I have already shared with you my favorite aspect of using CM method in our homeschool – it’s all the great books and how easy it is to teach your children wonderful things from living books!
Well, running a VERY close second in my book is nature study! We love it! Nature study is another large part of a CM education. In fact in the early years of education, if you do a great job using living books, and spend a lot of time outdoors doing nature study, you have a well-balanced beginning to your children’s education. Add in teaching them to read for themselves, and the beginnings of some understanding of basic math concepts and your children have a fantastic start in their educational journey.
So, how do we do nature study? It’s so simple! You go outdoors where there are living things, and you observe! REALLY! It can be done in a postage stamp of a back yard, at the local park, in the country, in the woods; a few lessons could even be done around a single tree growing up through the sidewalk near your city apartment! We have had great nature studies. Some I planned and some just happened because we were available when God wanted to show us something really neat.
This is putting your children in touch with the Creator through His creation. Just as you put your children’s minds in touch with great minds through living books, you are able to put them in touch, so to speak, with God through His living creation.
We have a postage stamp of a backyard. It’s got some grass, some weeds, bare dirt patches, and some rock usually works itself up every year from the time that most of the yard was a gravel driveway, and we have a bird feeder that my oldest son made for me for Mother’s Day one year. However, we have had some great nature studies there! My children have observed worms working in the dirt, seen the birds come and get some of the worms, they have seen how grass grows, the flowers develop on dandelions into seed that they have fun blowing in the wind (I’m sure our neighbors love that!), but the greatest lesson happened last summer, and I didn’t plan it at all! My 7 year old took her bug catcher outside and found herself a caterpillar. She put it in the box with some twigs and grass and a bit of water. By the time the evening came around, the beginnings of a cocoon was being formed in the little box! We were so excited! The next morning, there was just a little cocoon and some twigs and grass in the box. Where had the caterpillar gone? I got to explain to Esther about how caterpillars do this before they mature into butterflies. For about two weeks, Esther checked on her little cocoon several times a day, and she was letting me know how it looked each day – there wasn’t much change, and I thought she might get bored with it before the next event happened, but she didn’t! After about two weeks, she went out to check on it, and she found something so exciting in her box! The leftovers of a cocoon, some twigs, dried out grass, and a moth! We learned which caterpillars will turn into moths! We took a couple of pictures, and then I told her to let the moth go right away so he could get some food!
Now, there are some great books, worksheets, videos, etc. on the lifecycle of a moth. Esther could have learned a lot from those types of things. However, don’t you think that now she KNOWS what the lifecycle of a moth is like? She got to live out the two week wait to see the moth. She saw what the cocoon looked like every day for two weeks, she saw what the moth looked like within just a few hours of emerging from the cocoon, and she saw what the cocoon looked like when the moth was done with it. Now, I do NOT know enough about caterpillars to be able to tell when one is about to go into the mode of building his cocoon! I couldn’t have planned that lesson out if I’d spent weeks capturing caterpillars and waiting to see if they would build a cocoon in my little box. But, the Lord wanted to teach Esther something about His creation, and His timing is perfect! We still talk about that experience, and Esther is eagerly awaiting the next time to play outside, because maybe, just maybe, she will see something wonderful!
I read a book by Karen Andreola (the same one who wrote the Charlotte Mason Companion), called Pocketful of Pinecones. It’s written like a mother’s journal by a young mother who is just beginning to educate her young children at home, and it details their nature study adventures. It’s a wonderfully easy read, and it did help me to relax and not worry about having everything just right before we venture outside for nature study. If you would like to get your own copy, you can see Pocketful of Pinecones at Ancient Paths Christian Bookstore.
So, don’t be afraid to venture outdoors with your children and let them get in touch with the Creator through His creation! You never know what He might have in store for your family.
Next time, I’ll share with you some great ideas for how to record your lessons from nature study!
Comments