Science Heirarchy, Charlotte Mason and Classical Education

I keep coming back to the two methods mentioned above as my leading favorites in the homeschool style debate.  However, I don't think either one places adequate emphasis on math or science.  I should say, my two favorite CM websites, Ambleside Online and Mater Amabilis don't address math at all (up to the parents to find the curriculum) and science is, in my opinion, put in the backseat- 2-3 short lessons per week, in addition to nature study.  And I don't even want to get into religious biology texts... 



But, they do appear to approach science in a hierarchical manner, because they approach science as a history subject, and a lot of the science teachings correspond with the history books being read about Ancient Greece and Rome.  Not a bad system. 

As I already talked about, natural history seems to be an excellent start to a science education.  Here is the definition of Natural History, from wikipedia:

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals.^[1] Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a very broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. So while modern natural history dates historically from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the medieval Arabic world through to the scattered European Renaissance scientists working in near isolation, today's field is more of a cross discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences.

This seems to fit perfectly with the Charlotte Mason and Classical Education approach to science.  In terms of experiments, the child is doing mostly observational studies out in nature (nature study), which includes keeping a journal (for older kids) or a classification binder (my personal addition for the pre-writing crowd), and making collections (leaves, flowers, edible things from a garden, bugs...).  Starting in kindergarten or first grade, the child can add in science (not replacing nature study) as a formal subject.  After combing through the two websites mentioned above, and doing some research in the homeschooling forums, I feel ready to put together a very rough draft for the next few years.  See my next post.