Everyone in my home loves nature study. When it’s warm and beautiful or even warm and rainy, we head outside to make observations, take photographs, and draw. But, with the combination of my pregnancy sickness and our seemingly never-ending Northeast winter, we’ve been inside a lot for nature studies lately. Here’s how we’ve made that work —
1. We’re reading living science books. Burgess Bird Book was a scheduled part of our Ambleside reading for this year. Living books are essentially not textbooks, but great books by a passionate author that also include teaching on a subject. Burgess Bird Book is a quintessential example of a living book. It is a series of stories told from the perspective of Peter Rabbit as he encounters different birds and some other small animals in the Old Orchard. Through the stories, we’ve learned, among other things, nest building techniques of different birds, a variety of birdsong sounds, and relations of bird families.
2. I ask questions. When I incorporate conversation naturally either during the reading or after it serves a few purposes: a) engages my littles in the story, b) encourages observations by them, and c) ensures their comprehension. I want my littles to not only enjoy the story, but also learn how to be engaged, critical readers. This seems to come more naturally for one of my littles, but I’ve seen growth in all of them this year.
3. Look up more information as desired. If we’re curious to see the way a bird flies after hearing it described, we look up a video online. If we want to see the differences between a male and female bird of the same species, we’ll search our books or online for images. We listen to birdsongs in our BirdSongs book.
4. While I read, my littles draw the bird we’re learning about in their creation journal. They start with light pencil sketching and add color. Through this exercise, not only have their drawing skills improved, but also their attention to detail. They’ve learned to look at everything from the varying coloring on birds to the length of their tail feathers to the shape of their beaks.
While spending time outdoors for nature study is ideal, this is working for us in this stage. Plus I’m still able to teach them one of the foundational skills of early scientific study by fostering their curiosity through careful observation.
For more on how we approach scientific study classically, check out At Home with the Classical Method – Teaching Science and How We Study Nature.
That pictures is beautiful! We are so happy to finally be able to get outside a bit now that spring is ‘slowly’ approaching. Good ideas for studying nature inside! We enjoy living nature books as well. We read that Among the….People books and we have one called Mr. Bluebird and his Neighbors. They are great for when you can’t get outside! Thanks for sharing these ideas!