We really love Thornton Burgess books at our house. They have some quirks but I find these easy to get over. We love the Burgess Animal Book, Bird Book, Flower Book, Seashore book, and the animal-specific short novels for their story-based way of talking about aspects of nature. We aren’t formal with it; I just read as much as my 6yo daughter wants to hear (which is usually more than I would have read if I’d chosen myself! hee hee) and when our interest is sparked, we look up further information on the internet. For instance, the Animal Book so far has included a lot of animals we’re not familiar with in real life, because they’re not found in southern CA where we live. So we’ll look up videos and photos on the internet to see how they look and behave.
Here’s an example: The Burgess Flower Book is a wonderful old book with photos of each of the flowers discussed. Again, so far most of them have been unfamiliar to us, but I’ve been surprised to see how well my daughter has remembered them. My husband told me that the other night he was reading to her, and at the mention of the little girls collecting “Dutchman’s Breeches” in the book he was reading, my dd said, “Wait! I know that flower!” She went and got the Burgess book, flipped through it, and found the photo of Dutchman’s Breeches.
This was so thrilling to me. Not because I’m invested in my dd knowing how to identify flowers, though I do find that a rich way of knowing about the world. But because she was excited about it. The part of CM philosophy that delights me the most is the concept of children forming their own relationships with knowledge and discovery, rather than always depending on us to filter it for them and present it to them. This resonates so much with how I want to educate because it’s how I experience the world myself and always have, and until I read CM philosophy I didn’t know it could be described that way.
So when we do any kind of nature study, I try not to “get between” my dd and what we’re observing. If we’re out in nature, I generally keep quiet. I want to see what she’s drawn to, what she thinks about, what she observes. And I let her see what I’m excited about and drawn to (I may not keep quiet at that point!) but I don’t expect her to get as excited about it as I am if she’s not truly excited. So I’m probably somewhat the opposite of what you need, OP, in this sense, if you want more of a guide. I like using the Thornton Burgess books or Jim Arnosky’s Crinkleroot books, and also some visual guides we have that show us local flowers, mammals, butterflies. But I use those after the fact, not so much as what to look for. I use them when we want to learn more about something we’ve seen. What I always hope for is repeated exposure and repeated observation, because I think that’s part of what helps form a relationship: knowing that when you’re in this place, you may encounter this bird, for instance, and this bird will look and sound like this. I tend to think of the birds and other forms of life (animal, plant, etc) as “friends,” in a sense, and I have felt this way since I was a kid. Maybe a CM forum is one of the few places I can mention that part of my personality, but it does help explain why I love CM so much! I feel like “knowing” these features of our local environment is part of what helps us feel we have a place in the world and feel at home here, “bloom where we’re planted,” in a sense.
We live in urban Southern CA, so we have to make an effort to be in wide open spaces. But it’s been amazing to see how much nature we can observe and even cultivate in our own little yard. Having a bird feeder has been a great help to us. Planting bushes and flowers that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Collecting flowers and leaves as we take walks, pressing them and mounting them on cards, then hanging those on the wall.
The most talking I do in nature study is probably to praise and thank God for allowing us to see what He’s created and given us to see, how beautiful He’s made the world and how blessed we are to be able to enjoy it. This is a big part of nature study for us.
Well, I’ve gone on and on. I have a passion for this topic, apparently! HTH!
