The Nature Notebook, A Treasury of Memories

"As soon as he is able to keep it himself, a nature-diary is a source of delight to a child. Every day's walk gives him something to enter: three squirrels in a larch tree, a jay flying across such a field, a caterpillar climbing up a nettle, a snail eating a cabbage leaf, a spider dropping suddenly to the ground, where he found ground ivy, how it was growing and what plants were growing with it, how bindweed or ivy manages to climb.  Innumerable matters to record occur to the intelligent child."

The plants and trees have gone to sleep for the winter, but there was still such beauty to see on our nature walk.  A Hawthorn tree devoid of leaves revealed its long sharp thorns and bright red berries hanging from every branch.  It brought our minds to the crown of thorns our Savior wore as he hung on the cross and the berries a reminder of the blood shed for the sins of the world.  We were enchanted by the Spanish moss hanging from the leafless branches on a Live Oak tree.  On closer inspection we found Oakmoss lichen with its stringy hairs and blue green flakes covering many of the branches.  It was delightful sharing this nature study with friends as we explored the river under the bridge. We brought home a specimen, a piece of a branch from the Live Oak tree and plenty of memories of all we did and saw together.

On another day we pulled out our nature notebooks from the bookcase with all of our paints and brushes to record our nature walk.  Our jeweler's loupe allows us to see our specimen magnified 5x's.  I referred to my Handbook of Nature Study (HONS) by Anna Comstock to see what I could find about Spanish Moss, Lichen, and Hawthorn trees. It is a wonderful source of information, but on occasion our Texas flora and fauna are not found within its pages, so I go to the internet where I am able to identify our specimens. Did you know that Spanish moss is not a moss or a lichen? It gets all of its nutrients from sun and rainwater. On occasion a poem can be found in HONS relating to what we are studying and if we feel so inclined, add it to our nature notebook entry, but mostly it is a treasure of our memories and observations in nature.

I have chosen high quality spiral bound nature notebooks for us with heavy watercolor paper as most of our entries are painted with our paints.  Watercolor color paper seems to take the color very well allowing the colors to stand out without bleeding through to the other side of the page.  You are creating a keepsake to last a lifetime so quality is important.  We have used colored pencils, sketching pencils, watercolor crayons, and markers, but we continue to come back to the watercolor paints.  Why?  Because it allows you to take the time to really see your specimen.  You touch it with your eyes and mind in order to see every nuance of shape and hue.  You begin to know what you are painting in a way that is unique to any other observation.

The classic eight color Prang semi-moist watercolor set in the white box has been a perennial favorite and has produced beautiful colors in the paintings.  This year my sister gave me the Sakura Koi assorted water colors field sketch set for my birthday, which I have really enjoyed.  The variation in colors has allowed me a wider range to better capture the colors in nature.  It is important to have a variety of brush sizes, especially very fine tipped brushes, in order to paint fine detail.  Lately, we have experimented with aqua brushes that have the water in the handle. My boy used one in the picture above, but it was harder for him to control the amount of water.  What often results from excess water is a very washed out picture with little detail.  Below, I used conventional brushes, blending the colors in the pallet, and was able to paint a much more detailed picture.

Each year marches on with rapidly increasing speed, but these precious moments shared in the exploration and observation of God's beautiful creation with each other, will remain in your nature notebooks, captured and preserved.

The Privilege of Homeschooling the Charlotte Mason Way

As a homeschool educator I have the privilege to witness things that most parents miss with their children at school and I am very grateful for the opportunity.  This week was our first week back after summer break and I would like to share some observations from our week.

When we listened to Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, Firebird, and he listened to the story, I saw my son’s imagination take flight as he played out parts of the story and then he created a new story.

Dull textbooks, busy work, or worksheets have no part in my child’s education.  Instead he is presented with a wide variety of living books with vital ideas written by authors who are passionate about their subjects. His science book is Fabre’s Storybook of Science. This week’s readings sparked an intense interest in pearls and the ocean.  He was fascinated by mollusks, the slimy creature in its shell that would form a protective crystalline coating, nacre, around an irritant and the pearl divers that risked their lives in the days of old, to get them.  We watched a video I found on YouTube about the unique and rare Sea of Cortez pearls and were mesmerized by the beautiful array of colors in pink, blue, purple, green, silver and black.  I pulled out my big bag of shells and we looked at the different shades of mother of pearl and sorted them by their attributes.  It created a desire in him to see the ocean and feel the sand under his feet as he searches out shells.  Yes, there will be a trip to the shore in the near future.

Then nature study happened quite by surprise, while walking home from the neighbor’s house, he found a toad and captured it.   What a joy to observe his desire to care for the toad properly so that he may observe it.  He got out his book, Pets in a Jar, by Seymour Simon to learn about what it ate and how to care for it.  We found his toad on the internet and learned his Latin and common name.  Each day he searched out morsels for his toad, Robert, to eat such as worms and even a baby gecko.  I did cringe a bit at the gecko, but Robert ate it.  Everything was meticulously recorded in his nature notebook, first by carefully painting a picture, working to match the color properly with watercolor paints.  Then, he recorded everything that happened, being sure to include the Latin name, Bufo speciousus, and common name, Texas Toad as well.  I was there to watch his pleasure and satisfaction in a job well done.

While reading in his history books, This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall, George Washington’s World by Genevieve Foster, and Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution by Natalie Bober, I witnessed his growing understanding of the cost of war in lives, property, and civilization.  He is learning that our freedom was bought with a high price and what happens on our shores or in foreign lands, has a global impact.  He is coming to know that what happened in the past affects the present.

Through his citizenship book, Plutarch’s Lives, he can see that the character of a man can have an impact on others for good and evil. Through our grand conversations I see how he is taking in these ideas and it is growing his character.  We have the opportunity live out our faith by applying what we are reading in the Bible to our lives all day, every day.

We study artists, geography, Latin, grammar, foreign language; we read poetry from the best poets, literature with rich vocabulary and has stood the test of time, Shakespeare, and sing songs.    Every day I see him drink from the feast of knowledge that I present to him and it has created an even greater hunger to know.  I am a witness to how the ideas presented by the best artists, authors, creation, and Creator are shaping his character and equipping him to think for himself, to take in what he needs or what is right and reject the rest.  It is truly a privilege and an honor that I wish every parent could have.

The Method of a Lesson

What is the method for teaching a lesson in a Charlotte Mason education?  It is the method of a lesson and what comes before or after it that sets it apart from how lessons are taught in a traditional education.  This is where her philosophy is put into practice.

The following three videos are of educators from Ambleside Schools International as they explain Mason's lesson method and how to put it into practice.  What do you notice that is different than conventional schooling?

A Short Synopsis Of Charlotte Mason's Philosophy of Education

"No sooner doth the truth ... . .come into the soul's sight, but the soul knows her to be her first and old acquaintance."

"The consequence of truth is great; therefore the judgment of it must not be negligent." (Whichcote).


1. Children are born persons.

2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and for evil.

3. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but––

4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.

5. Therefore, we are limited to three educational instruments––the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas. The P.N.E.U. Motto is: "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life."

6. When we say that "education is an atmosphere," we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a 'child-environment' especially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the child's' level.

7. By "education is a discipline," we mean the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structures to habitual lines of thought, i.e., to our habits.

8. In saying that "education is a life," the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.

vol 6 pg xxx

9. We hold that the child's mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal; and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs.

10. Such a doctrine as e.g. the Herbartian, that the mind is a receptacle, lays the stress of education (the preparation of knowledge in enticing morsels duly ordered) upon the teacher. Children taught on this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching with little knowledge; and the teacher's axiom is,' what a child learns matters less than how he learns it."

11. But we, believing that the normal child has powers of mind which fit him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, give him a full and generous curriculum; taking care only that all knowledge offered him is vital, that is, that facts are not presented without their informing ideas. Out of this conception comes our principle that,––

12. "Education is the Science of Relations"; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––

"Those first-born affinities
"That fit our new existence to existing things."

13. In devising a SYLLABUS for a normal child, of whatever social class, three points must be considered:

(a) He requires much knowledge, for the mind needs sufficient food as much as does the body.

(b) The knowledge should be various, for sameness in mental diet does not create appetite (i.e., curiosity)

(c) Knowledge should be communicated in well-chosen language, because his attention responds naturally to what is conveyed in literary form.

14. As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should 'tell back' after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read.

15. A single reading is insisted on, because children have naturally great power of attention; but this force is dissipated by the re-reading of passages, and also, by questioning, summarising. and the like. Acting upon these and some other points in the behaviour of mind, we find that the educability of children is enormously greater than has hitherto been supposed, and is but little dependent on such circumstances as heredity and environment. Nor is the accuracy of this statement limited to clever children or to children of the educated classes: thousands of children in Elementary Schools respond freely to this method, which is based on the behaviour of mind.

16. There are two guides to moral and intellectual self-management to offer to children, which we may call 'the way of the will' and 'the way of the reason.'

17. The way of the will: Children should be taught, (a) to distinguish between 'I want' and 'I will.' (b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will. (c) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting. (d) That after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour. (This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may 'will' again with added power. The use of suggestion as an aid to the will is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character, It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.)

18. The way of reason: We teach children, too, not to 'lean (too confidently) to their own understanding'; because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration (a) of mathematical truth, (b) of an initial idea, accepted by the will. In the former case, reason is, practically, an infallible guide, but in the latter, it is not always a safe one; for, whether that idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.

19. Therefore, children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them. These principles should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need.

20. We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

Who is Charlotte Mason?

Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) was a British educator whose philosophy of education so accurately described how children learn naturally that it has withstood the test of time and is as relevant in our day as it was in hers.  She believed that children where persons capable of intelligent independent thought, in contrast to the common belief that children were blank slates to be written on by the teacher or an empty bucket to be filled with knowledge.  Mason believed, and I think correctly, that children are born persons with abilities, dispositions with the power of independent thought.  They need vital ideas to feed their growing minds rather than dry facts.  Rather than the teacher becoming the middle man dispensing filtered knowledge to the child, the child should do the work of dealing with the ideas and making connections.  Mason believed that education is “…an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”  It is about finding out how we fit into this universe that God has created for us.  Her philosophy of education has revolutionized thought on how children learn and therefore should be educated.  You can read Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series at http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/toc.html.