How contrary to popular educational methods would be the idea of leaving a child’s question unanswered; worse yet, leaving them to form wrong opinions? Well it seems that it was no less absurd 115 years ago based on a Parent’s Review article titled Elementary Science-Teaching by one Mary Everest Boole. But it is, in fact, […]
How *not* to be “a mere crammer” in science/nature study Read More »
We recently headed back to a local creek for nature study. There’s so much here that we’ve discovered over the years. Giant water bugs are smaller this time of year. Early last year we wondered what they ate in this creek since there didn’t seem to be anything else of significant size. Then we found
Nature Knowledge Gained Without Lessons Read More »
I’m catching up on some pictures of our nature findings from this past month. This is our sunflower plant out front; it grew slouched over from lack of watering and as a result, only part of the flower received sunlight. Interestingly, the side that didn’t receive light grew much slower. I always thought they bloomed
Nature Study – 09/23/12 Read More »
I am coming rather late to this treasure of a Parent’s Review article – Imagination as a Powerful Factor in a Well-balanced Mind by E.A. Parish – 98 years late to be exact! More recently, within CM circles it seems to have made its rounds with Nancy Kelly of Sage Parnassus leading a session by
The Great Need of Imagination Read More »
The kids have been telling me all summer that they have seen leopard sharks in the water and just looking in the water a few feet in I could see them swimming around myself. I thought it was a great opportunity for snorkeling so we went and got masks and snorkels. When we went back
Nature Study – Snorkeling in Laguna Read More »
“Ugh…” is the typical reaction we have when we see a lot of kelp in the water at the beach. It sloshes around in the waves and wraps onto your legs and sits on the shore in stinky piles attracting millions of annoying flies. Lately I’ve felt differently. Which made me wonder: What is it
Nature Study – Kelp @ San Clemente Read More »
Here’s my almost-nine-year-old’s nature journal drawing from this morning – salvaged from the trash can after being torn out of his nature journal, crumpled up and put in the trash. I thought it was one of his best paintings. Unfortunately, jumping in the waves all day, getting too much sun, and staying up late
Crumpled Up Attitudes Read More »
Caspers Wilderness Park, located on Ortega Hwy (a freeway alternate to the Inland Empire that winds through the Santa Ana mountains and spits you out in Lake Elsinore) is one of the places that really starts getting you into the local mountains of Orange County. I recently took the kids to their Wildflower event and
My, this blog is sorely neglected lately! I have a million thoughts in a day to share and always good intentions to do so, and then of course real life ends up taking precedence. Let’s see, I thought I’d post about grammar a while back to tell you how I was caught completely off guard
Someone recently asked a question about Nature Study in the AO Yahoo group and after looking into it more, I posted a response, which I’d like to post here for the sake of sharing and also to be able to refer back to again in the future. I don’t know that my answer is ‘correct’
The Object of Nature Study Read More »