Handbook of Nature Study / Anna Comstock

This book is dry. But very informative. I like to read it before we begin our nature study each week.

Great book that’s easy to get lost inside. Highly recommend!

Great book! Would recommend to any nature lover

At first glance, this may not seem very impressive. It may even be intimidating. It's an old book with black and white pictures, and it is HUGE. It is amazingly informative, a one-volume nature encyclopedia. You can download this for free online, but the electronic version is very unhandy, and mine does not include the photos or illustrations. The graphics and index make it well worth the money. I will be doing most of my homeschooling overseas, so I hesitated to purchase this, knowing it is for the US. But much of the information can be applied to nature anywhere. For example, we do not have the same kinds of earthworm or beetle species in the tropics, but we do have earthworms and beetles, so we can learn much from Comstock's book. Great resource!

Anna Botsford Comstock's book "Handbook of Nature Study" has been heralded by the public schools and home education parents as "the Bible of natural history" I fondly remember as a freshman our biology teacher using Ms Comstock's book as the spine for our biology course The Handbook of Nature is a hefty 887 page volume on the topic of nature study Ms Comstock devotes the first section of the book to the topic of "teaching nature study" This section is a "how to guide" which guides the educator in how to approach the topic and present it to their students From there the book is divided into three sections on "animals plants and earth and sky" Educators can use this book as their spine for teaching the topic of science or as a supplement to a pre-planned curriculum

Nature study is not just for crunchy granola back to nature tree hugger types You dont need to strap a two hundred pound backpack onto your aching spine and head off into some Blair Witch project area just to teach your younglings about trees and wildlife Color field guides are extremely helpful but you certainly dont need an advanced degree in botany to teach your child the difference between a morning glory and a daisy And almost one hundred years ago Ms Comstock recognized that and set about showing others the joy of introducing a child to the natural world with her book Handbook of Nature StudyThe first section covers the how-tos of her method This method encompasses all the core subject areas and is covered in further detail in the methodology section Subsequent sections cover the entire spectrum of the natural world There is an area devoted to animals which includes subsections on mammals fish birds and other branches of the animal family tree Another area is devoted to plants and covers trees wildflowers crops and even weeds But this is not just a biology and botany manual The third main area is devoted to the earth and sky and includes astronomy climatology and geologyLessons include an information section for the parent/teacher to read followed by observational questions to be asked of the student Easily utilized in a zoo botanical garden or local park even those in the most urban of areas will find incorporating this book into their lives relatively simple Best used with the 12 and under set the Handbook of Nature Study should have a place on every homeschoolers bookshelves