How does a homeschooling mom use living books to teach fact-heavy science? Answer—science isn’t fact-heavy; it’s a body of truths systematically arranged. Charlotte Mason called it the study of “the great scheme of the unity of life” (School Education, p. 156).

What is the best way to teach science? A picture-packed, glitzy book filled with facts cannot teach “the great scheme of unity of life” because it is too fragmented. Books that express these truths in a literate way and are followed by hands-on experimentation can.

Charlotte Mason put it this way:

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. For example, from Ethics of the Dust children derive a certain enthusiasm for crystals as such that their own unaided observation would be slow to afford. As a matter of fact the teaching of science in our schools has lost much of its educative value through a fatal and quite unnecessary divorce between science and the ‘humanities. (Philosophy of Education, p.223)

Ms. Mason was not opposed to textbooks, only to their exclusive use and that they are too often “dry and dumbed down.” 

Charlotte Mason recommended Fairy-Land of Science* by Arabella Buckley (1840 -1929) in several of her books. Buckley was a science editor and writer. Ms. Mason felt her works of a high literary quality and used them often in her schools. In Buckley’s preface to Fairy-Land of Science she wrote:

I have promised to introduce you today to the fairy-land of science –a somewhat bold promise, seeing that most of you probably look upon science as a bundle of dry facts, while fairy- land is all that is beautiful, and full of poetry and imagination.  But I thoroughly believe myself, and hope to prove to you, that science is full of beautiful pictures, of real poetry, and of wonder-working fairies; and what is more, I promise you they shall be true fairies, whom you will love just as much when you are old and grey-headed as when you are young; for you will be able to call them up wherever you wander by land or by sea, through meadow or through wood, through water or through air; and though they themselves will always remain invisible, yet you will see their wonderful poetry at work everywhere around you. 

 Here is a sample from Fairy-Land of Science for you:-)

The Life of the Primrose

We had a wonderful webinar last night on Nature Study for the Whole Family. If you couldn’t make it and still want to learn, contact me at lbcinfo@livingbookscurriculum.com .

Dara, a mom of  two, wrote the following this morning after the webinar:

You’ll be proud to know that today I took my two children to the “mog” as my husband calls it. It’s a stream/ small river that flows through town. We went to the portion just on the outskirts of town, which is surrounded by plenty of prairie grasses that we collected and compared to each other. I had never paid attention to the many different kinds of grass seeds there are. We saw baby ducks, a snake, red-wing black birds and a turtle. It was a very successful first visit. I promised the kids that we would visit again soon and bring some paper and paint brushes to better record our visit. Thank you for the inspiration.

Here are a few tips for a nature study lesson from our webinar:

Begin with what your child is already familiar.
Give abundant observations, few inferences ( if you have to talk, make observations, don’t give explanations).
Study a subject under natural conditions (reading about a natural topic is okay but no substitute for the real thing).
Discovery of a principles at work in nature is strengthened by oral expression (let your child talk about what he sees, rather than have you explain what you see.).

Five kinds of nature walks
Inside your house 
Yard
Nearby woods or other natural place
Park, Nature Center, botanical gardens, any organized display
Family vacations or outings to special areas