Natural History (Nature Study) Simplified
My son found a Blue Jay feather. Holding the svelte shaft between his thumb and index finger, M gently twirled the feather, allowing it to capture the afternoon daylight. This mesmerised four little onlookers huddled in the living room, The hues of cobalt, navy blue, and indigo were striking.
Perhaps, while priming to skin a caterpillar, a certain blue gentleman was startled by another hungry opponent with blue feathers. And all that was left of a brief dispute was the feather that likely spiraled down and rested near the wild mint. M likely shoved the feather in a pocket of his cotton shorts and went on searching for a spot to cast his fishing pole.
After we fully delighted ourselves in the feather, the children and I spent a great deal of time noting other familiar birds in the Field Guide to Birds of North America.
Since that day, our feather collection grew. We have a number of feathers from a cardinal, a black bird, a chicken, and a blue heron. I hope to guide the boys to the kitchen island next week, where we will use a variety of mediums to capture the collection in art form (a fantastic way to develop attention to detail).
I normally omit words during nature study for the sake of observation and total immersion in nature. Still, my boys have plenty to say, and we usually have a nature guide of some sort in reach in case any curious leaves or flowers that grow along the pond catch our eye. My role is to guide the boys in such a way that nature is put in their way (much like strewing I spoke about), and then I get out of the way.
The nature journal is one of the few notebooks I have for M to use on his own time. He mentioned it was “not his thing” to capture the feather in his journal. That is OK. Aside from the date, I do not require him to add anything in his nature journal that he has no desire to.
The nature journal is much like a diary. I do not look through it to speculate a hint of progress, but I will add a written narration if he asks. What content he adds to the notebook, demonstrates what captivated his heart.
I really hope M will enjoy looking through his nature journal later in the year. It would be a delight to see nature’s marvels and the changes of seasons all in one book.
Here is a list of supplies I use for Nature Study. Most of these items can be found at any box stores as well as online shops like Amazon, eBay, and Thriftbooks.com (I even purchased a bulk of pencils from Poshmark!).
An artist’s notebook, a stack of watercolor paper, pencils, colored pencils, oil pastels, charcoal, acrylics, chalk, markers, watercolors, paintbrushes, Nature Guides, bird books, fishing books, nature journaling books, nature lore books (Old Mother West Wind and Burge’s “book of..” books are a great choice of starting a nature lore collection).
P.S. Nature lore books spark the imagination and I leaned on these living books quite heavily in the beginning of the curriculum only to find they were not all equally loved. My main student prefers Buckly’s Eyes and No Eyes for it’s short chapters and its realistic, personable children, as opposed to Burge’s talking animals (talking animals did not make sense to a past Montessorian).
