A Little Bit of Selsam

My second grader is co-reading Pagoo by H.C. Holling with me this term.  However, on his schedule, he also has a day of independent natural history/science to read per week.  I love science, especially the life sciences, so no surprise my children do too.  Since starting on our CM journey and discovering that I can put in front of them wonderful books to meet our curiosity, well, I haven't been shy about it ; )

I have a nice selection of I Can Read and Find Out Science books.  These are just wonderful for those emergent readers.  A few weeks ago he happened upon one of the books in that section and thus a little bit of Millicent Selsam sent him searching for more (I happen to have a few of those as well).  We picked a handful to get him through the rest of our Term 2.  The first one on the list was Seeds and More Seeds.

Mrs. Selsam has written and/or illustrated various science and nature study books for young children.  What I enjoy most about her books is that one little thing that makes a book a good living book:  an idea "appears to feed in a curious way" Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, Volume 6 pg37. 

The love and admiration Mrs. Selsam had for science is within her words and illustrations.  Here is a simple obituary written by the New York Times in 1996; by the way, her MA was in botany.  I just giggled at some of phrases that were used: "nagging why's" and "simple science booklets".  Well, thank goodness for them.  I'm sure Ms. Mason would agree with me.  It doesn't have to be complicated and textual.  A genuine connection and relation can be had by placing good ideas in a very curious mind wanting to be fed.  As expected, each of my children will have a particular interest and it is my job to nurture and feed it. Right!? 

"Our business is to give children the great ideas of life, of religion, history, science; but it is the ideas we must give, clothed upon with facts as they occur, and must leave the child to deal with these as he chooses." Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, Volume 6 pg37-38

Needless to say, while we've done our bean in a bag experiment before, my son was eager to "do it again".  So we did :D 

He and his siblings were also eager to get some seeds planted in our little patch.  We did that too and we can't wait to see those growing.  It is that time of the year. 

Oh, can you guess what book is feeding mom's mind lately? ; )