September Nature-Study 



Anna Botsford Comstock. 



Requests have come from many teachers to the author of the 

 Handbook of Nature-Study, asking her to prepare a list of topics for 

 a graded course in nature-study with special reference to this vol- 

 ume. There have seemed to the author many objections to such 

 a course. If she were teaching nature-study, she would surely 

 teach about the things she happened to find each day, whatever 

 the grade she were teaching. The Handbook of Nature-Study was 

 written with the idea that it would cover enough subjects so that 

 the teacher might be helped in studying many common outdoor 

 phenomena, and that is why there were 234 lessons written, when 

 publishers and wise men declared a hundred lessons ample for any 

 book. Moreover, 234 is an exceedingly small number of subjects 

 on which to found a graded nature-study course. Mother Nature 

 has provided at least two thousand subjects, all at hand and avail- 

 able. 



However, because many teachers and also the pupils in my 

 nature-study classes have assured me it would help them, I made 

 this a part of the work of the seminar with an advanced class last 

 year. I shall attempt to give in the Review the outlines for the 

 second, third, and fourth grades as thus worked out. I wish to 

 express my obligations to Miss Anna Woodward, Miss Alice Snow, 

 Miss Martha Whitworth and especially to Miss Adeline Thurston, 

 now teacher of nature-study in the New Paltz Normal School, for 

 their assistance in making this outline. 



To avoid repetition, where there is no title given before a page 

 reference, it will be found in the Handbook of Nature-Study. It 

 may be noticed that only a few topics are selected for each month. 

 This is to allow plenty of time for those lessons which the teacher 

 herself may choose to give. Also, lessons will be outlined which 

 are not in the Handbook of Nature-Study. 



SECOND GRADE. 



The buttercup — A buttercup plant potted and placed in the school 

 room window is a most desirable assistance in this lessom which 

 should be given early in September, while the plant is still blos- 

 soming. If a potted plant is not possible, there should be a bou- 

 quet of these cheerful posies brought in, which should show buds, 



280 



