Nature Study

Thanks to my daddy, I love nature. He instilled in all of his children a deep sense of appreciation for the natural world. So it's not surprising that one thing I love most about the Charlotte Mason approach is the emphasis on Nature Study. Miss Mason believed that adults should nurture a child's love of and curiosity about the natural world through nature walks with children and close observation of things discovered in nature. Keeping a Nature Journal is a key part of the nature study.

After some looking, I found these really cool supplies at Tuesday Morning for our Nature Journals. Each child has a journal and a set of black pencils and colored pencils. I got them each a nifty little pencil box just for their Nature Journal pencils. I love these materials because they look so organic and they're made from recycled materials.





We've had a couple of opportunities in the past week to do a little nature study right in our backyard. Tonight, we looked out and noticed that we had a rather sizable mushroom growing beside our pool. We left the dinner dishes on the table, grabbed our Handbook of Nature Study (which is some of the best money I've ever spent...it's an amazing book), Nature Journals and pencils and went to check it out.



First we read all about mushrooms in our Handbook.

Then we observed.




We contemplated.



And finally we sketched.






And that was Science...and Art.