbook of Nature Study, page 456

Here is a link to a diagram that you can print out showing the proper names for the flower parts. This is for you as the parent/nature guide to use to educate yourself on the flower part names. If you start to incorporate these proper labels as you observe your garden flowers, the words will gradually become part of your child’s vocabulary.

2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to look for some garden flowers in your own yard or neighborhood. If you already have some of your own garden flowers blooming, pick one to identify and see if it is listed in the Handbook of Nature Study. Observe your seeds that you planted last week if you did that part of the challenge. Start to use the correct labels for the plant parts that you learned about in step one. If you learn one flower part and use it each week of the focus period, you will know most of the flower parts by the end of that time.

3. Give an opportunity for a nature journal entry. An excellent part of the entry could be the progress that your seeds are making as they start to push out of the soil. Be sure to keep watering your new seedlings as the week goes by. Careful observation with a magnifying lens will open up many interesting things to draw in the journal. If you did not plant seeds or they are not sprouting yet, work on drawing another garden flower in your nature journal.

4. Add to your list of garden flowers that you have planted in your garden or that you have seen during your outdoor time. Check the table of contents for any flower you may be able to read about after you Outdoor Hour time.

5. If you are going to make field guide cards for your garden flowers, add another card this week. If you make one card per week, by the end of this focus period you will have eight cards completed.

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Barb — 1 Comment

Handbook of Nature Study: Benefits of Giving it a Try

Handbook of Nature Study
Benefits of Giving it a Try

The last ten weeks have brought me to a new understanding of the Handbook of Nature Study. Pulling together and organizing the Outdoor Hour Challenges every Friday on my blog has pushed me to really get to know how to use and benefit from this rather large book.

Here are the some benefits so far:
1. I have read the introductory pages of the book about ten times, highlighted and underlined the parts that spoke to me, and found many gems to share with others. These pages teach *me* to help my children better with their nature study.
2. Our family picked a focus area in the book and used that focus area to learn more about garden flowers. There were about ten flowers listed in the book that we have access to and we have used the observation suggestions from the book to help us better know about the flowers we have in our local area. Even when a flower isn’t specifically covered, the garden flower introductory pages helped us learn the basic structure of the flower and so much more.
3. I know now that I won’t find every item we want to study in the book and have gathered a few local field guides to supplement our study.
4. We are regularly working in our nature journals and keeping up with making field guide cards for our focus area.
5. I am no longer trying to fit our nature study to the book but rather the book to our nature study.

Are there things I don’t like about the book? Yes. Do I think that this is the only book we need for nature study? No. Is this book a positive influence on our family? YES!

If you decide to try the book, go through the first few Outdoor Hour Challenges and read the suggested pages to get you started. You don’t need to follow the activities but just reading the assigned pages in the book will give you a better idea of how you can use this book in your family.

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Barb — 7 Comments

Outdoor Hour Challenge #9 One Small Square

“Children should be encouraged to quietly and patiently watch the bee, spider, ant, caterpillar or other wildlife that crosses their path. If this seems dull to them, they just need to watch more closely, because their alert eyes can catch the smallest ways of insects in ways that grown-ups can’t without magnifiers.” Charlotte Mason, volume 1, Outdoor Life, page 57

Outdoor Hour Challenge #9
One Small Square
1. Let’s give ourselves a challenge.
Gather yarn, scissors, ruler, and four rocks. (optional: small garden trowel and magnifying lens)

Measure off one square somewhere out in your yard or near-by park. (I prefer to do this somewhere I can dig up a few inches of soil and not get into trouble.) Use your ruler to place rocks in a one foot square plot. Use the yarn to mark off the edges of your square. If you are completing this challenge with younger children, you might consider making a two foot square plot to investigate to make it easier. Each child could have their own square if you wish.

Now the challenge comes in. See how many different things you can find in your square. If there are leaves, lift them up and see what is underneath. If there are rocks or gravel, scrape them aside and see what is underneath. If there is grass or weeds and you have permission, use your trowel to dig up a few inches under the grass, moving it carefully to the side to replace when you are done observing. Use your hand lens if you have one along with you on your challenge.

2. Add any new items to your focus list that you are keeping in your nature journal. Add any items to your collection that you found during this week’s challenge time. Give an opportunity for a nature journal entry. If you used your hand lens during this week’s challenge, encourage your child to draw something they saw that you would not normally see like a small insect, worm, or seed.

This challenge is found in the Getting Started ebook which is included in every level of membership. The ebook provides the challenge as shown above as well as custom notebook pages for your follow up nature journal if desired.

Category: Handbook of Nature Study