Nature Study, FIMBY Style
{Originally published at FIMBY- Fun In My Backyard}
I love the idea of Charlotte Mason nature study. No doubt other educators and naturalists advocate this approach but I hadn’t heard of it before investigating CM philosophy.
Picture this: a child in the woods, with a drawing pad and pencil. Diligently sketching a leaf, stone, tree, flower or butterfly. We actually tried this once or twice last year.
Our reality: three kiddos running through the woods, building forts and fairy houses, pretending to be drunken pirates (my son’s latest fascination). We are city folk so when my kids are in the woods I am less than inclined to require then to sit and sketch. In fact I WANT them to run around like crazies, minus the drunken sailor bit.
Don’t get the wrong idea, we are all over nature study at our house. It’s an everyday occurrence but it looks more like this:
- The kids find a couple pieces of brown felt and some fleece from the fabric bin. A copy of the ancient vintage sewing book “The Big Book of Soft Toys” by Mabs Tyler inspires an afternoon of tracing, measuring, cutting, stitching & stuffing. Behold, “Silent Sam” and “Cocoa” are born.
Laurent and Silent Sam
