Free Nature Studies: Counting Up {Review}

Our Wonderful World: study questions and review. If you have made it this far, you have learned a great deal!

Read the current chapter online: “Counting Up: A Review”

Suggestions

Copy and illustrate Psalm 24:1.
We started the book by learning about our “backyard neighbors”: busy plowmen (earthworms), ant workers, spider weavers, the honey bee, and butterflies and moths.
Consult a dictionary and write down the meaning of the word neighbor. Add the definition Jesus gave in Luke 10:25-37. What do you have to show to be a good neighbor?
Jesus spoke of the following flowers, birds and animals mentioned in the lesson. If you haven’t already, copy and illustrate these verses:
- Lilies — Luke 12:27
- Grass — Matthew 6:30
- Foxes and birds — Luke 9:58
- Sparrows — Matthew 10:29-31
How do we know that Jesus wishes us to “treat with kindness all of God’s creatures?” Read Proverbs 12:10.
How can we know that God wishes us to know all we can about what He has created? Read Romans 1:20 and Psalm 19.
The next sections are a review of the material covered previously. These review questions and activities can be great narration helps and reviews, but will probably be more effective if covered at the end of each section rather than at the end of the entire 32 weeks. Your call! For ease of use, they are enumerated by section below.
Make a list of ways we can “make returns of thanks and praise and loving wonder to the Father who gave us these helpers.” Two are listed in the lesson to get you started. [Let every sight of them take our thoughts to Him, and look for ways in which we may make the world a little more beautiful/comfortable for others.]
Answer the final question: “What can you do, just where you live, and with just what you have, to show that you are as good a neighbor to others as you have found others are to you?”
This might be a good time to review The Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12).

Study Questions by Section

Part I: Backyard Neighbors
Busy Plowmen, Ant Workers (and Part II), Spider Weavers, Spiders and Their Nests, The Honey Bee, Butterflies and Moths

What facts about “back-yard neighbors” did you learn for the first time?
What new facts have you learned since you read those chapters in the first section?
Which of these neighbors do you think is the most helpful?
Which is the most interesting?
Which do you know best?
Which Bible verses about these neighbors do you like best? Why?

Part II: Feathered Friends
Hunting Birds With Eyes & Camera, Bird Guardians, Landlord to the Birds

How many feathered friends have you made since you began to study these lessons?
What is the most interesting story you have about one of them?
How many pictures can you show of their work as good neighbors?
Repeat all the Bible verses about birds that you know.

Part III: Garden Life
How Plants Grow, A Plant and Its Flower, Roots of Many Forms, Plants and Their Stems, Green Leaf Factories, A Field Daisy and Its Family, Bees and Flowers, Friendly Trees, Fruit Trees and Forests, Seed Homes, How Seeds Find New Homes, Our Daily Bread

Tell the story of your garden.
What was the first neighbor you met there this season?
If you have cared for your garden and watched it grow, who can you introduce to your garden neighbors (a sick child? a lonely shut-in?) and help to know a flower or a plant as a friend?

Part IV: Four-Footed Comrades
Dog Companions, A Faithful Servant (horses), Working Like Beavers (and Part II), Sheep and Their Shepherds

Of all your four-footed friends, which one do you think is the strongest?
The most interesting?
The most useful?
How many new four-footed friends have you made this year?
Write a story about one of them.

Part V: The Earth and Its Neighbors
Skyland and Cloudland, Neighbors in the Sky, A Story of the Rocks, Water and Ice

Have you tried to draw pictures of some of the skyland helpers?
It is great fun to make a “cloud census.” You must watch the clouds every day, and then with chalk laid on the side, or with a soft pencil on paper, try to copy some of the shapes, and then name them. You will soon have a rare and valuable collection of cloud friends.
Perhaps you may like better to try coloring the pictures with watercolors; and if you do not satisfy yourself the first time, or the second time, or the third time you try, then recall the old verse, and “try, try again!”

Activities

The Good Samaritan
One of the lessons from the free 325-Lesson Bible Curriculum at Calvary Chapel Children’s Ministries with coloring page, memory verse and activities.

I Am a Steward
2-page activity at LifeWay.com that focuses on being a good steward in all of the different areas of our life (scroll down to Stewardship).

Golden Rule Ruler
Make your own Golden Rule reminder ruler from SundaySchoolKids.com (scroll to bottom).