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The rose of love and beauty sings alone;
The violet's soul exhales in tenderest tone;
The lily's one pure simple note heard.
The cold Camellia only, stiff and white,
Rose without perfume, lily without grace,
When chilling winter shows his icy face,
Blooms for a world that vainly seeks delight.
Yet, in a theatre, or ball-room light,
I gladly see Camellias shining bright
Above some stately woman's raven hair,
Whose noble form fufils the heart's desire,
Like Grecian marbles warmed by Phidian fire.
We have several camellia shrubs in our yard. My favorite sign of fall is the camellia sasanqua, a native of the evergreen coastal forests of southern Japan, with its delicate white flowers with pink scalloped edges. We believe the people who built our house in 1910 must have planted it in the backyard. What started out as a shrub fools people into thinking it's a tree, nearly as tall as our two-story house! It shelters birds and feeds the insects. The last bloom emerges at the beginning of winter when the magenta camellia that houses our bird feeding station starts. All winter long camellias on either side of the house cheer me up and the one that borders the yard with the neighbor sustains the Baltimore orioles. Camellias lovingly remind me that spring is just around the corner.
Until last year, our nature study efforts occurred in fits and starts (I knew enough to share some great resources but lacked consistent application). This year, we have studied painted lady butterflies, lady bugs, pears, webworms, and wasps (blog to follow once winter kills off the wasps so we can study their nests). We have never studied flowers intensely enough to name the parts of the flowers and study their seed production cycle. I chose camellias because we have several varieties in our yard and can study them off and on during the winter. Another advantage is that, at any given moment, we can see every stage of seed production: bud, blossom, flower, browning, and fruit (nut) on one shrub.
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When I first tried using Handbook of Nature Study, I felt lost when I could not find things studied in the book. Barb over at Handbook of Nature Study blog helped me realize I could adapt lessons from the book. Since camellias are shrubs, I adapted Lesson 191 about another shrub (the mountain laurel) and developed my own lessons, which took about two weeks to complete. Because the camellia is a bug magnet, this lesson dovetailed nicely with the insects we have studied during the fall.
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Nature study crosses many disciplines. Besides improving attention span and the powers of observation, you can squeeze the grass between your toes on a gorgeous fall day. Pamela drew many beautiful pictures (art) and wrote many sentences (language arts) about what she saw. She is adding new botanical words to her vocabulary (science). Nature study is all that and a breath of fresh air!
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My Favorite Picture
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3 comments:
That is a really tall camellia bush! Wow, I don't think I have ever seen one so tall ever...love the way you determined the approx. height. Your daughter always does such a careful job on her journals and I agree that she sees many things in a unique way.
Great study and I appreciate that you are sharing it with the OHC. Thanks.
Love that poem and this post!
Reminds me of my grandmother's house who had planted flowering shrubs for every season. They also will leave a beautiful carpet ~~~ like the Autumn leaves.
This is wonderful! Your years using the association method and graphic organizers helped with adapting the lesson. That is what makes you such a good teacher for Pamela! Thanks for sharing this. Sincerely yours, Diane G.
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