This week, we’re sharing a few volumes from the “Look About You” nature study series written by Thomas W. Hoare, an English nature study teacher in the early 1900s. These stories follow the activities of an uncle and his nieces and nephews as they explore the countryside and farm and really begin to pay attention to all the wonders of nature surrounding them. Each short chapter ends with some “hands on” experiment or activity for children, related to the topic. These books are exceptionally well done, are great for primary age nature study, and have great illustrations to boot. We highly recommend you check them out!
From the series introduction:
This little book should be used as a simple guide to the practical study of Nature rather than as a mere reader.
Every lesson herein set down has, during the author’s many years’ experience in teaching Nature Study, been taught by observation and practice again and again; and each time with satisfactory result. The materials required for the lessons are within everybody’s reach.
There is nothing that appeals to the heart of the ordinary child like living things, be they animal or vegetable, and there is no branch of education at the present day that bears, in the young mind, such excellent fruit as the study of the simple, living things around us.
Your child is nothing if not curious. He wants to understand everything that lives in his bright little world.
Nature Study involves so many ingenious little deductions, that the reasoning powers are almost constantly employed, and intelligence grows proportionately. The child’s powers of observation are stimulated, and his memory is cultivated in the way most pleasing to his inquiring nature. By drawing his specimens, no matter how roughly or rapidly, his eye is trained more thoroughly than any amount of enforced copying of stiff, uninteresting models of prisms, cones, etc., ever could train it.
The love of flowers and animals is one of the most commendable traits in the disposition of the wondering child, and ought to be encouraged above all others. A few lessons on Nature Phenomena are added.
It is the author’s fondest and most sanguine hope that his little pupils may study further the great book of Nature, whose broad pages are ever open to us, and whose silent answers to our manifold questions are never very difficult to read.
Today’s book is Volume 2. Topics include: Sowing Seeds – the Life of a Plant – Country Walks – Rabbits – Gulls – Spiders – Ants – and Grasshoppers.
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This book can be viewed and read online, or can be downloaded as kindle or epub ebooks.
Using Children’s Literature to Teach Science by Patricia Bishop McKean (PDF ebook with multiple PDF files)
Soar through the universe with the Hubble Space Telescope, exploring some of its most significant discoveries – from dark energy to colliding galaxies. Descend to Earth, where Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, readies for the future of astronomy.
EducationWorld has a great section of their website called “5 Minute Lesson Plans” – and that’s exactly what they are. Dozens and dozens of short, creative lessons in math, english, spelling, critical thinking, puzzles, measurement skills, and much more. Many of these include hands-on activities. This is a great page to bookmark and refer back to whenever you want to do some short activities to introduce new concepts, or review and reinforce your current studies.
MasterMath.info has 135 middle school math lessons available for 6th, 7th and 8th grade math plus Algebra 1. Each lesson includes a 12 – 20 minute video lesson, a worksheet, an answer sheet, a self-grading quiz showing corrections for missed problems, and a link to another web-resource that will help the student “master” the concept. All of this is free-of-charge, and they have a paid option for one-on-one online tutoring if your students need it.
SCIENCE TOY MAKER: Mysterious, Kinetic, Noisy, Do-It-Yourself Science Projects that Entice Scientific Investigation
“The Long Winter” by Laura Ingalls Wilder (MP3 audio dramatization)
Mary Mallon, a cook for several well-to-do families, seemed a healthy woman when a health inspector knocked on her door in 1907, yet she was in actuality the cause of several deadly typhoid outbreaks – and before long, she would become known as the infamous “Typhoid Mary”. (Did you notice the “eggs” she is cooking in this vintage illustration?)
Ever have a toothache? Be glad you didn’t have one 400 years ago. The poor soul in this picture can give you an idea of what it was like getting your teeth fixed way back when.