“The teacher of nature study, like the teacher of any subject, will deny himself much if he does not go to the literature of the subject for help in his work. But there is an especial danger in such help on this subject. So soon as one takes to the book instead of to nature for questions that nature could easily answer, he loses the spirit of the work. One must be careful, therefore, to ask many questions of things themselves under the open sky, and to read with patience in nature’s book.” The Study of Nature by Samuel C. Schmucker 1908
Using the Handbook of Nature Study monthly grid study activities helps us to “read with patience in nature’s book”.
Almost every single task gets us outside with a little bit of focus but yet it is open ended. All ages can participate.
We never feel inclined to complete the whole grid at once but we read the tasks ahead of time just in case while we are going about our regular daily business we see something that relates to the grid study.
I also love that it makes a quick and easy start to a nature journal page where we can record some of our observations.
I printed our Insect Study Grids out in black and white, adding watercolor to jazz it up a bit.
So have you been able to use the grid to help your study of insects this month? I encourage you to give it a try and enjoy this relaxed form of nature study.
Here are some additional clarifications about the Outdoor Hour Challenge, the blog carnival, and the newsletter.
Outdoor Hour Challenge:
You can complete your nature study on any day of the week.
Even though we call it the Outdoor Hour Challenge, it does not need to be a complete hour of nature study. I actually encourage shorter, more frequent sessions during your week.
There are suggested notebook pages with each challenge but you can just as easily use a blank nature journal and create your own record of your Outdoor Hour Challenge. The notebook pages are not required.
Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival:
This is a monthly carnival for participants of the Outdoor Hour Challenge and not a general nature study blog carnival.
Suggested topics are in the monthly newsletter but you are welcome to submit any blog entry showing how you completed any of the Outdoor Hour Challenges from the very first one to the current one.
You may also submit blog entries showing how you using the Outdoor Hour Challenge newsletter activities like the study grid, nature journal suggestions, and other printables.
Blog entries written in the current month are eligible. (No posts from your archives are eligible.)
Monthly Study Grid from the Newsletter:
There are four topics suggested in the monthly newsletter study grid. Generally they will be offered each Friday during the month in this order: Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right. For those of you who plan on sticking with the order offered on the blog that should help you out.
You are welcome to complete the topics in any order that makes sense to your family. As explained in the instructions, you can come back and complete a challenge as the opportunity arises even months later and then submit the entry to the blog carnival at that time.
In months where there are five Fridays, I will consider the last Friday as a “catch up” day and there will be no new ideas presented. You can choose to do any challenge that fits your area and interest.
Remember we are starting with a fresh outlook on nature study with this new format for the Outdoor Hour Challenge. I know many of you are determined to make nature study a regular part of your homeschool week or month and that is so very encouraging to me personally. Don’t be discouraged if your first attempts as getting outdoors are not picture perfect. Just getting the kids outside is the first step. Hopefully over time, as you gain confidence, it will get easier. Email me with any comments or questions and I will try to help as much as I can with encouragement and advice.
Have a great week looking for insects! We have already had trouble finding some ant subjects but we did have encountered some lacewings, moths, and butterflies. I think we will start some notebook pages with those insects and then keep our eyes out for some ants to observe.
A few weeks ago I asked for readers to comment and let me know what keeps them from starting nature study or what happens to make them stop once they get going.
Sally made a comment that resonated with many of you. She shared that she has a hard time focusing, was easily distracted by really good ideas, and felt that she needed to cover academic subjects first while she had the children’s attention. You can read all the comments here: Getting Started With the Outdoor Hour Challenge.
After some thought about Sally’s comment and her struggles, here are my best suggestions that come from both my experience and from those I have seen over the years who have successfully kept nature study a consistent part of their homeschool life.
Set aside fifteen minutes a week to get outside with your children. Have no other agenda other than to spend time outside concentrating on finding something of interest.
At first your own yard may seem boring, but I guarantee if you really focus on finding something, you will find it. If you feel you need a task to accomplish, pick one of the first three Outdoor Hour Challenges.
Don’t feel you have to spend big blocks of time outdoors…everyone can spare fifteen minutes.
#1 Let’s Get Started (Observations) – Make sure to do the reading in the Handbook of Nature Study before you go outside (Honestly, it is eight short pages with pictures so it won’t take you that long.) This challenge suggests that you let your children find two things they want to know more about…..it can be anything. Nothing says you have to know anything about those two objects but that is what you spend the next week talking about and looking up.You don’t need to follow-up with a nature journal entry…the power of just getting outside for a few minutes will become the motivating factor for wanting to do this more often. Concentrate on making nature study a consistent part of your week and opening your eyes to what you have in your own backyard. It takes a few weeks to establish this habit but it is worth the effort. You may like to read this entry: Finding the Ordinary to Be Extraordinary. Take nature study one day at a time and one object at a time.
#2 Using Your Words – If you are Charlotte Mason homeschooler, this challenge encourages nothing more than simple narration. You are still allowing your child to explore for just a few minutes with you outside and then to share that experience with words. It is a simple task but very powerful. Once you get on a roll and you are spending some time finding something interesting and adding in some discussion, then you are going to see that this is the foundation of every single other nature study session you can ever have. Don’t make it complicated.
#3 Now is The Time To Draw – This is where I think a lot of families start to have trouble. I highly recommend that you read the two pages suggested in the Handbook of Nature Study. Nature journals can take many forms and you can spend lots of time bogged down with making the decision between a journal or a binder, watercolors or markers. We have tried every which way in our family and it doesn’t matter in the end. What matters is that you offer the time and the supplies to record the experience and then over time your child will find a method that works for them. Just get started! Put away the fancy artsy nature journal books for now and just let your children record a simple sketch, the date, and a caption. There will be time in the future to add in some more decorative entries once you have established the habit. Plenty of time…..keep it simple for now. If all you ever did was to repeat those three challenges each month, you will have given your children a gift by allowing the time and motivation to be outside. It does not need to be complicated. You do not need fancy equipment, lots of nature journal supplies, a library of field guides, or a background in biology.
What Do Your Children Really Need From You?
Your children need you to encourage them to be outside on a consistent basis, learning to explore and to observe closely what they have in their own world. They need to see your enthusiasm. They will need your help to learn more about things that interest them by taking them to the library to check out books or to find the answers from the Handbook of Nature Study or on the internet and then share with them the next time you are outside. They need you to regularly allow time to just be outside during all the seasons….we can all bear fifteen minutes a week even under even the most uncomfortable circumstances.
Read pages 2 and 3 and then realize that many families need to stick to the Observation column for a very long time. The Reasoning section will happen as you gain confidence and your children begin to make connections. The more time you spend in observations, the more you will have to build on as your children grow and mature.
This download will also help you if you have multiple ages in your family. The younger ones will stick to the Observation column and more mature students will move on to the Reasoning and then eventually Expression columns. There is no hurry.
Hopefully there is something here in this post that will help get you going if you have become stuck. I promise to keep the new Friday challenges simple and to give you the guidance you need to give the Outdoor Hour Challenge a try and to keep at it through the next year. We can all encourage each other with comments and examples.
If you ever get frustrated and need me to give you a pep talk, please let me know.
I have a few more entries in response to the comments left in the blog entry from two weeks ago.
This is a long entry but if you have any inkling that you will be joining us for the
Outdoor Hour Challenge this year,
please take a few minutes to read about how the whole thing is going to work.
I know there are a lot of readers of this blog that read my entries and then feel like they can’t do nature study for one reason or another. I know there are families that start off great and then loose steam. I know there are moms who just are not “nature” oriented and don’t enjoy the more difficult side of nature study like the hot/cold weather, bugs, dirt, and fear that their children are going to ask them questions they don’t know the answers to.
I would like to encourage all of you to just do what you can and try to accomplish a little outdoor time each week with your children. The purpose of this blog is to encourage you with some suggested ideas, help you learn how to use the Handbook of Nature Study, and to share with you some inspiration from other families around the world who have a desire just like you do to offer the important gift of outdoor time with your children.
To help you with your family nature study, I am starting a new chapter in the Handbook of Nature Study blog adventure. We will be using the monthly newsletters, posts from the archives, and general nature study challenges to encourage everyone from beginner to veteran to try some weekly or monthly nature study. I have lots and lots of fun ideas and free printables just waiting to share with you each Friday. The newsletter will outline the main topic for the month and give you suggested challenge ideas to apply in your family (more on that in next Monday’s post).
As another new feature of the Outdoor Hour Challenge posts each Friday, I will be outlining a suggestion for using the Outdoor Hour Challenge Getting Started Ebook. I know many of you own this ebook already and perhaps started off using it in the beginning of your nature study journey but I am now going to show you how to use the resources in that book to enhance the current challenges. I will refer to specific challenges and notebook pages that you can use each week, making the Getting Started Ebook an integral part of your current nature study activities. You have it on your shelf…why not use it to your advantage?
If ever there were a time to join in with the Outdoor Hour Challenge, this would be it.
It is clean slate time and we will all be starting fresh.
Discount Promo Has Ended: For the first time ever, I am offering the Outdoor Hour Challenge Getting Started Ebook at a special discounted promotional price for one week only. If you do not own this book already, now is the time to get a copy to use with our weekly challenges and then to continue using as you work your way from season to season.
Special Discounted Price – $6.95. Promo Has Ended
I will be referring to other challenges from the seasonal ebooks but the Getting Started ebook is going to take a special spot in every weekly challenge plan.
Click over to the Getting Started Page and you can take advantage of this special offer from now until the end of the month (midnight 8/31/12).
Make sure to read the post on Monday, August 27, 2012.
I will be giving you step by step instructions for the new and improved Outdoor Hour Challenge.
What You Can Do To Help Me
Now, tell me in a comment if you have a particular reason you have not started with nature study or you started off great and then let it drop. I will attempt in future posts to address your reasons and your particular situations. Plus I just like to hear your comments and get to know you all better. I loved hearing your thoughts when I did my blog survey a few months ago. You can leave an anonymous comment on this blog if you are too shy to use your name. 🙂
This may very well be the last time I host the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival here on the Handbook of Nature Study as an active homeschooler. This is my son’s final part of his senior year in high school and he will soon be on to bigger and better things.
I won’t think about that right now because it does make me a little sad. Let’s talk about things related to Charlotte Mason and her ideas for making our homeschools an environment for learning. “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”
The official theme for this edition of the carnival is the science of relations. There are a few entries that will help define and encourage you in your endeavor to understand the “science of relations”.
The Science of Relations
My entry from my Harmony Art Mom blog is entitled: Charlotte Mason Knew the Secret to Learning Relationships. In this entry I show how we have applied this idea to our homeschooling in high school. I hope it helps define this idea for you if it is new to your family. I also wanted to share my Oregon Rocks entry with the carnival this time.
Nebby writes about the Science of Relations on her blog, Letters from Nebby. She mentions that it is the spark of interest that takes hold of our children that makes the difference. Nicely done Nebby.
Other Charlotte Mason Topics
Nadene from Practical Pages has submitted a wonderful entry on Word Banks. Would you like to see how she helps a reluctant writer by using key words and keeping it simple? See a step by step demonstration showing how to get young writers to the next level.
Nadene also shares how her middle schooler is learning to write notes from her reading: Highlight Main Ideas. I love seeing how she steps her daughters through this sometimes difficult process. Excellent help to homeschoolers!
More narration help is in store in Carol’s entry to this edition to the carnival: Narration/Composition. This post is loaded with visual examples from the various stages of written narration. This post will help a lot of people with some fresh ideas for narration
The Ultimate Guide to Living Books Based Curriculum! Jimmie has put together an entry full of resources and ideas for Charlotte Mason families striving to use living books. Don’t get carried away following all those links. 🙂
Lindafay from Higher Up and Further In has submitted the second installment in her nature journal series: The Second Stage of Nature Journaling. This is a topic near to the hearts of the Handbook of Nature Study blog so dig in and find some points to apply in your nature journals.
Cultivating Curiosity with Nature Study: This post made my week…love the way the Hodgepodge family makes nature study a natural and simple extension to their life. Watch out for squishy mud toes!
Silvia from Homeschooling in a Bilingual Home My Ugly Neighborhood or Nature Study 101. She shares some realistic short and long term goals and some steps to making nature study a rewarding experience in even the “ugliest” of neighborhoods.
Leah from Home Grown Babies is Clinging Onto Summer. I think a lot of us are feeling the same way and are trying to squeeze in a few more summer activities before the season changes.
Tricia from HodgePodge has submitted a fun chalk pastel tutorial for this edition of the carnival: Madeline Chalk Pastel Fun. I love how it ties their art and literature together!
Laura from Windy Hill Home School writes about her Plans for AO Year 2 for carnival readers. What a helpful post for those families that are going to be following along with this year too!
Jessica shares their Homeschool Plan 2012/2013 for carnival readers.They are putting an emphasis on living books right from the start. She also shares some free printables.
Nancy from the Sage Parnassus shares Gratitude is a Scattered Homeless Love. She recounts a little of the latest from the Living Education Retreat. What a beautiful setting!
A Few Additional Charlotte Mason Links I Think You Will Like
My daughter and I have partnered to create a new edition of her Hearts and Trees Art, Nature, and Handicraft kits. The theme of the current kit is Bubbles and Lavender which was fun to work with!
With Hearts and Trees Kits you receive simple to use instructions and supplies to complete a variety of projects and activities. In this Bubbles and Lavender kit, I was able to pull together a complete nature study unit on lavender with follow up activities, including a sample of lavender from my own garden and a set of custom nature journal pages to supplement the study. Because lavender is not in the Handbook of Nature Study, I wrote up an informational page in the style of the Outdoor Hour Challenge and it is included in the kit for you to use as a reference.
After your lavender study, one of the sewing projects is to make a lavender sachet using the sample lavender included in the kit. There is another sewing project in the kit where your children can design and create a felt bracelet.
The other handicraft activities include making a bubble wand and a foam pendant.
For the artist study, we chose a bubble themed painting and a 4″ by 6″ print is included with the kit for your family to view and enjoy. There are follow-up notebooking pages for the artist and painting which use a link to download a pdf with additional prints or to view them on your computer. There is even watercolor paper included to make your very own bubble painting! We also included instructions and a notebook page on learning to write in bubble letters which is a fun skill for everyone.
For a complete list of the contents and supplies included in the Bubbles and Lavender Kit from Hearts and Trees, please click over to the entry on my daughter’s blog. You will find complete details for purchasing this edition.
These kits are not just for homeschoolers and there are many families that use them afterschool and on the weekends.
The kits are designed for children ages 6 and up and there will be some activities that require adult supervision.
Hearts and Trees kits include small parts so be careful when using them around younger siblings.
We have an ample supply of kits on hand but they go fast and then they will be gone.
We expect to release the next kit in October and we are working on the idea of featuring trains, prairie animals, and pioneer themed handicrafts.
As a promotion of our new Hearts and Trees Bubbles and Lavender Kit, we would love to give one away to a reader of the Handbook of Nature Study. Leave a comment for one chance to win and then if you share by blogging, tweeting, or sharing on Facebook, leave me another comment with the link to where you shared and you can earn a second entry. If you want to purchase the kit and then you win the giveaway, we will refund your money so don’t wait if you are going to want this kit. See the Rafflecopter gadget for details and deadlines.
All those years ago when our family started implementing the idea to go outside for just fifteen minutes at a time, we could never have imagined all the things we would find to learn about and enjoy as we spent just a little time each day together in our own backyard.
By month and season, Rebecca Cohen gives the reader a comprehensive list of things to actually do outdoors during those fifteen minutes outside, providing suggestions to make it more enjoyable.
“Going outside with my family every day has changed my life. Instead of frantically running from task to task, I have learned to use the spaces in my schedule to look around, breathe deeply, and live in the moment.”
Rebecca Cohen – 15 Minutes Outside
These monthly lists form the heart of this book and will inspire families for many years…no more wondering what to do outside or how to entice your children into stepping outdoors with you. You can keep this book handy and reference it on those days where you just don’t feel like going outside but know that once you do you will be refreshed.
As a family, we are naturally happier when we are outside, learning and active together. It doesn’t feel like a chore.”
Rebecca Cohen – 15 Minutes Outside
Don’t miss the opportunity to give these ideas a try. Currently the price of this book on Amazon.com is $10.19…..what a bargain. She has a free download list of “50 Outdoor Activities for Busy Families” that you can use to get you started.
My copy of this book has found a spot on my nature shelf and its pages are marked and highlighted with things I want to try with my boys. Although the book is aimed at younger children, I found quite a few ideas to explore with my teens.
Rebecca aimed to keep the activities in this book simple, little or no cost, and to be enjoyed every day of the year. I think she hit the mark and this book will help nature loving families to enrich their time outdoors without much extra effort. Thanks Rebecca!
Along with the book, she has a wonderful product that I know you are going to love! She has created Curiosity Cards for you to use as starting points for conversations that can take place anywhere. These laminated cards on a ring can be stowed easily in a purse, backpack, or hooked to a stroller. I recently took these on a day trip with my family and we made use of the cards as a way to stimulate meaningful conversations about thoughts, emotions, dreams for the future, and just plain getting to know each other better.
What would you like do more of every day?
Find two things that feel different from each other.
Look for animal tracks or signs of animals.
What game could we make up right now?
These Curiosity Cards are a gem and I give them a big thumbs up for my fellow nature loving families. You will use these for a long time in your family.
Don’t miss Rebecca’s website: Rebecca Plants.Here you will find lots of encouragement for getting outdoors with your family, including a whole series of videos to watch.
Rebecca has generously offered to supply a copy of the 15 Minutes Outside book to one of my readers. Use the Rafflecopter gadget to enter a random drawing for one copy of this exciting book. Hurry and enter the giveaway before midnight 7/27/12 and I will announce the winner over the weekend.
“Children are quick. In fifteen minutes, they will have finished with their sight-seeing exercise or imaginary picture painting. Other than that, an occasional discovery that the mother shows them with a name and maybe a dozen words about it at just the right time are all that’s needed; the children will have formed an interest in something they can continue on their own. Just one or two of these discoveries should happen in any given day.” Charlotte Mason, volume 6 page 78
We spent our fifteen minutes everyday this week outside in our own yard. Here is a short list of the things we noticed and enjoyed from our time outdoors.
There were robins in the grass after the sprinklers turned off.
For the first time this year, we observed a tattered Monarch butterfly in our garden.
Our sunflowers started blooming..some yellow, some orange, some almost brown.
We noticed the first blooming morning glories in the front container garden.
We saw Painted Lady butterflies and Western Tiger Swallowtails too. There were a few more but we had to pull out the field guide so we can identify them the next time we see them in the garden.
The zucchini is blossoming.
The Starlings are back and eating the little fruits off the tree on our fence line.Noisy birds.
Hummingbirds in the butterfly bushes and the Red Hot Pokers. Amazing to watch.
Day lilies, day lilies, day lilies!
Big black bees in the lavender…had to cut it back off the walkway.
The winds on Tuesday and Wednesday were not cool at all…hot! The breeze on Friday was cool and from a different direction.
Those are just the discoveries we brainstormed as I was typing this up. This informal everyday noticing of nature related subjects taking just a few minutes a day adds such joy to our busy lives. As my boys grow older, I love that we have established this habit of noticing the seasonal changes and the cycle of life in our own backyard. You don’t always need to do lots of talking and follow-up to make nature study meaningful. Sometimes it is just the time spent together and enjoying a moment during your day.
We truly do discovery something every time we make the effort to get outside.
Give it a try! The Outdoor Hour Challenge July Newsletter is going to have suggestions for nature study when it is hot and humid. Make sure to subscribe to this blog for your free copy of it the minute it publishes.
To subscribe to the Handbook of Nature Study, you can enter your email in the box below and you will receive each blog entry in your email inbox. Thank you so much for reading and supporting this blog!
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I am submitting this entry to the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival and if you have any entries you would like to submit, you can send them to this email address: charlottemasonblogs@gmail.com. The official blog carnival site is not working so you will need to send them directly to this email.
“The Field Lesson. When planning a field lesson, three points should be kept in mind:
First. The aim, to bring the children into sympathy or in touch with nature, through the study of that part of nature in which they have been interested.
Second. The conditions out of doors, where the children are at home, where they must have greater freedom than in the schoolroom, and where it is more difficult to keep them at definite work, and to hold their attention.
Third. The necessity of giving each child something definite to find out for himself, and of interesting the children so that each will try to find out the most and have the greatest number of discoveries to tell.” Nature Study and The Child, Charles B. Scott, 1900.
I am finding that for my high school aged son there needs to be a different sort of follow-up to our observations…more than just a nature journal. He is using his past experiences with nature study and making some connections. This has led me to going back to the internet to research more closely how nature study develops into upper level science. I am finding it fascinating. I am excited to share my findings and show how I am implementing the ideas learned with my son as we go along (see the printable below).
“But true science work does not stop with mere seeing, hearing, or feeling: it not only furnishes a mental picture as a basis for reasoning, but it includes an interpretation of what has been received through the senses.”
Nature Study for the Common Schools, Wilbur Samuel Jackman, 1891
This is the part of nature study I find most meaningful for my son. When he can take something he already knows and build on it with new information, he develops an interest. If I am merely telling him a fact, no matter how interesting the fact is, he is not as impressed. He needs to find the answers to his questions.
“Adults should realize that the most valuable thing children can learn is what they discover themselves about the world they live in.” Charlotte Mason, volume 1 page 61
My research found that this pattern – observation, reasoning, expression – is nothing new or unique to nature study. This pattern is the process that all science is built upon. Watching my son work through the More Nature Study ebook challenges has brought this into focus for me. I wrote the challenges to include advanced study and just happened to present it in this three step pattern.
If you haven’t yet downloaded and read my Nature Study-Three Steps To A Better Experience, I invite you to now. It outlines in simple form how to build a lifetime habit of meaningful nature study.
After the children have spent fifteen or twenty minutes at work in the field, it may be well to gather them together there, ascertain what they have discovered…The general review of what they have learned can, however, be conducted much better in the schoolroom than out of doors…..Encourage them to tell all they can about what they have seen, with as few questions as possible…..After the oral review, what has been learned in the field lesson can be fixed by a blackboard reading lesson. The statements should be obtained from the children, and should embody the important facts or thoughts gained out of doors This will not only review and clinch what the children have learned out of doors, but will give them practice in expressing their ideas clearly and exactly, and in relating ideas, or putting their statements in sequence or order. Nature Study and the Childby Charles B. Scott
Nature study does not need to take a lot of time and can be accomplished in a relaxed and natural way.
For young children, start off with just an oral review of their experiences out of doors.
As they get older, you can write some of their words on a white board for them to copy into their nature journal.
Eventually, after much practice, they will be able to complete all the review of their field work on their own.
Use the three steps to better nature study as outlined in my nature printable and your family will enjoy years of satisfying outdoor time.
Now a little blog business:
I forgot to announce the winner of the blog carnival/newsletter giveaway. All participants in the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival were entered to win a copy of my very new More Nature Study Book #3 ebook that will release next week. I used Random.org to generate a winner.
The winner is Diana from Homeschool Review and Crafting Too. I will confirm with you your email address and send your copy on March 5, 2012. Congratulations!
Thank you to all who participated in last month’s carnival!
