Exploring Creation with Botany

This is an in-depth study of the plant kingdom written for students six to twelve years of age. In keeping with the engaging, Charlotte Mason style narratives of the Astronomy book, explanations and descriptions are all written at a young student’s comprehension and reading level. You will not have to stop and define words. Everything is explained in a way that students of every age can understand.

This curriculum excitedly delves into plant taxonomy, binomial nomenclature, plant reproduction, angiosperm, gymnosperm, and sporangia – both vascular and non vascular. Confused? Then, you too will love reading this book with your students. You will all learn so much as you study God’s purpose for a flower, and what transpires once the butterfly has departed. You and your children will enjoy nature study with new fervor as you are able to actually identify and name the plant structures you find.

The last lesson gives instruction on nature notebooking – helping your young naturalist develop the life long habit of observing nature and enjoying God’s creation. They will even make their own nature notebooks to take on walks. Nature walks, hikes and camping will take on new meaning as you and your students comprehend the complexity and diversity God created within the Kingdom Plantae.

There are thirteen lessons in this year long course with narration prompts sprinkled throughout each lesson, encouraging the children to verbalize what they just learned. This act of narration replaces boring fill-in-the-blank worksheets and helps the child to lock the information into his/her mind. In addition, one or more interesting and relevant activities are included to break up the lesson. For example, the students will halt their reading momentarily to put a plastic bag over a leaf from either a house plant or an outside plant. They will then measure the amount of transpiration (water released from leaf) the bag accumulates. This is done mid-lesson to give the students a hands on approach to learning as well as to reinforce the material before moving on to other aspects of the leaf.

The lesson ends with a final writing assignment for the notebook. Examples include: making a comic strip of a bee’s visit to a flower, writing a story about the life of one leaf, or pulling up weeds in the yard, illustrating and labeling their root structure. The child is also asked to recount all that he remembers from the lesson, which draws upon the whole child to recount his learning, involving him in the process. Older children will write this information down, while younger children can dictate it or simply create illustrations. The result will be a wonderful scrapbook of Botany that they will treasure for years and years. In addition, every time they peruse their work – review is happening! To read more about the benefits of notebooking, see the notebooking link as well as read the Astronomy page.

Each lesson also ends with a related experiment, such as germinating seeds in three different conditions using the scientific method.

It is my prayer that both your study of nature and your family’s love for God’s amazing creation will be enhanced with this curriculum, Exploring Creation with Botany.