REYNOLDS] OUT-OF-DOORS INDOORS 225 



kept in them? Have plants store rooms? What do we find in 

 them ? Bring all the plant store houses you can find for to-morrow's 

 lesson." Again, when the subject is the proper provision of food 

 for birds, the questioning as to types of food needed by children, 

 bread and meat and water will disclose the fact that most birds 

 need the same types. 



Another end sought is the doing of the same work at home. 

 Home Gardens, Home Bird Houses, Home Bird Feeding Troughs. 

 Carefully thought-out typewritten notes are sent home every 

 spring with the envelopes from the Cleveland Home Garden 

 Association and about three-fourths of our children have home 

 gardens. These help to make up for our lack of space for individ- 

 ual school gardens. 



We give two periods a week, about twenty minutes in length, 

 to the Nature-Study lessons. The related work is given in the 

 periods devoted to Music, Literature and Handwork. In the 

 Spring and Fall especially, we feel that the Nature-Study forms the 

 largest center of interest. These Nature-Study periods merely 

 start questions and help correct and interpret the outside experien- 

 ces. We take many short trips at the ends of sessions to observe 

 nearby objects of study. Our brook and our bank swallows are 

 carefully watched. Two or three longer trips are taken each 

 spring and fall. The ntatter of Hygiene receives more definite 

 attention during the winter months. 



In deciding the vexed question as to "What Nature-Study is," 

 we try to keep clearly in mind the meaning of the words. We feel 

 that it is not a species of "Kindergarten extension lectures;" that 

 it is not the telling of pretty stories about birds and flowers, though 

 we must and do have the stories ; that it is not the artistic arrange- 

 ment of bird pictures in a room though eighty-five out of our 

 hundred children are the proud possessors of the Audubon Bird 

 collection of pictures ; that it is not the drawing of golden rod nor 

 the singing of Helen Hunt Jackson's "September. ' ' We try to hold 

 to the thought that Nature-Study must be a real study of Life — 

 actual contact with life, working with life in varied forms, helping 

 change conditions, getting pleasure out of growing things, ques- 

 tioning, wondering, searching, recording in child ways the results 

 of study. We will use books as sources of help when our observa- 

 tions seem to conflict. Round this basis of truth as exact and 

 complete as the child can for the moment see, we may weave the 

 fabric of poetry and story, art and song. 



