Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature StudyOntario. Department of Education
Science
Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study
Ontario. Department of Education
Nature study; Science -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- Ontario
Observe the helpless bird in its nest, helpless as a baby. See the care
given by the mother and father to keep it warm till its down and
feathers grow, to feed it till it is able to leave the nest. Watch the
parents teaching it to fly by repeated short flights. Olive Thorn Miller
in her _Bird Ways_ gives a delightful sketch of the father robin
teaching a young robin where to look for worms and how to dig them up.
When that task was accomplished, his father began to give him "music
lessons", that is, practice in imitating the Robin's song. Thus, the
young bird was equipped to make a living and to enjoy life. The social
life of birds, as they sing their matins, as they choose their mates, as
they gather in flocks preparatory to migration, furnish many
opportunities for indirect teaching on many of life's problems.
The Ontario Readers contain many poems that may be used in connection
with the Nature Study lessons. To supplement the observational studies
of birds, read from the Third Reader, "The Robin's Song", "The
Red-winged Blackbird", "The Sandpiper", "To the Cuckoo", "Bob White",
"The Lark and the Rook", "The Poet's Song".
In the Third Reader, the lessons on "The Fountain", "The Brook", "The
Tide River", and "A Song of the Sea" form a group that can be used in
connection with lessons in geography. "A Song for April", "An Apple
Orchard in the Spring", "The Gladness of Nature", "The Orchard", "A
Midsummer Song", "Corn-fields", "The Corn Song", "The Death of the
Flowers", "The Frost", "The Snow-storm", make another group to accompany
a study of the seasons. A similar group may be selected from the Fourth
Reader.
The pupil who has made a study of a "brook" as a lesson in geography and
defined it as "a small natural stream of water flowing from a spring or
fountain" will, if he studies the following lines from Tennyson's "The
Brook" and perceives by careful observation the descriptive accuracy and
aptness of the words in italics, realize that the poet sees much that
the geographer has not included in his definition.
I _chatter_ over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I _bubble_ into eddying bays,
I _babble_ on the pebbles.
* * *
I _slip_, I _slide_, I _gloom_, I _glance_.
Among my skimming swallows;
* * *
I _murmur_ under moon and stars.
* * *
I _linger_ by my shingly bars.
I _loiter_ round my cresses.
Correlations such as these add greatly to the pupil's interest in this
subject.
Given a teacher with a love of out-of-door life, with observant eyes and
ears, and the spirit that sympathizes with children's curiosity and
stimulates inquiry, Nature Study will be a joy and an inspiration to
pupils.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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