I have found that it is a huge help in our homeschooling journey to have a community that supports each other through everything that we are going through. That's why I am grateful for the Home Edders community here. I always have a lot of takeaways every time I read through a post in this community. Those are really helpful in our homeschooling journey. I also joined a community within our homeschooling provider. It is also important that I get those interactions with fellow CM moms, we get to share our best practices, plus, my kid gets a lot of play time with her fellow LLH kids face to face.
Today, I learned a new thing about nature study. I have talked about how we do our nature study at home. Today, I learned another approach from a fellow CM Mom. We went out on a playdate/nature study at the Ayala Triangle park early this morning. The kids got an activity called the Nature Color Scavenger hunt. They were given a paper with different swatches of colors in it and they were instructed to look around the park and find any part of nature that corresponds to the colors on their sheet. I decided I'd join in. It was tiring but still so much fun. My role was mainly to just chaperone my little girl while she looks around. When she had a hard time finding some items for her scavenger hunt, she would say a ninja never gives up! Apparently, she's a ninja now.
We did the same activity at home not so long ago. Her task was to look for plants that has leaves with different colors. Then the next thing they did in the park was they gathered together to show their find. The next part was to draw the item that they find most interesting. The parents were each given a handbook, sort of a guide to doing nature study. Apparently, we were missing big chunk of activity when we do our nature study at home.
There are actually different ways to do Nature Study. It was all enumerated in the little handbook and I plan on applying each of them one by one - or maybe we can do them altogether at once. For today, I'd like to share one of the ways of doing nature study. That is to answer three questions:
- I noticed that...
- I wonder...
- This reminds me of...
So basically, the things we previously did in our nature study should still be done. Those are like the essentials and fundamentals of nature study. To focus the kid's attention to the nature we are studying, to write down their observations, and to draw or sketch the part of nature as close to reality as they possibly can.
After making the sketch and writing down the observations, their next step would be to write down what they noticed. Here, kids are encouraged to be as specific as possible. What to they see? There is a whole in the middle of the leaf. What do they hear? The bird sounds like it's crying. What do they feel? It's skin feels soft and delicate. What do they smell? What do they taste? In this part of the nature study, children are asked to use their senses and jot down their notes in their nature journal. It is actually a practice of the virtue of honesty. They should only write down the facts about what they actually observed.
After having them write down the facts, they are now encouraged to express their curiosity. I wonder how the leaf fell to the ground. I wonder if the bird got hurt when its feather fell. I wonder how long will it take for the flower to wither. I wonder how soon the ants will smell the crumbs on the floor. This part of the nature study lets them think and be comfortable with how curious they are. Afterall, their own curiosity is the best motivation for learning. Nature study trains them to always want to find things out.
The last part is to relate and connect what they observed to the other things that they have learned in the past. My daughter's observation was that the pod she found looked like a worm. Another kid connected the flower she saw to a lollipop. Charlotte Mason said that Education is a science of relations. Kids need to connect the dots by themselves in order for the ideas to remain in their memory. It will be easier to pull an answer right away during exams once those connection were formed in their brain on their own accord.
I told my daughter that we will be doing this format of nature studying moving forward and that we will also add all the other activities in the handbook. I'm glad that she was excited when she heard that.
After all the kids have shared their nature journal entries, they all were given time for free play. This might have been what they were all looking forward to. Since most of the parents there were 90's kids, we took the chance to teach them some of the street games we used to play. I don't know what it's called anymore but the goal was to be the first to get the handkerchief and bring it back to the base. The kids had fun running and rolling around, getting dirt all over their clothes. Just like how we were when we were kids. Oh such fun.
When we got home, I asked my daughter what she liked most about the cluster meetup. She said she was amazed at the nature journal of one of the moms because the drawing looked like she printed it out, but it was really just her painting. She was really inspired by it and says that she will practice so she could also produce those kinds of nature journal entry. Every time we go home from an event from our homeschooling provider, be it a major event or a cluster meet, she always goes home inspired and very much willing to learn. And that is what I liked most about today's cluster meetup. This just proves that being in the right community matters a lot in anyone's homeschooling journey. And I am very grateful for the communities that I am in right now.
