44 The Nature-Study Exhibition 



" Walks are taken in the country, and a lesson is sometimes given in 

 the open air on a certain subject agreed upon before the children set out 

 for their walk, e.g. a lesson on autumn leaves an ivy leaf cowslips a 

 violet, and so forth. When the children return to school they repro- 

 duce in their own words an account of the lesson. 



" I make a rule once every month for them to write an essay entitled 

 the aspect of the country in June or March or August as the case may be. 

 I take them for a walk before they write the essay, and it is most 

 interesting, on reading the accounts, to notice how observant some of 

 the pupils are." 



C. Records. This section may be subdivided as fol- 

 lows : 



(1) Nature Note-books and Diaries. 



(2) Nature Calendars. 



(3) Nature Survey Maps. 



(4) Collections. 



(5) Weather Records. 



(1) Nature Note-books and Diaries. In some cases 

 pupils kept books or diaries in which observations were 

 noted down, and these compare favourably with those of 

 secondary schools. Almost invariably, note-books were used 

 where there were school gardens. At Swanton Morley National 

 School, Nature Notes in previous years were written in the 

 ordinary exercise - books. A suggestion of one of H.M. 

 Inspectors (Mr. Harrison), that they should be entered in a 

 special book and a space left for next year's entries for com- 

 parison, had recently been adopted; the books used were 



not, however, found to be large enough. In this last con- 

 nection see Harrowden School, page 66. The Nature-study 

 Note-books of Edith Knight showed in diary form the ob- 

 servations she had made in and out of school, and illustrate 

 the scheme of Nature-study teaching at Orlestone Board 

 School. 



(2) Nature Calendars. Selections from the children's 

 observations were in some cases made by the teachers for 



