Charlotte Mason’s philosophy emphasizes the use of nature walks to explain science to young children. God is visible in his creation. We just have to be observant enough to see it.
The kids and I take occasional nature walks and they keep a nature journal, documenting something they see on their journey.
Sometimes it may be something as beautiful as a flower.
Or as unusual as a family of wild turkeys crossing a bridge.
Other times we just go to explore the beauty of a meandering river
and the stillness of a lake.
They’re learning to become more observant of their surroundings and ask questions like little scientists should. We have a nature book that explains many concepts of nature and if we’re sitting down observing some element of nature, I’ll pull it out of our backpack and read a short clip. (i.e. explaining the water shedding ability of bird feathers). The book is found here and at 912 pages, it is quite exhaustive.
Collecting fall leaves is a wonderful pasttime
and an occasional Hansel and Gretel pretend path of rocks makes for an exciting return journey.
See our other Science Series units:
Making Rainbows
Caterpillars to Butterflies
Dinosaurs
Looking Inside The Earth with Playdoh
Nature Walks
Animal Classification
Tsunamis
Love those wild turkeys! Their earth showed so much of what they must have learned; super idea. :-). Thanks for your hard work, Olivia.