nature study

my little brother Steven gave me a copy of Anna Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study for Christmas.  if you do any amount of homeschool blog reading, you’re sure to have come across this title.  i spent three weeks with the book through inter-library loan, but it’s really a book that needs a place of the shelf.  it’s a book that we’ll return to again and again.  i don’t know if we’ll really do the weekly challenges, but Barb at Handbook of Nature Study has quite a collection of ideas.  and there are links (at the bottom of the page) to others who are also studying along.

the first thing that Barb suggests doing is reading and making notes on the first few pages of the book.  here are mine:

nature study consists of simple, truthful observations…like beads on a string

there are so many wonderful and true stories that she may read with her own eyes

the child cultivates a perception and regard for what is true, a love of the beautiful, and a sense of companionship with the out-of-doors

she should say frankly, “i don’t know; let us see if we cannot together find out this mysterious thing.  maybe no one knows it as yet.”

when we no longer care about anything except our own interests, we are old

the lesson should be short and sharp

there is strength and sureness in regularity

when nature study is properly taught the child is unconscious…that she is suffering the act of teaching (!)