Top 4 Benefits of Nature Study

Do you know that nature study is more than an academic requirement for the Charlotte Mason homeschool? Miss Mason is adamant about the benefits of plenty of outdoor time for the kids. But she also sets out a whole passage on the benefits of the sight-seeing exercises she describes as a sample nature study lesson.

Let’s take a look at how she describes this sight-seeing method:

How to See.—Find out all you can about that cottage at the foot of the hill; but do not pry about too much. Soon they are back, and there is a crowd of excited faces, and a hubbub of tongues, and random observations are shot breathlessly into the mother’s ear. ‘There are beehives.’ ‘We saw a lot of bees going into one.’ ‘There is a long garden.’ ‘Yes, and there are sunflowers in it.’ ‘And hen-and-chicken daisies and pansies.’ ‘And there’s a great deal of pretty blue flower with rough leaves, mother; what do you suppose it is?’ ‘Borage for the bees, most likely; they are very fond of it.’…

(volume 1, page 45)

Then, she goes on to describe the benefits of such sight-seeing play: 

Educational Uses of Sight-Seeing.—This is all play to the children, but the mother is doing invaluable work; she is training their powers of observation and expression, increasing their vocabulary and their range of ideas by giving them the name and the uses of an object at the right moment,—when they ask, ‘What is is?’ and ‘What is it for?’ And she is training her children in truthful habits, by making them careful to see the fact and to state it exactly, without omission or exaggeration. The child who describes, ‘A tall tree, going up into a point, with rather roundish leaves; not a pleasant tree for shade, because the branches all go up,’ deserves to learn the name of the tree, and anything her mother has to tell her about it. But the little bungler, who fails to make it clear whether he is describing an elm or a beech, should get no encouragement; not a foot should his mother move to see his tree, no coaxing should draw her into talk about it, until, in despair, he goes off, and comes back with some more certain note—rough or smooth bark, rough or smooth leaves,—then the mother considers, pronounces, and full of glee, he carries her off to see for himself. 

Do you see it? Here are the benefits: 

1. It trains their powers of observation.

When was the last time you were able to describe a landscape in such detail that you could still see it in your mind’s eye months later? This is the kind of power that we grant to our children when we train them in sight-seeing exercises!

2. It develops their communication skills.

When we give our children the responsibility of describing things in nature to us, we challenge their expression skills. When we help them identify the names of flora and fauna, or even parts of an insect, bird, or reptile, they also expand their vocabulary and their store of ideas.

3. It cultivates children’s truthfulness by discouraging exaggeration.

In nature study, when our children come back to us saying, “There were thousands of bees!” Miss Mason recommends us to pause and ask, “Thousands? Are you sure there were that many?” It helps our children keep their imaginations in check and be as accurate as possible. As a result, it also trains them in being truthful and avoiding exaggeration.

4. It encourages children to give detailed descriptions.

As Miss Mason recommends, we don’t give information the child who’s haphazard in his descriptions. Instead, we encourage them to pay attention and be more detailed so that they’re rewarded with the name of the object they’ve described.

Taking Time for Nature Study

We hope this encourages you to take time for nature study! Check these out if you need more nature study ideas, or to learn how to do nature study.