"Secrets of the Woods" by Long: anyone read this? like it or have a substitution suggestion?

[serendipitous journey]

"Secrets of the Woods" by William J. Long is scheduled for our Ambleside Year 3 (term 2) reading, and I was wondering if any of y'all have read it?  Esp. if so, would you suggest keeping or subbing it? 

 

And regardless of whether you're familiar with that resource, do you have any living book suggestions for a 1/2 year study/reading about the woods?  We'll be adding

One Small square: Woods by Silver and maybe some Private Eye work and lots of time in woods. 

[stripe]

Have you taken a look at it yourself? It's pretty short.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1901

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=long&book=secrets&story=_contents

 

(I haven't used it, personally.)

[serendipitous journey]

okay, Stripe, you are making me feel so.lazy.   You are right: I'll go over it! 

 

on a serious note:  thank you for posting this.  :)  And for finding it free for me.  :grouphug:

[stripe]

okay, Stripe, you are making me feel so.lazy.   You are right: I'll go over it! 

Ha ha, I hope you didn't really feel that way! I felt like you were sending out a plea for help and no one else was posting! I wasn't sure if you knew it was freely available (some of these out of copyright books are hard to find) or that it was so short, so really, it wasn't meant to be a stupid post.  :grouphug:

 

Something about those names just didn't incline me to use it, but hey, maybe I will now! I am plodding through the Burgess sea book -- this is the second time I've started it! -- and I am determined to finish it. 

 

Burgess's animal book is about similar animals, I think.  Also Enid Blyton's Nature Lover Book might be of use, but it's OOP and not really affordable used, nor is it out of copyright. I haven't used Arabella Buckley's books, but she has one about the animals of the woods and fields (Baldwin link). John Burroughs also has some.

 

I do like Clara Dillingham Pierson's Among the -- People book. She has one about meadow animals (Baldwin project link) and forest animals (Baldwin link). I prefer her style of writing to Burgess's, but it kind of includes a moral, although it's not obnoxiously done. (She is the secular alternative to Mrs Gatty in Ambleside.)

[Amy Jo]

My middle son read it last year on his own (he was 9 at the time). I asked him, he said he liked the book & he'd give it 4 of 5 stars. I asked for something he learned and he said 'if you sit really quietly animals will come to you'. He gave good narrations on it, especially considering it was one of the harder books he read on his own.

[Kfamily]

I agree with previous posters that the Among the ...People series, especially Among the Forest People, might be a good choice. My younger daughter loved this series.:) I have three of the these books along with The Burgess Animal Book and two other books for Year Two in my curriculum. The theme for science that year revolves around zoology and some work with habitats. The Woods Scientist by Stephen Swinburne (Scientists in the Field Series) might fit the forest/woods theme.

[serendipitous journey]

thank you everybody!  The Among ... Series is a terrific option, esp. since I have the ebooks and haven't managed to work it into this year as I'd hoped.  "The Woods Scientist" and the Scientist in the Field series are things that seem very likely to go over well here, will research them further. 

 

 

Ha ha, I hope you didn't really feel that way! I felt like you were sending out a plea for help and no one else was posting! I wasn't sure if you knew it was freely available (some of these out of copyright books are hard to find) or that it was so short, so really, it wasn't meant to be a stupid post.  :grouphug:...

 

oh, it wasn't a stupid post -- and I was sending a plea out w/ no reply for quite a bit and am grateful! 

 

BTW, do you recommend the Burgess sea book?  We didn't finish animals when we had it scheduled for Year2, so that's another terrific thing to include next year; but we're doing ocean at the moment with Pagoo so this might be a good time to include Burgess (or we can plan to include it for A. when N. is doing Pagoo)...

[Susie in MS]

If you are interested in Secret of the Woods with b/w pics you can print, you can find it here. I like the half page format that make printing easy for me.

[stripe]

BTW, do you recommend the Burgess sea book?  We didn't finish animals when we had it scheduled for Year2, so that's another terrific thing to include next year; but we're doing ocean at the moment with Pagoo so this might be a good time to include Burgess (or we can plan to include it for A. when N. is doing Pagoo)...

I bought it in 2009, so I thought it was about time I used it. We are reading Pagoo too right now. It's stylistically similar to the others, with lots on crustaceans. I don't know if we need a field trip to the ocean or to Red Lobster for dinner! ;)

[Amy Jo]

I don't think the Among the ___ books are in the same class as the Long book. Not to say they aren't both good resources - but they do different things and it seems would be better for different audiences. My 2 cents. :)

[Susie in MS]

I was thinking along the same lines as Amy Jo. While my dd and I truly do like the Among books, they are different from Long. Long would require more maturity and attention span. Long's books are more like observations and the Among books are talking animals. Both are very good, just different.

[stripe]

I was thinking along the same lines as Amy Jo. While my dd and I truly do like the Among books, they are different from Long. Long would require more maturity and attention span. Long's books are more like observations and the Among books are talking animals. Both are very good, just different.

I totally agree, and that's why I compared Pierson to Burgess, but with a moral. But my kids have learned about animals from them.

[serendipitous journey]

I don't think the Among the ___ books are in the same class as the Long book. Not to say they aren't both good resources - but they do different things and it seems would be better for different audiences. My 2 cents. :)

 

 

I was thinking along the same lines as Amy Jo. While my dd and I truly do like the Among books, they are different from Long. Long would require more maturity and attention span. Long's books are more like observations and the Among books are talking animals. Both are very good, just different.

 

 

I totally agree, and that's why I compared Pierson to Burgess, but with a moral. But my kids have learned about animals from them.

 

I hear y'all.  We'd be running "Among" parallel to Long's.  The sections we've done with Among have been esp. useful for teaching social background to A.  One story had undercurrents of judging according to the status of a person's family, for ex., that were so foreign to A. he literally could not perceive them.  So we set it aside and will come back to it.  And there are discussions of rigidity regarding gender-specific work that are not part of A's world -- DH and I actually fall out pretty traditionally along gender-work lines, but he cleans & takes care of kids & can cook and I am handy around the shop and savvy with math, science and logic -- that was also useful. 

 

And there is nature info. in there, and it fosters interest.  All good!  I think the relative simplicity is why AO schedules as a replacement for Parables of Nature -- for morality, not nature. 

 

ETA: It may not have been clear that I find the "among" series to correspond well to our family's values of equality and practicality.