Episode 146: Physical Geography

In the curriculum feast Charlotte Mason spreads for children is the subject of physical geography. This podcast episode will define how physical geography fits into the curriculum and the way it was developed throughout the forms.

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Home Education (Volume 1), Part II, Chapter IX

“Small Things may teach Great…Pictorial Geography.––But the mother, who knows better, will find a hundred opportunities to teach geography by the way: a duck-pond is a lake or an inland sea; any brooklet will serve to illustrate the great rivers of the world; a hillock grows into a mountain––an Alpine system; a hazel-copse suggests the mighty forests of the Amazon; a reedy swamp, the rice-fields of China; a meadow, the boundless prairies of the West; the pretty purple flowers of the common mallow is a text whereon to hang the cotton fields of the Southern States: indeed, the whole field of pictorial geography––maps may wait until by-and-by––may be covered in this way.” (1/72)

“The knowledge to be acquired must be gained by the experiences and discoveries of the children themselves. … the children during their daily outings should observe for themselves the action of wind, frost, and rain, the alteration caused to the landscape by a flood. Let a child once see for himself the action of ice on the rocks, how the windings of a stream are due to the peculiarities of the land, that the formation of a lake is similar to that of a roadside puddle, and there will be no more difficulty in learning or remembering the scientific terms which at the outset seemed hard. Moreover, instead of being dependent on their book for diagrams, the children will be able to draw these from their own observations, thus assuring full comprehension of the subject studied.” (Heath, C.N. The Uses of Books in Geography. PR 14)

Elementary Geography (Ambleside Geography Book I), Charlotte Mason (Online here)

Madam How and Lady Why, Kingsley

Outdoor Geography, Hatch

Physical Geography, Geikie (online here)

Physiography, Huxley

Last Child in the Woods, Louv

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Physical Geography in the Early Years through Form I

Geography Overview PDF

“Nature Study”, C. Cooper, Parents’ Review, Volume 20, pp.  337-348

Scouting Parents’ Review Pamphlet

Episode 131: Scouting

4 thoughts on “Episode 146: Physical Geography

    1. Admin Post author

      Good question! I can only speculate, but do think that it most likely was done in the mornings. If you take a look at the amount of reading set for the term, there would be plenty of time to include these in the morning lesson time. That isn’t to say that we would never do a plan or map in the afternoon, however, especially when the “data” was taken on walks, etc. It could be that a “geog trot” could be taken in the afternoon to gather the data, then the map/plan made the following morning.

  1. mks

    Did y’all say the Hatch book has been reprinted? I thought I heard that, but can’t find it anywhere in print.

    1. Admin Post author

      It had been until a month ago or so! Gyan Books had republished it in hardcover, but now the only option available is their leather-bound edition. Fortunately, it’s still online.

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