Hands on Science in a CM Education

Most people who have heard anything about Charlotte Mason and science know that nature study is largely the focus in the early years- and this is definitely true.  Much has been written about this.

But just as narration, while inherently a part of a Charlotte Mason Education,  is not the only way to use books, there is more to the early science studies than birds, bugs, and flowers (although let me stress again that these are absolutely vital to a CM education, indeed, to any well rounded education).  But there is also something more.

In Charlotte Mason’s Home Education, the book she wrote for educating children 9 and under, she presents the work of a village schoolteacher named Mr.Richard Dawes as a good example for science teaching in the younger grades. I’ll quote from that in a moment.

The Right Reverend Dawes was a bit more than a local school schoolmaster. Later he would serve as Dean of Hereford until his death.  His work as a ‘village schoolmaster’ occurred when he served as Rector at King’s Somborne, Hampshire, where he established and taught in the first and only school in the parish.  He developed many educational ideas not commonly  found in schools at the time, and he put into practice his somewhat radical (for the time) views on education and the poor (such as charging his students on a sliding scale, and permitting parents to exempt their children from teaching on the catechism if their own consciences forbade it).

One Mr. Moseley in the minutes of the Committee of Council on Education 1847 described the parish at Kings Somborne as:

 “parish thoroughly demoralized by the operation of the old Poor Law… I have reason to believe that there was no parish in the surrounding district which stood in respect to the character of its inhabitants so low. The wages of a labourer vary from 65 to 9s a week. There is no person resident in the place above the condition of the farmer except the rector.” 

Reverend Dawes’ work at the school gained renown, as he accomplished things nobody thought possible with his rural students in a backwards area.

In the field of sciences, his goal was to teach:

“…what may be called the philosophy of common things of everyday life. They were shown how much there is that is interesting, and which it is advantageous for them to know, in connection with the natural objects with which they are familiar; they had explained to them, and were made acquainted with, the principles of a variety of natural phenomena, as well as the principles and construction of various instruments of a useful
kind. A practical turn was given to everything the uses and fruits of the knowledge they were acquiring were never lost sight of.”

“Some of the properties of air, explaining how its pressure enables them to pump up water, to amuse themselves with squirts and popguns, to suck up water through a straw; explaining also the principles and construction of a barometer, the common pump, the diving-bell, a pair of bellows. That air expands by heat, shown by placing a half-blown bladder near the fire, when the wrinkles disappear. Why the chimney-smoke sometimes rises easily in the air, sometimes not; why there is a draught up the chimney, and under the door, and towards the fire. Air as a vehicle of sound, and why the flash of a distant gun fired is seen before the report is heard; how to calculate the distance of a thunderstorm; the difference in the speeds at which different materials conduct sound. Water and its properties, its solid, fluid, and vaporous state; why water-pipes are burst by frost; why ice forms and floats on the surface of ponds, and not at the bottom; why the kettle-lid jumps up when the water is boiling on the fire; the uses to which the power of steam is applied; the gradual evolution of the steam-engine, shown by models and diagrams; how their clothes are dried, and why they feel cold sitting in damp clothes; why a damp bed is so dangerous; why one body floats in water, and another sinks; the different densities of sea and fresh water; why, on going into the school on a cold morning, they sometimes see a quantity of water on the glass, and why on the inside and not on the outside; why, on a frosty day, their breath is visible as vapour; the substances water holds in solution, and how their drinking water is affected by the kind of soil through which it has passed. Dew, its value, and the conditions necessary for its formation; placing equal portions of dry wool on gravel, glass, and the grass, and weighing them the next morning. Heat and its properties; how it is that the blacksmith can fit iron hoops so firmly on the wheels of carts and barrows; what precautions have to be taken in laying the iron rails of railways and in building iron bridges, etc.; what materials are good, and what bad, conductors of heat; why at the same temperature some feel colder to our touch than others; why a glass sometimes breaks when hot water is poured into it, and whether thick or thin glass would be more liable to crack; why water can be made to boil in a paper kettle or an eggshell without its being burned. The metals, their sources, properties, and uses; mode of separating from the ores. Light and its properties, illustrated by prisms, etc; adaptation of the eye; causes of long and short-sightedness. The mechanical principles of the tools more commonly used, the spade, the plough, the axe, the lever, etc.”

“It may surprise some who read carefully the above list that such subjects should have been taught to the children of a rural elementary school. But it is an undeniable fact that they were taught in Kings Somborne School, and so successfully that the children were both interested and benefited by the teaching. Mr. Dawes, in answer to the objection that such subjects are above the comprehension of the young, said:––

‘The distinguishing mark of Nature’s laws is their extreme simplicity. It may doubtless require intellect of a high order to make the discovery of these laws; yet, once evolved, they are within the capacity of a child,––in short, the principles of natural philosophy are the principles of common sense, and if taught in a simple and common-sense way, they will be speedily understood and eagerly attended to by children; and it will be found that with pupils of even from ten to twelve years of age much may be done towards forming habits of observation and inquiry.’ Such a fact, I think, suggests some valuable practical lessons for those who have the responsibility of deciding what subjects to include in an educational system for children.”

Charlotte Mason acknowledged that in reading about the late Dean Dawes, a parent’s first impression would be an urgent desire to hire somebody just like him to tutor our own children, and of course, that is beyond most of us.  Public schools are sometimes fortunate enough to find such a person to teach their science courses, but just as often fail.

If we can’t hire somebody like Richard Dawes, she encourages us to recognize that there is value first in being aware of the sorts of things they should know.  The list above is helpful as a starting hint, but not so much as a list of things to teach our own kiddies.  The *why* here is important- common things, familiar things, things in every day life, things it useful for them to know.  Some of the things listed above are still applicable, but many of them are no longer common or part of every day life- not many of our children have an open fire in the middle of their homes as the only source for fuel, for heat, for cooking.  There is little call for or opportunity to observe iron hoops on carts or barrows.

Miss Mason had a couple of recommendations- both out of print (one was out of print when she suggested it) and now out of date as well.  However, she does give us another big of guidance which still applies today:

“…nothing should be done without its due experiment. “

While there are many fun little books, websites, and television shows which may explain the sorts of everyday things and how they work, the children need to work things out themselves, in the round, so to speak.  A Charlotte Mason education is largely literature based, but it’s not only literature based. They need to be doing things as well.

I found a little biography of Dean Dawes online, and I think this paragraph describing his aims is very useful (the picture at the top of this post is taken from this statement):

More advanced pupils were initiated in the elementary truths of the physical sciences, especially in such as bore directly on the practical business of life… all illustrated as far as was practicable by simple and impressive experiments. In short, it was the grand object of Mr Dawes to rouse into activity the slumbering faculties of children, to teach them to observe for themselves the objects of common daily life, and to inspire them with an intelligent and thoughtful curiosity.

When my children were younger, this is what we used in the early years to accomplish the same goal:

It was a box of cards, 34 of them, with a few items that you might need to complete some of the activities.  It’s called How Things Work, part of a Adventures in Science collection by Educational Insights.

They do have new versions (I’ve had mine for at least 20 years), but in looking at the catalog, I don’t know that I like them as well. Part of that is a crotchety old “I dislike change” attitude.  But partly that is because some of those changes aren’t an improvement- there seems to be less emphasis on doing and more on reading and writing.  The reading and writing is appropriate in the later years, but for early years, children should be spending a lot of time actually doing things, not just reading about them, or, anathema, watching somebody else do things on an electronic screen.

The thing that impressed me with these simple little cards with their cartoon sketches in black and white is that the focus was on the doing, not the pictures, not the telling. The children thought about them, and later applied what they had done to their free play.

Learning is a powerful thing, and sometimes a little dangerous- it was during the weeks we were going through the cards on force and motion (pendulums, pulleys, levers, block and tackle) that our sixth child convinced our seventh to allow her to hoist him up into a tree using a rope and a branch as an improvised pulley to see it if it really was easier for her to lift him that way.

It was.
It was also easy to drop him that way, since her hands got sweaty and she loosened her hold on the rope to wipe them dry and get a better grip.  In previous experiments with the using the rope over a branch, the things she'd lifted were much lighter and so when she let go, they simply hung in place.  Her brother was heavier and so he fell, much like Winnie the Pooh falling through the bramble bush, only he fell through a lilac.

He was uninjured, other than a few scratches.  But I suspect that both of them have a deeper understanding of pulleys and how they work than most of their peers.

We eventually had to make a rule that those two could do nothing with a rope without checking with a parent first. You may also need to make a couple of rules for safety.  But children learn through trying things out, through making emotional connections, and through trial and error as much as they do through stories.  They really need both approaches.

Give them things to think about.  Ask aloud, "I wonder whether this toy car rolls faster on the floor or the carpet? "  Notice things- "That's interesting.  Have you noticed my church shoes are more slippery to walk in than my tennis shoes?"   "Why does this can make that hissing noise when I use a church-key can opener to open it?  "What would happen if we slid down this hill on a cardboard box?  What if we rubbed a candle on the bottom of the box?  Why?"

and then... do the things.

For further research check out these two websites:

Arvinda Gupta, science teacher in India, and his toys from trash (phenomenal!)
Application of physics in every day life

Books to look for (try the library or an internet library like archive.org, Hoopla, Overdrive, or Libby)

Junk Drawer Physics

Entertaining Science Experiments with Everyday Objects

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$5.00- Education for All, vol 2- the Imagination (and more) issue!- transcript of the imagination talk from the AO Camp meeting, with additional material I had to cut to save time.  

   
 $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal,   Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on handicrafts, outdoor play, nature study and science. See sidebar for purchasing options if you are in the Philippines.

 $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3, carefully selected with an eye toward finely crafted sentences, lovely bits of writing pleasant to picture in the mind's eye, and practice in copying some of the mechanics of grammar and punctuation typically covered in these years.

  $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!  Carefully selected with an eye toward well written sentences, memorable scenes, and some practice copying sentences that model the basics of capitalization and punctuation.   Suitable for use with children who have already mastered the strokes and letters for basic penmanship.

Picture Study!  Miguel Cabrera's beautiful, diverse families, painted in 18th century Mexico this package includes 9 downloadable prints along with directions for picture study and background information on the artist and his work. $5.00

Common Kitchen:  What's for lunch?  Isn't that a common problem in homeschooling families?  What to fix, what is quick, what is frugal, what is nourishing?  How can I accomplish all those things at once?  We homeschooled 7 children, and I was a homeschooling mom for 29 years on a single income.  I collected these recipes and snack ideas from all over the world.  These are real foods I used to feed my family, my godsons, and sometimes my grandkids.  Includes some cooking tips and suggestions for sides, and for a variety of substitutions.  I think every family will find something they can use here. $5.00

Nature Writing

“Looking closely at the commonplace things of nature that are found on almost any small family farm, one becomes aware of a quality of miracle
and infinity about them.
The more one researches these small things, such as the purple-blue
violet I picked in the yard this morning and brought in to examine
under a microscope, the more clear it becomes that nothing on earth
exists totally separate and unrelated, and that every living thing is
composed of ever smaller parts.
From the purple-striped deep tube of the violet’s petal a naturalist
could go on to an examination of the larger, related plant world, or a
scientist could as easily discover the infinitely smaller parts of which
the violet cells are composed. Either way, a thing as commonplace as an
ordinary spring violet contains the essence of infinity.”

Rachel Peden

Rachel Peden is a lesser known nature writer, perhaps because she writes specifically about her own cherished region- Indiana farm country. In the 1960s and ’70s Mrs. Peden wrote a regular newspaper column for her local paper. She wrote about her farm, the land and people of her home, the seasons (did you know that Indiana has nine of them?), and local flora and fauna. She compiled her columns and perhaps some extra material into three published books; Rural Free: A Farmwife’s Almanac of Country Living, The Land, the People , and Speak to the Earth: Pages from a Farmwife’s Journal 

She hoped to write a fourth, but cancer shattered her plans. 

My Indiana grandmother majored in Botany when she went to college in the early 1900’s, a time few people, let alone women, went to college. We still have her first pressed plant collections compiled for her college classes. Walking with her through the wild back acres of her farm, along the creek, and through the meadows was to walk among friends. She knew every leaf, every birdsong, and every tree or flowerbud by name, both common and Latin, and she was generous in introducing her grandchild to her friends in the natural world. 

She read Mrs. Peden’s newspaper columns and books and enjoyed them so much that she wrote to her to thank her for describing so well what seemed then to be a vanishing way of life. Mrs. Peden recognized a kindred spirit and she and my Grandmother wrote to each other from time to time. Unfortunately, they had other things in common, too, and both were ripped from their families by cancer within a year or two of each other, right around my 13th year. My grandmother is still very much missed by her surviving daughters and the grandchildren who were blessed to know her. She left quite a legacy. 

A small part of that legacy is represented by the autographed copies of all three of Mrs. Peden’s books which sit on my shelves. These volumes were formerly owned by my Grandmother (who continued to cut out clippings of Mrs. Peden’s column and fold them gently and store them in the books, where they still are). 

I believe we’d like Mrs. Peden’s writing even without the emotional tie. Edwin Way Teale in Green Treasury – A Journey Through the World’s Great Nature Writings said, “At best, the genre we call nature writing requires a rare mixture of scientist, philosopher, and poet.”

Peden, I think, was all of these, and she was a home-body as well, a homely soul (homely in the sense of being cozy, comfortable, and unpretentious). Her nature writing is what I like best- words  written from a sense of home, a genuine feel for a connection with the land and the green and growing things on it that comes from having deep roots of one’s own there. 

Mrs. Peden certainly felt that deep connection. 

Mrs. Peden writes of the homey things, the ladybug she found on her kitchen sink and examined under a magnifying glass, the spring beauties coming up in her yard, the grackles at her feeder, the quail calls she hears in June, and the rabbit tracks ( she calls them graffitti) she sees in the freshly fallen snow, and I nestle down cozily in a few pages of comfort reading. I have been doing this since I was a child and discovered her on my grandmother’s shelves.

Mrs. Peden looks just a little closer at the things nearest home.

In Green Treasury – A Journey Through the World’s Great Nature Writings Edwin Way Teale also said,

“Even the lifelong traveler knows but an infinitesimal portion of the Earth’s surface. Those who have written best about the land and its wild inhabitants…have often been stay-at-home naturalists…concentrating their attention and affection on a relatively small area.”

Rachel Peden, farmwife, homemaker, writer, mother, stay-at-home naturalist is a gem, a treasure who deserves to be wider known.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The following items are for sale, and  proceeds support my family's work.  When creating these things,  my constant thought was 'What might readers like to know or think about? What will help our Charlotte Mason parents and families?  What will give them something to think about, something to love, something to grow on?'  I hope you can tell. 

$5.00- Education for All, vol 2- the Imagination (and more) issue!- transcript of the imagination talk from the AO Camp meeting, with additional material I had to cut to save time.  

   
 $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal,   Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on handicrafts, outdoor play, nature study and science. See sidebar for purchasing options if you are in the Philippines.

 $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3, carefully selected with an eye toward finely crafted sentences, lovely bits of writing pleasant to picture in the mind's eye, and practice in copying some of the mechanics of grammar and punctuation typically covered in these years.

  $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!  Carefully selected with an eye toward well written sentences, memorable scenes, and some practice copying sentences that model the basics of capitalization and punctuation.   Suitable for use with children who have already mastered the strokes and letters for basic penmanship.

Picture Study!  Miguel Cabrera's beautiful, diverse families, painted in 18th century Mexico this package includes 9 downloadable prints along with directions for picture study and background information on the artist and his work. $5.00

Common Kitchen:  What's for lunch?  Isn't that a common problem in homeschooling families?  What to fix, what is quick, what is frugal, what is nourishing?  How can I accomplish all those things at once?  We homeschooled 7 children, and I was a homeschooling mom for 29 years on a single income.  I collected these recipes and snack ideas from all over the world.  These are real foods I used to feed my family, my godsons, and sometimes my grandkids.  Includes some cooking tips and suggestions for sides, and for a variety of substitutions.  I think every family will find something they can use here. $5.00

Nature Study, Science, and Charlotte Mason

Study finds that just looking at nature for even a few seconds can help you focus better and improve your thinking (they need studies for this stuff?)- although, most of the studies seem to involve looking at images of nature, rather than nature itself. At any rate, we know there were plenty of people there ahead of these studies (nothing wrong with that, we all stand on the shoulders of others), including Charlotte Mason.

Mason, however, wanted more than just a few microbreaks.

Nature Study is a distinctive part of a Charlotte Mason education.  Miss Mason herself set the example for her students by spending many hours several times a week out of doors, studying God’s creation, keeping a nature journal, and learning about the animals and plants of her own environment. If you only have time to read one thing about the topic, you should read what Miss Mason herself said here.

Nature Study is Planting Seeds for Later Development: The children go on nature walks, engage in nature study, and draw what they see, and in doing these things they develop firsthand skills of observation, which will help them with later science studies as well as life in general.

In reading volume 1, pages 177-178, I found Miss Mason's outlining of something like a child's nature study manifesto  helpful:

"(a) That the knowledge most valuable to the child is that which he gets with his own eyes and ears and fingers (under direction) in the open air.

(b) That the claims of the schoolroom should not be allowed to encroach on the child’s right to long hours daily for exercise and investigation.

(c) That the child should be taken daily, if possible, to scenes- moor or meadow, park, common or shore- where he may find new things to examine, and so add to his store of real knowledge. That the child’s observation should be directed to flower or boulder, bird or tree; that, in fact, he should be employed in gathering the common information which is the basis of scientific knowledge.

(d) That play, vigorous healthful play, is, in its turn, fully as important as lessons, as regards both bodily health and brainpower.

(e) That the child, though under supervision, should be left much to himself- That the child, though under supervision, should be left much to himself––both that he may go to work in his own way on the ideas that he receives, and also that he may be the more open to natural influences.

Miss Mason believed that young children deserved long hours in out of door play (no knowledge so appropriate to the early years ... As that of the name and look and behavior in situ of every natural object he can get at: page 32)  In situ means in its natural setting.

Charlotte Mason suggested that the parent’s most important role in teaching children to think scientifically is to "afford abundant and varied opportunities and to direct his observations so that, knowing little of the principles of scientific classification, he is, unconsciously, furnishing himself with the materials for such classification...the future of the man or woman depends largely on the store of knowledge gathered, and the habits of intelligent observation acquired, by the child"  Regardless of the field of study or career path chosen, the invaluable skills of observation gained through nature study done the CM way will benefit the children all their lives.

What does it mean to furnish the children with the materials for classification?  Well, the parent needs to do some reading and learning.  Then you start with small things- while looking at a flower, a bug, a tree, a toad in a jar, a bird at the bird feeder, comment or ask questions such as "What does his beak look like?  How many toes does it have?  How many legs?  What is the skin like?  How does it move?  What color is it?  What is it eating?  What is the shape of the leaf, the petal, the stem?  How many petals?  How is this different from a ...." and so on.  These are the elements of classification that he will build on later.

Children first should be learning about the world as it is- no matter how brilliant and academically gifted children are, they should all have plenty of opportunities to climb trees, play in mud puddles, go for long walks, run in meadows, wade in streams, sort rocks, shells, and acorns, collect bugs, watch butterflies emerge from a cocoon, run, skip, ride, swim, and more.
A child who has splashed in a puddle has a richer understanding of a pond. A child who has climbed a tree has a broader grasp of what was involved when explorers first climbed Everest. A child who has collected stones or shells has a deeper grasp of what is involved in scientific classification later.

Children who do all these things early also are actually laying down impressive growth in the brain synapses.

...The chief function of the child- his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life- is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge got in this way; and that, therefore, the endeavor of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with Nature and natural objects... page 96-7 of volume one

“The child who does not know the portly form and spotted breast of the thrush, the graceful flight of the swallow, the yellow bill of the blackbird, the gush of song which the skylark pours from above is nearly as much to be pitied as those London children who 'had never seen a bee."

"Most children of six have had this taste of a naturalist's experience, and it is worth speaking of only because, instead of being merely a harmless amusement, it is a valuable piece of education, of more use to the child than the reading of a whole book of natural history, or much geography, and Latin. For the evil is, that children get their knowledge of natural history, like all their knowledge, at second hand. They are so sated with wonders, that nothing surprises them; and they are so little used to see for themselves, that nothing interests them. The cure for this blasé condition is, to let them alone for a bit, and then begin on new lines. Poor children, it is no fault of theirs if they are not as they are meant to be- curious eager little souls, all agog to explore so much of this wonderful world as they can get at, as quite their first business in life."  (volume 1, page 60)

"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small:
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

Nature Knowledge the most important for Young Children. –It would be well if all we persons in authority, parents and all who act for parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.” Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, volume 1, p 61.

Of the teaching of Natural Philosophy, I will only remind the reader of what was said in an earlier chapter––that there is no part of a child's education more important than that he should lay, by his own observation, a wide basis of facts towards scientific knowledge in the future. He must live hours daily in the open air, and, as far as possible, in the country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note, consciously, every peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast, bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every plant. He must be accustomed to ask why––Why does the wind blow? Why does the river flow? Why is a leaf-bud sticky? And do not hurry to answer his questions for him; let him think his difficulties out so far as his small experience will carry him. Above all, when you come to the rescue, let it not be in the 'cut and dried' formula of some miserable little text-book; let him have all the insight available and you will find that on many scientific questions the child may be brought at once to the level of modern thought. Do not embarrass him with too much scientific nomenclature. If he discover for himself (helped, perhaps, by a leading question or two), by comparing an oyster and his cat, that some animals have backbones and some have not, it is less important that he should learn the terms vertebrate and invertebrate than that he should class the animals he meets with according to this difference.~Vol. 1, p.264-265

The children spend considerable time looking, observing, asking questions, categorizing, and learning names.  

In Science, or rather, nature study, we attach great importance to recognition, believing that the power to recognise and name a plant or stone or constellation involves classification and includes a good deal of knowledge. To know a plant by its gesture and habitat, its time and its way of flowering and fruiting; a bird by its flight and song and its times of coming and going; to know when, year after year, you may come upon the redstart and the pied fly-catcher, means a good deal of interested observation, and of, at any rate, the material for science.

Observation, categorizing, and drawing conclusions are important parts of 'doing science,' and with Miss Mason's approach to nature study, they've been doing this for years.  Now it's time for another important part of science study- the lab notebook.  Only we call it a nature journal or nature notebook.

Consider this from a scientist and former CM home-schooling mom (the former list-mama of the Cmason mailing list, Lynn H.):

As it is with the birds and the moths, so is the best Science in all areas. Science is a pattern of thought, of observation, correlation, theory, hypothesis, experimentation, and more thought. The methods of Science apply to all subjects. Therefor, it does not really matter where you begin to teach Science. Begin where you are- with the moth on the patio, the birds on your birdfeeder, the aquarium in the kitchen, the volcano in your cornfield. Spend the time needed to really look, and think. In Graduate microbiology classes, time was the most precious resource there was. I spent many long evenings staring through a microscope examining the characteristics of some bacteria or fungi. We went through complicated procedures to obtain electron microscope photographs, which we would blow up and hang where we could see them every time we raised our eyes. We had to, because they didn't come labeled- we had to think and identify each structure ourselves. The Science was not in the fancy equipment, it was in the time we spent thinking. We learned the names, we kept vocabulary notebooks (half of any subject is vocabulary), we wrote detailed lab reports. These were not the Sciences- the real work was our lab notebooks, where we kept our notes of what we saw, what happened, what we thought might happen. Lab notebooks are the personal property of the individual scientist, and are the most valuable part of his work.
A Charlotte Mason Nature Notebook is a lab notebook. Teach your children to write down everything they see. The illustrations should be as detailed as possible, the notes should never be removed. A young child may do better with loose-leaf paper, but a teen should learn to keep notes in a bound book where removing pages shows! If they make a mistake (such as in a math calculation) they may draw a line through it, but never obliterate. Obviously, different notebooks should be kept for each topic. Edith Holden did not keep her chemistry notes in her Diary. Her chemistry notebook would have held illustrations of her experiments, notes of colors and reactions, tables of data, titles and quotations applicable to the experiment, and her conclusions."

Click through to read the rest, it's very helpful.  So, the children are branching out now, having sent deep roots down into the field of science through their early observations and time with nature .  Now, Miss Mason has them write:

"The children keep a dated record of what they see in their nature note-books, which are left to their own management and are not corrected. These note-books are a source of pride and joy, and are freely illustrated by drawings (brushwork) of twig, flower, insect, etc. The knowledge necessary for these records is not given in the way of teaching. On one afternoon in the week, the children (of the Practising School) go for a 'nature walk' with their teachers. They notice for themselves, and the teacher gives a name or other information as it is asked for, and it is surprising what a range of knowledge a child of nine or ten acquires.

The teachers are careful not to make these nature walks an opportunity for scientific instruction, as we wish the children's attention to be given to observation with very little direction. In this way they lay up that store of 'common information' which Huxley considered should precede science teaching; and, what is much more important, they learn to know and delight in natural objects as in the familiar faces of friends. (Vol 3 pg 237)

As soon as a child is old enough, he should keep his own nature notebook for his enjoyment. Every day's walk will give something interesting to add - three squirrels playing in a tree, a bluejay flying across a field, a caterpillar crawling up a bush, a snail eating a cabbage leaf, a spider suddenly dropping from a thread to the ground, where he found ivy and how it was growing and what plants were growing with it, and how ivy manages to climb. (Vol 1 p 55)

They write and they draw- and it's worth while to find resources to help them learn drawing.

This is what we wish to do for children in teaching them to draw - to cause the eye to rest, not unconsciously, but consciously, on some object of beauty which will leave in their minds an image of delight for all their lives to come. (Vol 1 p 313)

The first buttercup in a child's nature notebook is shockingly crude, the sort of thing to scandalise a teacher of brush-drawing, but by and by another buttercup will appear with the delicate poise, uplift and radiance of the growing flower. (Vol 6, p 217)

All that nature study, the nature notebooks, the nature reading, as well as other science observations about how things work (the philosophy, or science, of 'everyday things- more on that here) is building up, layer upon layer, toward a more substantial and meaningful understanding of the scientific discoveries of the day, to knowledge the student will need and use in high school, college, and life.  It's taken root, branched out, and it's bearing fruit.

Getting Ready for High School Science, Wonder and Order  by Beth Pinckney: How students with a good Charlotte Mason style background in nature study build a firm foundation for high school and college lab sciences. It is a good read for parents teaching older students.  But I also think it's a very good read for parents who are just starting out.  It will help the beginner understand why nature studis important. It will help a young mother lacking confidence understand more about how nature study works and why it's so important.

AO's Nature Study Posts Page: Once you've read about why you need and want to do Nature Study, and perhaps even after you've tried it a handful of times, you might want to read this collection of nature study posts which experienced moms shared on AO's old email list.

But mainly, get outside with the kids and start looking, observing, categorizing, asking questions, drawing conclusions.

For Sale!

$5.00- Education for All, vol 2- the Imagination (and more) issue!- transcript of the imagination talk from the AO Camp meeting, with additional material I had to cut to save time.      $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal,   Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on handicrafts, outdoor play, nature study and science. See sidebar for purchasing options if you are in the Philippines.

 $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3, carefully selected with an eye toward finely crafted sentences, lovely bits of writing pleasant to picture in the mind's eye, and practice in copying some of the mechanics of grammar and punctuation typically covered in these years.

  $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!  Carefully selected with an eye toward well written sentences, memorable scenes, and some practice copying sentences that model the basics of capitalization and punctuation.   Suitable for use with children who have already mastered the strokes and letters for basic penmanship.

Picture Study!  Miguel Cabrera's beautiful, diverse families, painted in 18th century Mexico this package includes 9 downloadable prints along with directions for picture study and background information on the artist and his work. $5.00

Common Kitchen:  What's for lunch?  Isn't that a common problem in homeschooling families?  What to fix, what is quick, what is frugal, what is nourishing?  How can I accomplish all those things at once?  We homeschooled 7 children, and I was a homeschooling mom for 29 years on a single income.  I collected these recipes and snack ideas from all over the world.  These are real foods I used to feed my family, my godsons, and sometimes my grandkids.  Includes some cooking tips and suggestions for sides, and for a variety of substitutions.  I think every family will find something they can use here. $5.00

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Winter Nature Study Ideas

The ideas below are mostly suitable for those living in northern climes where you get snow and ice.  There are some principles applicable to most of us, but the specific practices are mostly more doable in the north, with a couple exceptions of more universal application.

Charlotte Mason expected her students to engage in nature study throughout their lives, not just as preparation for the study of other sciences.

She said, "The study of natural history and botany with bird lists and plant lists continues throughout school life, while other branches are taken term by term." She herself set the example for her students by spending many hours several times a week out of doors, studying God’s creation, keeping a nature journal, and learning about the animals and plants of her own environment. Irregardless of the field of study or career path chosen, the invaluable skills of observation

 Children first should be learning about the world as it is- no matter how brilliant and academically gifted children are, they should all have plenty of opportunities to climb trees, play in mud puddles, go for long walks, run in meadows, wade in streams, sort rocks, shells, and acorns, collect bugs, watch butterflies emerge from a cocoon, run, skip, ride, swim, and more. A child who has splashed in a puddle has a richer understanding of a pond. A child who has climbed a tree has a broader grasp of what was involved when explorers first climbed Everest. A child who has collected stones or shells has a deeper grasp of what is involved in scientific classification later.

A little advance preparation can help a lot.   Keep a piece of black wool, felt, or velvet in your freezer (we just used a black mitten that had lost its mate.)  When it snows, grab it and catch some snowflakes on it. Hold your breath while you look at the snowflakes through a magnifying glass. You keep it in the freezer to help the snowflakes last long enough to see them under magnification.

 Play a version of `Kim's game'- pick a scene outside a window, look at it carefully enough to be able to look at it again on another day and describe what is different. When you have been able to take a brisk walk, go home, and over hot cocoa ask who can remember what you passed on your walk and tell each other all you remember.

 Observe the trees, note their changes- pick one or two trees and check them every week to see what's different. You can do this from inside with a good pair of binoculars. We've tied a bit of scarlet ribbon around one tree branch in the past, and checked just that branch a couple of times a month to see if we can spy any changes. Learn to recognize bird calls- set up a bird feeder, check out enature.com, and once you have identified a bird, go to the website to hear its call.

 The Sun: Observe its position at various times throughout the day
 Note times of sunrise and sunset as well as their direction
 The place of the sun at the hottest part of the day
 Distance and direction
 In addition to noting the location of the sun
 Note the time it takes to walk/drive
 A foot, a yard, a block, a quarter mile, a half mile
 To frequent destinations- a friend's house, the store, the library, the barn, the corner, around the block (wherever it is you do walk- learn how far that is and how long it takes to walk that distance) 
Wind Direction, learn what a western wind means (it is blowing from the west, not toward the west, just as a Canadian is _from_ Canada)
 Clouds Observe their shape, size, style, color and note the connection between clouds and weather

 WE bought the book _Exploring Nature In Winter_, by Alan Cvancara through Abebooks. I found a few useful ideas, although it is primarily for adults to use to learn to enjoy the outdoors in winter as well as warmer months. One of the many ideas between its covers is how to preserve snowflakes to sketch. You need microscope slides, which you put on a sturdy surface, like cardboard. Spray the slides with something like Krylon- clear, plastic spray generally for preserving artwork. Then allow snow crystals to land on the sprayed slides. Bring the slides in to dry. If it worked, you will have replicas of snowflake crystals that remain clear. You can sketch them, examine them under the microscope, or use a magnifying glass. Of course, to do this, your slides and the spray should be below freezing, or they will melt the snowflake on contact. (I will tell you that this sounds very interesting, but we have only tried this once and it didn't work for us)

 He suggests noting weather conditions, air temperatures, wind direction, speed, and what type of snow crystals predominate. These things, of course, could all be admirable additions to the Nature Notebook.

 Another way to study snowflakes is take out a a piece of black cardboard, or black felt stretched on a board, (or wear black wool mittens), and a magnifying glass and study the snowflakes outside. Just be careful not to melt them with your breath as you gasp in rapt admiration;-)

 Another nice nature study book for winter is the Winter ecojournal. It has lots of ideas to help children journal their own nature study adventures.

 Another neat thing to do is to sketch the moon each week, on the same night, to let the child discover for herself the cycles of the moon. You can do this just by looking out the window every night. I am embarrassed to admit that I never realized that the moon does not always rise from the same direction until I did this with my children 20 years ago.

Evergreens are always good subjects for winter nature study. Learn the pattern their needles grow in, look at pine cones, study what wildlife, if any, hangs out at the evergreen tree in winter.

 You can also bring in a rock, a bit of wood, a seed pod, a pine cone or small log with lichen on it and sketch it from the dining room table.

 You can sketch a leafless twig, noting the placing of the leaf scars, the color of the wood, the shape, etc. These will vary by type of tree, but see if your children can figure that out for themselves. We have tied a string around a twig or tree branch you can see from a window, then sketch it once a month, observing seasonal changes.

 You could look for old seed pods and sketch them, or animal tracks in the snow.

 Force a bulb to bloom indoors.

 Keep a calendar of nature firsts all year long- this should include things like first snowfall, first ice storm, first bird to your feeder, first goose seen flying south, first goose seen returning, and even the i.d. of the birds you see at your feeder every day.

Contrary to one common belief,  Miss Mason did not suggest that the children go outside everyday, rain or snow or sunshine. She said something about every tolerably fine day from May through October. She did think they should have appropriate clothes to make some snowdays comfortable and safe, but she expected reason, a thinking love, from mothers. I am sure she never meant for mothers to kick the children out of doors for 12 hours during the blizzards we get on the prairies in North America. We do what we can with the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

That includes learning from the circumstances in which you and your child find yourselves- in the following quote replace the bird species, for instance, with those common in your area:

“The child who does not know the portly form and spotted breast of the thrush, the graceful flight of the swallow, the yellow bill of the blackbird, the gush of song which the skylark pours from above is nearly as much to be pitied as those London children who 'had never seen a bee.'

Speaking of watching the metamorphis of a caterpillar to a butterfly (in real life, not on a youtube video), Mason says,
"Most children of six have had this taste of a naturalist's experience, and it is worth speaking of only because, instead of being merely a harmless amusement, it is a valuable piece of education, of more use to the child than the reading of a whole book of natural history, or much geography, and Latin. For the evil is, that children get their knowledge of natural history, like all their knowledge, at second hand. They are so sated with wonders, that nothing surprises them; and they are so little used to see for themselves, that nothing interests them. The cure for this blasé condition is, to let them alone for a bit, and then begin on new lines. Poor children, it is no fault of theirs if they are not as they are meant to be- curious eager little souls, all agog to explore so much of this wonderful world as they can get at, as quite their first business in life."

Do not substitute books for first hand, hands on, nature study with the things in your house, yard, neighbourhood, local fields and parks, no matter how barren you think they are.

Other winter nature study ideas:

~Charlotte Mason Other resources for Winter Nature Study:

I don't know where this list of suggested books comes from. I own two or three of them, don't know that I've seen a couple.  I found it in my drafts from 2009, while looking for something else. Isn't that the way it goes?  At least, it is for some of us! Winter Search Party: a Guide to Insects and Other Invertebrates
Exploring Nature in Winter: A Guide to Activities, Adventures, and Projects for the Winter Naturalist (Naturalist's Bookshelf)
  Plants in Winter (A Lets-Read-and-Find-Out Science Book) Discover Nature in Winter (Discover Nature Series)
Winter-sleeping wildlife.
Winter Buds, Exploring Winter

Illustration taken from From Nature Studies for Children, Book One, by Nora B. Albright, Primary Teacher, and Jennie Hall, Supervisor of Nature Study in the elementary schools of minneapolis, Minnesota

Mentzer, Bush & Company, publishers
1927