Level 1 SN Sample Units 1 and 2
Level 1 SN Sample Units 1 and 2
Level 1 SN Sample Units 1 and 2
Student Notebook
Level 1
Credits
This Student Notebook has been designed for K4-1st grade students. It includes copywork with
a very large, dashed font to accommodate strengthening motor skills. It also includes the Level 1
memory statement as copywork. Furthermore the activities includes are best presented orally with a
parent. The information presented is geared toward the first grade learner, so if a particular page feels
a little advanced for your 4 year old, be sure to accommodate or skip over that one. The vast majority
of content will work for children across this age group.
On the next page, you will find a schedule and checklist for completing this Notebook alongside
the full Nature program. Take this page as a suggestion and modify (or ignore it) according to your
preferences. This Notebook is a hybrid workbook/textbook/journal that you can fit into your weeks
in a number of ways. As with all Gentle + Classical programs, our aim is always guidance and a
framework with much room for flexibility to accommodate your goals and your students’ needs. The
various “quizzes” that are included throughout are also completely optional. As such, they are not
included in the schedule outlined but to be utilized as you see fit.
A fun tool is found at the very end of the this guide- Amaria and Zeke (our two friendly guides) are
available in paper doll format. Be sure to have them join you on adventures and as you complete your
Student Notebooks!
Unit 1
Day 2 No Notebook Work
Day 3 Copywork + Attainment
Day 4 Narration + Additional Activity
Project 1 Butterfly Metamorphosis
Unit 11 Unit 10
Day 1 Nature Nugget + Creature Corner
Day 2 No Notebook Work
Day 3 Copywork + Attainment
Day 4 Narration + Additional Activity
But how curious it is in form! Its body is short and round; its head is set on to its body
without any neck; and its limbs are placed on its sides, so that it can not stand, but only
squat. It has large staring eyes, that can look about on all sides; and when it opens its
mouth its whole head seems to split apart. It has webbed feet, and can swim well in the
water. It has no teeth, but lives upon grubs and flies and other insects. When a fly comes
within reach, the frog does not jump at it, but just darts out its long tongue, covered
with slime, so quickly that the fly is caught before it has time to stir.
It lives both upon land and in the water. When in the water, it can open and shut its
webbed feet like a fan, and so can swim rapidly. When upon the land, it can not walk
or run, but it gets along by hops. It sits on its hind feet, and suddenly straightens out
its hind legs, and away it goes in a great leap. When the cold weather comes, the frog
crawls into some hole, or under the bank near the water, and goes to sleep for the
winter. The cold does not kill him, and, when the warm spring days come, he wakes up
and comes out ready for the work which he is to do
In the spring of the year the frog lays its eggs in the water. These eggs are small and
round, but soon swell out to the size of a large pea. Each egg has in it a black speck, not
much larger than a pin’s head. This speck grows, and in the course of a few days out
comes a tadpole about half an inch long. Now, a tadpole has a round head, with a flat tail
on one side, but no body. The tadpole can swim with its tail, like a fish. On each side of
the head is a small tuft of soft pink threads. These are gills, through which it can breathe
the air which is in the water. Then the body grows, and in a short time two little legs
come out right where the tail joins the body. In a few days more two other legs come out
just back of the eyes, and then we have a tadpole with four legs.
But now another change takes place. Lungs for breathing air begin to grow inside, and
the gills become smaller. For a time the tadpole breathes partly in the water, with his
gills, and partly in the air, with his lungs. Next the gills dry up, and then it comes to the
top of the water to breathe; and it looks very much like a frog, except that it has a tail. At
last the tail shrinks away, and the tadpole has become a perfect frog. In hot weather all
Gentle + Classical Nature Level 1 2
these changes take place in a few weeks; but when it is cold, they take a longer time.
The frog, when full grown, can live on the land or in the water. It can stay under water
some time, but must come to the top to breathe. Each Mrs. Frog lays about one
thousand eggs, and if they all hatched and grew, every swampy country would soon be
overrun with frogs. But fish, birds, and serpents eat them in such numbers that they
only about hold their own year by year. Some kinds of frogs are also found to be good
food for men, and are caught for that purpose.
Frogs are lively and noisy in the first warm days of spring and summer. The little peeping
frogs keep up their shrill music all night and day, and with it we hear the deep voice of
the bull-frog, like a bass-drum heard at a distance. The bull-frog is the largest of the frog
kind. It eats worms, insects, and snails, and sometimes it even eats its own tadpoles.
In summer, we hear among the trees a shrill kind of whirring sound, which is kept up for
a long time without any pause. This is the song of the tree-frog, sometimes called the
tree-toad. This is a very small frog. It is born in the water, like other frogs; but when it
comes out in the spring, it climbs into the trees and lives there. Its feet spread out into
broad, flat toes, from the bottom of which comes out a sticky fluid. By means of these
toes, which partly act as suckers, the frog can crawl along on the under side of branches
without falling. The color of the tree-frog is so much like that of the wood it clings to
that it can not be seen unless we look very closely for it.
An excerpt from “Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors for Young Folks”
by James Johonnot, 1885
The Caterpillar
by Christina Rossetti
Brown and furry,
Caterpillar in a hurry;
Take your walk
To the shady leaf or stalk.
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Gentle + Classical Nature Level 1 6
Frog Life Cycle
Frogs are AH-MAZING! Let’s learn about their life cycle! They aren’t born as tiny frogs that grow into
adult frogs. They’re born as something completely different!
eggs
tadpole tadpole
7
with legs
Wildflower #1: Pink (or Swamp) Milkweed
(If this particular species of milkweed- or milkweed in general- isn’t available in your area, it’s more desirable
to find something local to you to observe in lieu of researching online. However, if resources are limited, utilize
online resources and books.)
Flower Factoids
Name: Asclepias incarnata - Swamp Milkweed, Western Swamp Milkweed, Pink
Milkweed, Eastern Swamp Milkweed
Location: One species of milkweed is found in every state except for Alaska. Pink
Milkweed is found in all but 6 states. You can find out more here: gcpress.tinyc.co/
milkweed
Milkweed is a beautiful and
Blooms: Late Summer important plant. Let’s listen
to how important it is to the
Height: 2-6 feet tall monarch butterfly. I hope you
can go on an adventure with
Flower Color: rosy-pink, red, white, or purple us and find some for yourself!
Butterflies begin as a tiny After 4 days, the egg hatches. After 2 weeks of eating,
egg. Monarch butterflies A tiny caterpillar emerges and the caterpillar will find a
only lay eggs on milkweed. begins to eat and grow. place to attach to a plant
and begin metamorphosis.
The caterpillar forms a When this pupa stage When the time is just right,
chrysalis. For 10 days, the is coming to an end, the the butterfly gently breaks
caterpillar “melts away” and chrysalis begins to thin and free of the chrysalis and
forms an entirely new body. appear clear. emerges.
Day ______
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If we would understand a fish, we must first go and catch one. This is not very
hard to do, for there are plenty of them in the little rushing brook or among
the lilies of the pond. Let us take a small hook, put on it an angleworm or a
grasshopper,—no need to seek an elaborate artificial fly,—and we will go out to
the old “swimming-hole” or the deep eddy at the root of the old stump where the
stream has gnawed away the bank in changing its course. Here we will find fishes,
and one of them will take the bait very soon. In one part of the country the first
fish that bites will be different from the first one taken in some other... Here we
will catch sunfishes of certain species, or maybe rock bass or catfish: any of these
will do for our purpose. But one of our sunfishes is especially beautiful—mottled
blue and golden and scarlet, with a long, black, ear-like appendage backward from
his gill-covers—and this one we will keep and hold for our first lesson in fishes.
It is a small fish, not longer than your hand most likely, but it can take the bait as
savagely as the best, swimming away with it with such force that you might think
from the vigor of its pull that you have a pickerel or a bass. But when it comes out
of the water you see a little, flapping, unhappy, living plate of brown and blue and
orange, with fins wide-spread and eyes red with rage.
When we look at the sunfish from the front we see that it has a sort of face, not
unlike that of higher animals. The big eyes, one on each side, stand out without
eyelids, but the fish can move them at will, so that once in a while he seems to
wink. There isn’t much of a nose between the eyes, but the mouth is very evident,
and the fish opens and shuts it as it breathes. We soon see that it breathes water,
taking it in through the mouth and letting it flow over the gills, and then out
through the opening behind the gill-covers.
Gentle + Classical Nature Level 1 12
If we take another fish—for we shall not kill this one—we shall see that in its
throat, behind the mouth-cavity, there are four rib-like bones on each side, above
the beginning of the gullet. These are the gill-arches, and on each one of them
there is a pair of rows of red fringes called the gills. Into each of these fringes
runs a blood-vessel. As the water passes over it the oxygen it contains is absorbed
through the skin of the gill-fringe into the blood, which thus becomes purified. In
the same manner the impurities of the blood pass out into the water, and go out
through the gill-openings behind. The fish needs to breathe just as we do, though
the apparatus of breathing is not the same. Just as the air becomes loaded with
impurities when many people breathe it, so does the water in our jar or aquarium
become foul if it is breathed over and over again by fishes. When a fish finds
the water bad he comes to the surface to gulp air, but his gills are not well fitted
to use undissolved air as a substitute for that contained in water. The rush of a
stream through the air purifies the water, and so again does the growth of water
plants, for these in the sunshine absorb and break up carbonic acid gas, and throw
out oxygen into the water.
The sunfish in the spawning time will build some sort of a nest of stones on the
bottom of the eddy, and then, when the eggs are laid, the male with flashing eye
and fins all spread will defend the place with a good deal of spirit. All this we
call instinct. He fights as well the first time as the last. The pressure of the eggs
suggests nest-building to the female. The presence of the eggs tells the male to
defend them. But the facts of the nest-building and nest protection are not very
well understood, and any boy who can watch them and describe them truly will be
able to add something to science.
Pond Ocean
Artist Unknown
Edward Manet
The Caterpillar
by Christina Rossetti
Brown and furry,
Caterpillar in a hurry;
Take your walk
To the shady leaf or stalk.
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Gentle + Classical Nature Level 1 16
Anatomy of a Fish
Practice saying the fish parts each day. If you are able to write, copying the
names is a great way to practice writing and spelling.
17
Wildflower #2: Black-eyed Susan
Flower Factoids
Name: Rudbeckia hirta- commonly called black-eyed Susan, Yellow or Ox-eye Daisy
Location: Native to eastern and central North America, but introduced to the western
portion of North America as well; grows naturally on roadsides and in fields but is
widely cultivated in gardens.
Blooms: June to September, in full sun
Height: 1 to 3 ft. tall, hairy, rough, usually I hope you’re able to find
unbranched, often tufted. a black-eyed Susan too!
If you aren’t- that’s OK.
Flower Color: Natively, a golden yellow color. I bet you have a GREAT
Breeding has created color variations such time and learn so much
as oranges, reds, and browns. just from looking!
Leaves: Oblong to lance-shaped, thick,
sparingly notched, rough; covered with From: Wild Flowers Worth Knowing
BY NELTJE BLANCHAN
“hairs” (hirta is Latin for “hairy”)
Gentle + Classical Nature Level 1
Wildflower #2: Black-eyed Susan
Noteable Notes
So very many weeds having come to our Eastern shores from Europe, and
marched farther and farther west year by year, it is but fair that black-eyed Susan,
a native of Western clover fields, should travel toward the Atlantic in bundles of
hay whenever she gets the chance, to repay Eastern farmers in their own coin.
Do these gorgeous heads know that all our showy rudbeckias--some with orange
red at the base of their ray florets--have become prime favorites of late years
in European gardens, so offering them still another chance to overrun the Old
World, to which so much American hay is shipped? Thrifty farmers may decry
the importation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the cone-flower
beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into paltry nothingness. Having been
instructed in the decorative usefulness of all this genus by European landscape
gardeners, we Americans now importune the Department of Agriculture for seeds
through members of Congress, even Representatives of States that have passed
stringent laws against the dissemination of “weeds.” Inasmuch as each black-eyed
Susan puts into daily operation the business methods of the white daisy, methods
which have become a sort of creed for the entire composite horde to live by, it is
plain that she may defy both farmers and legislators. Bees, wasps, flies, butterflies,
and beetles could not be kept away from an entertainer so generous; for while
the nectar in the deep, tubular brown florets may be drained only by long, slender
tongues, pollen is accessible to all. Any one who has had a jar of these yellow
daisies standing on a polished table indoors, and tried to keep its surface free from
a ring of golden dust around the flowers, knows how abundant their pollen is. The
black-eyed Susan, like the English sparrow, has come to stay--let farmers and law-
makers do what they will. -Wild Flowers Worth Knowing (Blanchan, 1917)