P.O.P. Lesson Plans

P.O.P. Nature Study
Nature Notebooks for P.O.P. Nature Study


Written in 2002 (my children were 14, 12, 9, 4 years and a 4 month old):
"I have found myself cuddled on my outside swing with this book spread on my lap. It fits the season...the blooming azaleas to my back, newly up-turned dirt and fresh stones encircling the two tress on either side of me, and a freshly mown lawn before me..."

Subject: Pocketful of Pinecones Lesson Plans by Denise (used w/ permission 2002)
FALL

Chapter 1-1st day! Nature notebook and clipboard

Chapter 2-Books written by a Naturalist · Dune Boy-The Early Years of a Naturalist by Edwin Way Teale ( good for older boys)
· John Muir Exhibit http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/

Chapter 4-The Handbook of Nature Study

Chapter 5-Weedy wayside

Chapter 6-Bake an apple pie! Go to the park.

Chapter 7-leaf rubbings (for stationery?)

Chapter 8-make a bird feeder? Make and fill seed packets

Chapter9-bug jar (cheesecloth, twine, jar), manners

Chapter 10-Emily Dickinson poems, still life of fruit & veggies (in art book?)

Chapter 12-Thorton Burgess

· Old Mother West Wind

· Mother West Wind's Children

· The Burgess Bird Book for Children

Chapter 13-squirrels

Chapter 14-Nature Center?
WINTER

Chapter 17-stars, constellations

Chapter 18-narrating

Chapter 19-feed the birds

Chapter 21-animal tracks: need guides

Chapter 23-talk about County Fair

Chapter 24-Sunday Icebox Cake (dessert?)

Chapter 25-Tree Climbing (best: White Pine)

Chapter 26-Watercolor paints and brushes

· Beatrice Potter

· Redoute-The Man Who Painted Flowers by Carolyn Croll

· Birds of America by John J. Audubon

· http://www.wetcanvas.com/ArtSchool/Watercolors/RodWebb/

Chapter 28-Snow Crystals, by Wilson Bently

Chapter 29-Matthew 6:28-34
SPRING

Chapter 30-earthworm virtual dissection

Chapter 31-seed catalog, start/plant flowers

Chapter 32-put strings of yarn on tops of bushes for nest building

Chapter 33-bird songs site (http://www.naturesongs.com/birds.html)

Chapter 39-The Handbook of Nature Study: ants & ant hill, wild strawberry

Chapter 40-Timeline, (plant Purple Tulips & Johnny Jump-Ups)

Chapter 41-plant creeping phlox, smell Lily of the Valley

Chapter 42-1 hour backyard insect hunt (menu idea: fried fish, corn bread, pickles, asparagus with cheese sauce, custard for dessert)

Chapter 44-begin Heidi?
- Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney

Chapter 45-Sense & Sensibility, wildflower field guide

SUMMER

Chapter 47-prisms, cloud study

Chapter 48-plant strawberries

Chapter 49-picture study ('Art Gallery Stories'), go strawberry picking

Chapter 53-brook snooping

Chapter 54-clover chain

Chapter 55-list of herbs, (or Herbs and Herb Lore of Colonial America)

Chapter 57-identify mushrooms, local geography

Chapter 58-French (other second language?)
Suggested reading:

James Herriot (veterinarian) writes true animal stories

Christian Liberty's Nature Readers Books 3 & 4

(Art) Redoute-The Man Who Painted Flowers, by Carolyn Croll

(Art) The Story of John J. Audubon, by Joan Howard

Lives of the Hunted by Ernest Thompson Seton

Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holder (also on video)

Sunflower Houses-Garden Discoveries for Children of All Ages, by Sharon Lovejoy

Dune Boy-The Early Years of a Naturalist, by Edwin Way Teale (good for older boys)

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter (film also)

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss

The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth

Jacques-Yves Cousteau