Green Hour 2
Week 2 (for me) of the Green Hour Challenge. This week we went outside and took some time to quietly pay attention to the nature around us. Getting my boys to be quiet outside is tricky enough, but we did manage to have some moments listening and looking around us.
When we were out part of the challenge was to ask them to describe some of the things they saw, heard, and felt. There was also an optional nature journal, though my oldest wasn’t interested at all. But I did record his answers to the questions for this week.
- One word to describe something they heard - tweeting
- Two words for something they saw - flying birds
- Three words for something they felt - soft, warm wind
This week’s reading was page 15 and pages 23 and 24 of the Handbook Of Nature Study. Page 15 has a short part of the field excursion as part of the nature study. This section notes that you do not need a long period of time set aside to study nature, it can be done in short 15 to 30 minute trips.
It is a mistake to think that a half day is necessary for a field lesson, since a very efficient field trip may be made during the ten or fifteen minutes at recess, If it is well planned. Certain questions and lines of investigation should be given the pupils before starting and given in such a manner as to make them thoroughly interested in discovering the facts.
Pages 23 and 24 covers more on how to use this book. The Handbook Of Nature Study, though thick with information, was not meant to be a field guide. The books is more useful as a guide for parents and teachers to help their children learn more about nature. One thing to use the book for is to help inspire your kids to learn more about what they see and hear in nature, but not to make it tedious work.
If the questions do not inspire the child to investigate, they are useless. To grind out answers to questions about any natural object is not nature-study, it is simply “grind,” a form of mental activity which is of much greater use when applied to spelling or the multiplication table than to the study of nature.
As more things are blooming and more animals are coming out I’m looking forward to taking an active interest in noticing them and learning more. We also have a small garden growing which brings a lot of nature to study right to us. Right now it’s just bugs and worms, but soon it will be butterflies and small animals. And of course the vegetables growing themselves.
nature, nature study, home education, homeschool, home school
March 28th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
For your second challenge, you are doing a great job. Don’t worry too much about having them be quiet…start off with small amounts of time, maybe even 30 seconds of being quiet. Make it a challenge or one mom told her boys to act like Indians that are hunting and that naturally led to their being silent for a few minutes while they imitated hunters.
It sounds like you got a lot out of the reading in the Handbook and that is soooo important. You are right, you need to learn how to guide them through their nature study. Great job Summer.
Thanks for sharing your link
Barb-Harmony Art Mom