Green Hour Challenge #3
Week 3 for the Green Hour Challenge and this week we started drawing.
This week we talked about starting a nature journal, and this time my oldest was more excited about it. I told him that he was free to pick anything he wanted and we could talk about it and he could draw pictures of it. Leaves were on his mind a lot this week so I had him choose several different kinds that he liked. Instead of drawing we did some basic leaf rubbings with a crayon. We only did one page to begin with, but he’s excited to go out and gather some more leaves and do several more pages.
From the leaf rubbings we ended up talking about white clover, since those leaves he liked the best. In the Handbook Of Nature Studies one of the things mentioned about white clover is that bees use the flowers for their honey. So we pulled out the honey off the shelf and had biscuits and honey for a snack. Nature is sweet.
The pages to read for this week were 16-17. page 16 dealt mostly with a nature study being park of language work, but not telling the kids that. Secret learning when they are having too much fun to realize they are learning anything absorbs in best.
Nature study should be so much a part of the child’s thought and interest that it will naturally form a thought core for other subjects quite unconsciously on his part.
On page 17 the book talks more about drawing and art as part of a nature study.
From making crude and often meaningless pencil strokes, which is the entertainment of the young child, to the outlining of a leaf or some other simple and interesting natural object, is a normal step full of interest for the child because it is still self-expression.
April 4th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Great entry for the challenge. I really love making leaf rubbings and they make great nature journal entries.
Thanks for sharing your link,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
April 5th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
[...] Green Hour Challenge #3 - We did some fun leaf rubbings this week. In fact Evan has been collecting every leaf he sees all week and begging to do it again, and again, and again… [...]