Investigate the Natural World
Companion Activities | See Dr. Jerry Flack’s Review of The Lost Words Here
1)
Write Haiku Poems
2) Discover etymology
3) create a nature journal
4) Paint watercolors
5) Listen to The Lost Words
Robert Macfarlane uses sophisticated and elegant acrostic verses to sing the praises of the “lost” words. Encourage students to read his tributes to words such as bluebell, lark, or willow. Using online resources students can gather a greater treasury of facts about each word. When children are confident that they have an ample understanding of a choice word from the natural world they can write a tribute using other verse forms such as haiku or rhyming couplets.
Encourage verbally gifted children to research the etymology of any of the twenty “lost” words that Macfarlane and Morris spotlight. Over centuries words develop a history that includes their origins and translations. What, for example, is the evolutionary story of the word ivy?
The combination of words and glorious illustrations in The Lost Words suggests a nature journal. Challenge children to study nature in the great outdoors or even in their own backyard or local park and begin a naturalist’s journal or sketchbook using their own format or one similar to the design of the creative work of Macfarlane and Morris.
The realist watercolor paintings of Jackie Morris featured in The Lost Words are obviously the work of a very mature and talented artist. However, the subject matter and the environments revealed in her artwork are not beyond the scope of young illustrators. Even quite young artists can sketch flowers, birds, animals, trees, streams, rocks, and wide-open skies. They can further combine images in paintings of their own such as placing a colorful song bird on a branch of a tree. Encourage children to study the artistic techniques of Jackie Morris and then begin their own portfolio of nature paintings using any artistic media of their choice. Look What I Did with A Leaf! (New York: Walker & Company, 1993) is a simple but creative book by Morteza E. Sohi. The author-illustrator demonstrates how children can employ pressed leaves of varied sizes, shapes, colors, and textures from tiny plants to giant trees to create animals and nature collages throughout every season of the year. What could be more appropriate for expanding the natural intelligence of children than to create wildlife art directly from dried flowers and leaves?
Readers should note that a superb 32-page “Explorer’s Guide to The Lost Words” written by Eva John has been designed especially to complement the publication of The Lost Words and may be found online at <www.johnmuirtrust.org/the-lost-words>. Entire pages of learning activities across all conceivable subject disciplines are devoted to each of the 20 nature words highlighted in the book. John emphasizes that The Lost Words is meant to be read and listened to by persons from six months to over 100 years old.
