We’re approaching the end of our series on nature study. We hope you’ve enjoyed the posts and learned a lot from them. As we start wrapping things up this week, we want to share some of Charlotte’s counsel to parents. Here are ten do’s and don’ts that will help you guide your child in nature study.

  1. Do schedule regular time outdoors and encourage a spirit of investigation.

    “It is infinitely well worth the mother’s while to take some pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children spend hours daily amongst rural and natural objects; and, in the second place, to infuse into them, or rather to cherish in them, the love of investigation” (Vol. 1, p. 71).

  2. Do encourage your child to try to figure out answers to his questions rather than expecting you to do all the reasoning for him.

    “He must be accustomed to ask why — Why does the wind blow? Why does the river flow? Why is a leaf-bud sticky? And do not hurry to answer his questions for him; let him think his difficulties out so far as his small experience will carry him” (Vol. 1, p. 264).

  3. When you answer his questions, do make the answer living—not just facts from a textbook.

    “Above all, when you come to the rescue, let it not be in the ‘cut and dried’ formula of some miserable little text-book; let him have all the insight available, and you will find that on many scientific questions the child may be brought at once to the level of modern thought” (Vol. 1, p. 264).

  4. Don’t overwhelm your child with too much scientific terminology too soon.

    “Do not embarrass him with too much scientific nomenclature. If he discover for himself (helped, perhaps, by a leading question or two), by comparing an oyster and his cat, that some animals have backbones and some have not, it is less important that he should learn the terms vertebrate and invertebrate than that he should class the animals he meets with according to this difference” (Vol. 1, p. 265).

  5. Do give direction, sympathy, encouragement, and help with experiments.

    “The teacher affords direction, sympathy in studies, a vivifying word here and there, help in the making of experiments, etc.” (Vol. 6, p. 19).

  6. Do teach science through a combination of nature study, laboratory work, and living books, using both random and structured studies.

    “The only sound method of teaching science is to afford a due combination of field or laboratory work, with such literary comments and amplifications as the subject affords” (Vol. 6, p. 223).

  7. Do remember that dabbling in random scientific information is not the same as learning careful observation and understanding.

    “We may not confound a glib knowledge of scientific text-books with the patient investigation carried on by ourselves of some one order of natural objects; and it is this sort of investigation, in one direction or another, that is due from each of us. We can only cover a mere inch of the field of Science, it is true; but the attitude of mind we get in our own little bit of work helps us to the understanding of what is being done elsewhere, and we no longer conduct ourselves in this world of wonders like a gaping rustic at a fair” (Vol. 4, Book 2, p. 101).

  8. Don’t show your fear or distaste of something that interests your child.

    “If they see that the things which interest them are indifferent or disgusting to you, their pleasure in them vanishes, and that chapter in the book of Nature is closed to them” (Vol. 1, p. 58).

  9. Do share your child’s wonder and admiration for his nature discoveries.

    “One of the secrets of the educator is to present nothing as stale knowledge, but to put himself in the position of the child, and wonder and admire with him” (Vol. 1, p. 54).

  10. Do keep learning about science and nature yourself so you will have information to give your child as he desires it.

    “The mother cannot devote herself too much to this kind of reading, not only that she may read tit-bits to her children about matters they have come across, but that she may be able to answer their queries and direct their observation” (Vol. 1, pp. 64, 65).

Got any other do’s or don’ts that you would like to add? Leave a comment!

Next week’s post will be about nature study too, but more of an announcement than a teaching post. (Nope, no hints!)