To My Love Upon the Occasion of our 10th Anniversary:
Swearing our marriage would endure down the years with fortitude for pain and faith for tears, we knew then only a hint of what love was and what our path would be. But the splendour is still upon us, high and pure...Thank you for enveloping me in your love and protection and care. There is no place I'd rather be than within the shining barrier with you and our olive shoots until His Kingdom come. Happy 10th Anniversary. I am so sorry we cannot be together today.
The Shining Barrier
This present glory, love, once-given grace,
The sum of blessing in a sure embrace,
Must not in creeping separateness decline
But be the centre of our whole design.
We know it’s love that keeps a love secure,
And only by love of love can love endure,
For self’s a killer, reckless of the cost,
And loves of lilactime unloved are lost.
We build our altar, then, to love and keep
The holy flame alight and never sleep:
This darling love shall deepen year by year,
And dearer shall we grow who are so dear.
The magic word is sharing: every stream
Of beauty, every faith and grief and dream;
Go hand in hand in gay companionship -
In sober death no sundering of the grip.
And into love all other loveliness
That we can tease from time we shall impress
Slows dawns and lilacs, traceries of the tress,
The spring and poems, stars and ancient seas.
This splendour is upon us, high and pure
As heaven: and we swear it shall endure:
Swear fortitude for pain and faith for tears
To hold our shining barrier down the years.
by the VanAukens from A Severe Mercy. The book that captured our imagination for what our love could be.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Preserving the Harvest: Freezing Veggies
So we have a ton of vegetables ready to eat in our garden. It's a combination of ideal conditions, lots of travel, and hubby being gone. So I decided to try my hand at freezing the extras.
After doing a bit of research online and in my food preservation books, I decided the easiest, tastiest, and healthiest method would be to prepare and wash the vegetables, blanch them for 1-3 minutes, immerse in an ice bath, dry and place in freezer bags.
So now we have a freezer of Kale, Swiss Chard, Spinach, Bush Green Beans, Peas, and Sugar Snap Peas! It seems that none of these vegetables will be able to stand alone as a side dish but mixed into soup, rice, pasta, or a casserole, they'll be great. And hopefully I'll like having lots of organic vegetables, basically prepared in the fall!
I checked Preserving Summer's Bounty out from our library and it has been so helpful! I decided to commit one morning to freezing our veggies and it only took about an hour. But an hour of work for local, cheap, organic vegetables in the winter will be worth it. It has me questioning if starting next summer we could live the 100-foot diet in our urban backyard!
I appreciated this tip from Preserving Summer's Bounty that saved time and hassle: when attempting to quickly cool blanched vegetables do not immerse them in an ice bath where they will lose more nutrients into the water when drained and you will need new ice for each water bath. Instead, just place the blanched vegetables into a small container and then settle them on top of a larger bowl of ice and then place a bag of ice on top. This worked very quickly and saved the step of draining the vegetables again once they were cooled. You can then pop the ice bag into the freezer to use again!!
This post is part of the Food Roots series at Nourishing Days. Go check out more entries on local, seasonal foods or what people are doing to find your food’s roots. Thanks for visiting!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The chance to see the sunrise
The baby has been waking up very early and I can't get her to go back to sleep. And I still get up once in the night to feed her too, so I've been extra groggy on these early mornings. But on this early, early morning as I sat by the window in my favorite chair, Bible in lap, coffee in hand, baby quietly playing with her wooden stack toy at my feet, I realized I wouldn't be up right now if she didn't wake me up!
I would like to think that despite RJ being away, I would still get up for my morning devotions but the truth is I probably would be trying to steal every chance at sleep I could get, thinking that with him gone I deserved it. Isn't it funny how often during the times we most need time devoted to prayer and scripture, we often don't do it? And so, these last few days though I may grumble at being woken so early, I have realized that this quiet time has so helped me to get through my day with the proper focus.
I also have appreciated the the Office of Morning Prayer from the BCP on these early mornings. Like an old friend, it gently leads me through all that I should pray for and the scripture I need for that day. Today it was the Collect for the Renewal of Life that encouraged, challenged, and convicted me, since a renewal of energy and life was what I needed:
O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the
night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive
far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your
law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having
done your will with cheerfulness while it was day, we may,
when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
I would like to think that despite RJ being away, I would still get up for my morning devotions but the truth is I probably would be trying to steal every chance at sleep I could get, thinking that with him gone I deserved it. Isn't it funny how often during the times we most need time devoted to prayer and scripture, we often don't do it? And so, these last few days though I may grumble at being woken so early, I have realized that this quiet time has so helped me to get through my day with the proper focus.
I also have appreciated the the Office of Morning Prayer from the BCP on these early mornings. Like an old friend, it gently leads me through all that I should pray for and the scripture I need for that day. Today it was the Collect for the Renewal of Life that encouraged, challenged, and convicted me, since a renewal of energy and life was what I needed:
O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the
night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive
far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your
law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having
done your will with cheerfulness while it was day, we may,
when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
As I sat in my old green chair watching the light dividing the day from the night, I prayed this prayer. Oh, that today, He will remove the wrong desires I have and my hearts inclination for my own path and give me a day of peace and cheerfulness. Even in the moment when I was looking forward to the night coming so I could go back to sleep, I was led to rejoice and give thanks.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Tuesday Review: Honey for a Child's Heart
I know, I know, it's Wednesday! I had this post almost ready to go for yesterday but just couldn't get a chance to sit at the computer! Having Hubby gone for 10 days now, I fell into bed at 8:15pm, read three pages and went straight to sleep!So here it is, better late than never:
I just finished Honey for a Child's Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life by Gladys Hunt and immediately bought one for my brother for his daughter's first birthday. I wish I had read it sooner.
This book is divided into two main sections. The first is 9 chapters on the importance of reading as a family and what it can look like: "a good book is a magic gateway into a wider world of wonder, beauty, delight and adventure" (p. 14). She writes that books can help children to savor life, find security, develop a compassionate heart and develop a way with words. She discusses how tv and a busy schedule are the enemy of reading and pleas "don't let your children live in spiritual poverty when abundance is available" (p.25).
She further explains what makes a good book, encourages the use of picture books, and explains what to do with reluctant readers. She even devotes a whole chapter for the subject of fantasy, a taboo for some Christians and a complete chapter for poetry!
Hunt's description of the family culture that can develop around books is an alluring one:
"Reading aloud as a family has bound us together, as sharing an adventure together always does. We do know the same people. We have gone through emotional crises together as we felt anger, sadness, fear, gladness, and tenderness in the world of the book we were reading. Something happens to us which is better experienced than described--a kind of enlarging of heart--when we encounter passages of grand language and nobility of thought" (p. 75).I appreciate that this book is written from a Christian perspective. She laments that "tragically, Christians often seem most inhibited and poverty-stricken in human expression and creativity" and encourages us that "Truth and excellence have a way of springing up all over the world, and our role as parents is to teach our children how to find and enjoy the riches of God and to reject what is mediocre and unworthy. (p. 17).
Dad Reading with Baby G in 2005
The second section is a bibliography with books every child should have the opportunity to enjoy from preschoolers to mature readers. There is also a poetry section and books that will help teens grow as Christians. Each book include a short, helpful description. As a literature teacher and mom of three I agreed heartily with the books I knew and look forward to finding these new suggestions at the library or adding them to our Amazon Wish List!
You can also check out Gladys Hunt's blog for more reading tips, like "Boys and Books" and "How to encourage preschool literacy."
I love getting book recommendations. What good books have you read lately? Leave suggestions in the comments or a link to a review from your own blog!
Any suggestions for choosing quality children's literature?
Embracing Motherhood
I just dropped off my oldest two children at their very first Vacation Bible School and really their very first experience away from me (besides Sunday School). We were all excited for them to go and all a little wide-eyed when we arrived!
As I walked out the door, I breathed an involuntary sigh of relief...Mothering 3 children under the age of 5 has been overwhelming at times and we are in the midst of 2 weeks without Daddy being home. I felt the freedom of holding and buckling in and out, just one baby.
But as I breathed the air from that sigh back in, I sucked back in all of a mother's worries...will they cry? will they make any friends? will this make them want to go to school? will this help them love Jesus more? will M. tell them if he has to go to the bathroom?
I drove home with all of these emotions and questions swirling through my head and two main thoughts about motherhood crystallized for me.
The first is that I am so grateful I have been able to stay at home with them. In a culture where "63 percent of the nation's children under five years of age are in some type of child-care arrangement every week," it can be hard to go against the flow.
It is easy to want the money working outside the home would bring . It is easy to want the lifestyle working outside the home would bring. There have been days over the last 4 years where I have doubted my decision to stay home.
But not today. Today, when I breathed back in those worries, I felt such joy that dropping them off at day-care/preschool has not been part of our normal routine. I realized how fast these 4 years have gone. Surely, it was just yesterday that G was the one I was taking out of the car seat. And with just the baby and I in the car, it felt so empty and the house is so silent without them now. Yes, it can be overwhelming to have a house full of little ones so dependent on me all day, day in and day out, for everything. But that need and dependence is the way it is supposed to be. And staying at home I have been able to give them the security of knowing each day I would be there. As they learn the very basics of how the world works, how to care for themselves, what authority means, who Jesus is, I have been there. A sure thing when everything else has been so new. And on that drive home, I was able to more fully realize the gift that motherhood can be for a child, a gift of the self for the child. And this laying down of one's life for another, is it not the very center of our faith, is it not the very core of the gospel? As Thomas Howard writes in Splendor in the Ordinary: The My-Life-For-Yours principle is the only one on which any life is possible at all because of the one "full perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."
And it is such a sweet sacrifice at that. Thomas Howard continues that the home "is a holy place, for in it the sacred mysteries are celebrated: the mysteries of love transfiguring duty into joy, and of laid-down life understood as the principle of all life, and of ordinariness hallowed by being offered up in oblation to the Giver of every good thing" (p. 28).
Howard writes that in the bonds of family we begin to discover that
And the second thing I discovered as I breathed in those worries was the gentle reminder that though I may believe that my "house full of little ones so dependent on me all day, day in and day out, for everything," it is simply not true. Yes, I believe God has called me at this stage of my children's lives to provide them with full-time security and care but it is He who is truly our only security in this world. No matter how hard I try, I can do nothing to keep them ultimately healthy, safe or happy. At my best moments, I am a mere shadow of His Care, His Authority and His Love.
And so "letting go" just for a few hours today, I have learned yet again how to embrace my role as mother with joy for all it means and for all it does not.
Thanks be to God!
And now I'm going to go pick them up :-)
As I walked out the door, I breathed an involuntary sigh of relief...Mothering 3 children under the age of 5 has been overwhelming at times and we are in the midst of 2 weeks without Daddy being home. I felt the freedom of holding and buckling in and out, just one baby.
But as I breathed the air from that sigh back in, I sucked back in all of a mother's worries...will they cry? will they make any friends? will this make them want to go to school? will this help them love Jesus more? will M. tell them if he has to go to the bathroom?
I drove home with all of these emotions and questions swirling through my head and two main thoughts about motherhood crystallized for me.
The first is that I am so grateful I have been able to stay at home with them. In a culture where "63 percent of the nation's children under five years of age are in some type of child-care arrangement every week," it can be hard to go against the flow.
It is easy to want the money working outside the home would bring . It is easy to want the lifestyle working outside the home would bring. There have been days over the last 4 years where I have doubted my decision to stay home.
But not today. Today, when I breathed back in those worries, I felt such joy that dropping them off at day-care/preschool has not been part of our normal routine. I realized how fast these 4 years have gone. Surely, it was just yesterday that G was the one I was taking out of the car seat. And with just the baby and I in the car, it felt so empty and the house is so silent without them now. Yes, it can be overwhelming to have a house full of little ones so dependent on me all day, day in and day out, for everything. But that need and dependence is the way it is supposed to be. And staying at home I have been able to give them the security of knowing each day I would be there. As they learn the very basics of how the world works, how to care for themselves, what authority means, who Jesus is, I have been there. A sure thing when everything else has been so new. And on that drive home, I was able to more fully realize the gift that motherhood can be for a child, a gift of the self for the child. And this laying down of one's life for another, is it not the very center of our faith, is it not the very core of the gospel? As Thomas Howard writes in Splendor in the Ordinary: The My-Life-For-Yours principle is the only one on which any life is possible at all because of the one "full perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."
And it is such a sweet sacrifice at that. Thomas Howard continues that the home "is a holy place, for in it the sacred mysteries are celebrated: the mysteries of love transfiguring duty into joy, and of laid-down life understood as the principle of all life, and of ordinariness hallowed by being offered up in oblation to the Giver of every good thing" (p. 28).
Howard writes that in the bonds of family we begin to discover that
"self-giving, freedom, and joy are all one thing. From the first coupling of the parents in desire for each other and for a child, through the carrying of the first child by the mother and the husband's consideration for his pregnant wife, on through the nursing and feeding, to the training of the children ('Say, "thank you,"' or 'Pick up your paper dolls,' or 'Stand up when your mother comes into the room') and the ordinary muddle of things done together, it is all the school of Charity. For is not Charity the name given to that final, perfect, gloriously free and blissful state where all the lessons have been so mastered that the rules [and even our the work as members of a family] have withered and all of us have won through to the capacity to experience as joy the thing that was hinted at in all our early lessons; namely, that My Life For Yours is the principle at the bottom of everything?" (p. 48).We ultimately receive so much more than we could ever give. Sacrifice, Duty, Work, Fatigue give way to Virtue, Care, Laughs, Joy, Freedom, Love. And with each child there is only more to receive.
And the second thing I discovered as I breathed in those worries was the gentle reminder that though I may believe that my "house full of little ones so dependent on me all day, day in and day out, for everything," it is simply not true. Yes, I believe God has called me at this stage of my children's lives to provide them with full-time security and care but it is He who is truly our only security in this world. No matter how hard I try, I can do nothing to keep them ultimately healthy, safe or happy. At my best moments, I am a mere shadow of His Care, His Authority and His Love.
And so "letting go" just for a few hours today, I have learned yet again how to embrace my role as mother with joy for all it means and for all it does not.
Thanks be to God!
And now I'm going to go pick them up :-)
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Freezer Jam Video Demonstration
For those of you who don't believe making strawberry freezer jam is easy, check out this demonstration video from Ball. Sometimes seeing is believing!
Strawberries, sugar, fruit pectin and a freezable container is all you need.
Strawberries, sugar, fruit pectin and a freezable container is all you need.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
My Summer Reading List
Here are the books I hope to read over the next few weeks while we're traveling or hubby is away from home. Most I was able to find at the library, if we don't already own them. We have a moratorium on book-buying until we can afford more book cases!!
But we don't always save up to buy books from one of our top 5 favorite book store in the country, the Inklings. The store owners have the "vision to promote 'the good, the true, and the beautiful,' with a special concern for fostering good reading from a Christian world-view." If you are in ever in Lynchburg, VA, you must stop to browse and enjoy a plate of Beignet!
I cried when the Harry W. Schwartz Bookstores, after 82 years in business and surviving the Great Depression, closed in the Milwaukee area this last year. Its founder was one of "the first champions of then-controversial 20th-century authors such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. He also sold erotically charged literature, including "Ulysses" by James Joyce and "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller." They made their business successful by knowing good books and the community. Schwartz distilled a philosophy he believed would help his small chain survive: A book is "a precious article that can change people's lives... it is a social prophet; we have a social contract. The bookshop is larger than a place of commerce. It really believes in the book and bookstores and the people. This is not something you can buy. This is not a clever marketing concept." But sadly this was not enough after all for this bookseller.
Evangelical is Not Enough by Thomas Howard
A User's Guide to Holy Eucharist by Christopher Webber
The Eucharistic Way by John Baycroft
rereading and working through Sabbath Living by Norman Wirzba
Homeschooling/Parenting:
Honey for a Child's Heart: the imaginative use of books in family life by Gladys Hunt
When Children Love to Learn by by Elaine Cooper, Eve Anderson, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, and Jack Beckman
A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola
Start The Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason if I can save up money to purchase it!
Fiction:
Home by Marilynne Robinson, sequel to Gilead
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
More of Wendell Berry's Port Williams series
Food/Gardening/Cooking:
The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food by Janet Chadwick
Ball's The Complete Book of Home Preserving
How to pick a peach:The search for Flavor from farm to table by Russ Parsons
Local Flavors by Deborah Madison
Slow Food Nation: Why our Food should be Good, Clean, and Fair by Carlo Petrini
Second Nature: A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan
Plenty: One Man, One Woman and a Racuous Year of Eating Locally by
The Green Gardener's Guide by Joe Lamp'l
With the Kids:
Classic picture books according to the letter of the week. This week is K-K-Kangaroo.
Little House on the Prairie at bedtime
Christian Books with the kids:
A Children's Guide to Worship by Ruth Boling
Come Worship with Me by Ruth Boling
A Child's Guide to the Holy Eucharist Commentary by Sarah Horton
What we do in church: An Anglican Child's activity book by Anne e. Kitch
The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes by Kenneth Taylor
But we don't always save up to buy books from one of our top 5 favorite book store in the country, the Inklings. The store owners have the "vision to promote 'the good, the true, and the beautiful,' with a special concern for fostering good reading from a Christian world-view." If you are in ever in Lynchburg, VA, you must stop to browse and enjoy a plate of Beignet!
I cried when the Harry W. Schwartz Bookstores, after 82 years in business and surviving the Great Depression, closed in the Milwaukee area this last year. Its founder was one of "the first champions of then-controversial 20th-century authors such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. He also sold erotically charged literature, including "Ulysses" by James Joyce and "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller." They made their business successful by knowing good books and the community. Schwartz distilled a philosophy he believed would help his small chain survive: A book is "a precious article that can change people's lives... it is a social prophet; we have a social contract. The bookshop is larger than a place of commerce. It really believes in the book and bookstores and the people. This is not something you can buy. This is not a clever marketing concept." But sadly this was not enough after all for this bookseller.
And I will cry again if the Inklings ever closes due to economics, the Internet or the big box "bookstore" chain.
So though I have linked the books to Amazon.com for easiest reference, if you have a great bookstore in your neighborhood like Schwartz or the Inklings, by all means, go now before it is too late!
Evangelical is Not Enough by Thomas Howard
A User's Guide to Holy Eucharist by Christopher Webber
The Eucharistic Way by John Baycroft
rereading and working through Sabbath Living by Norman Wirzba
Homeschooling/Parenting:
Honey for a Child's Heart: the imaginative use of books in family life by Gladys Hunt
When Children Love to Learn by by Elaine Cooper, Eve Anderson, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, and Jack Beckman
A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola
Start The Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason if I can save up money to purchase it!
Fiction:
Home by Marilynne Robinson, sequel to Gilead
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
More of Wendell Berry's Port Williams series
Food/Gardening/Cooking:
The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food by Janet Chadwick
Ball's The Complete Book of Home Preserving
How to pick a peach:The search for Flavor from farm to table by Russ Parsons
Local Flavors by Deborah Madison
Slow Food Nation: Why our Food should be Good, Clean, and Fair by Carlo Petrini
Second Nature: A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan
Plenty: One Man, One Woman and a Racuous Year of Eating Locally by
The Green Gardener's Guide by Joe Lamp'l
With the Kids:
Classic picture books according to the letter of the week. This week is K-K-Kangaroo.
Little House on the Prairie at bedtime
Christian Books with the kids:
A Children's Guide to Worship by Ruth Boling
Come Worship with Me by Ruth Boling
A Child's Guide to the Holy Eucharist Commentary by Sarah Horton
What we do in church: An Anglican Child's activity book by Anne e. Kitch
The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes by Kenneth Taylor
Monday, June 15, 2009
Nature Study at Tyler Arboretum
My husband and I have been going on long rambling nature walks since we started dating and continued when our babies were born. These walks are mostly time for us to be together out in God's creation. We talk and enjoy each others company; we are quiet and we observe. At times it is good exercise but with little ones in tow it is mostly a time of unstructured play and interaction with the natural world.
And then last year I discovered the British educator Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) from a homeschooling family we knew and fell in love with her philosophy of education and especially her ideas of nature study. Mason insisted that children get outside every day (much like the NWF's Green hour). She believed that children had a natural curiosity for the natural world and it was a parent's job to encourage it. So in the last year, we've tried to add the element of nature study to our walks. Keeping in mind that we don't want to change the feel of our rambling walks, we let the children freely roam and become lost in exploration of what piques their interest. And usually all of us find something we can observe closely together whether through our prompting or theirs: a bug or snake across our path, the moss on a fallen tree, a stream, leaves on the ground, new buds on the trees. We share what we know of the object right there and if appropriate learn more when we get home.
For many homeschooling family, a weekly nature walk fits into their schedule with some sort of journaling on the walk or at home. Children are either taught about a subject before they enter the trail and then sent to observe that aspect or find something on the walk they want to study in more detail once they return home or a mix of both.
I had thought my oldest daughter (4 1/2) and her friend were ready for nature study and wanted to try it without the distraction of younger siblings. So on a recent afternoon I had the opportunity to take them to the Tyler Arboretum. We went through their herb garden, meandered on the lawn of the house on the grounds, sat by a creek and practiced listening.
I had a backpack filled with all the needed supplies: colored pencils, good paper, magnifying glasses, water bottles, bug spray, sunscreen, the Nature Study Handbook, and a Field Guide for Trees.
Using their magnifying glasses to study ants.
A wonderful resource for nature study.
We then came across the leaves and blooms of the poplar tree and together studied the tree until we could identify it. The girls were so proud when they could find and identify another poplar leaf as we walked.
"we found another poplar!"
The girls showed such interest that we decided to lay down our blanket right there to do our nature study. We studied and described the details of the tree, its leaves and flowers. We were amazed to learn it is one of the biggest in PA.
the poplar towering over the girls.
Then I pulled out the paper and pencils and encouraged them to draw the poplar. I was amazed how engrossed they were. As Anne B. Comstock writes in the Handbook of Nature Study,
"When the child is interested in studying any object, she enjoys illustrating her observations with drawings; the happy absorption of children thus engaged is a delight to witness…The young, untutored child seeks to express herself…" (Comstock p.17)
“making crude and often meaningless pencil strokes, which is the entertainment of the young child, to the outlining of a leaf or some other simple and interesting natural object, is a normal step full of interest for [the child] because it is still self-expression” (Comstock p. 17).
Though they were the drawings of a 4 and 5 year old, they showed the close details of their observations.
"Too much have we emphasized drawing as an art; it may be an art, if the one who draws is an artist; but if he is not an artist, he still has a right to draw if it pleases him to do so" (Comstock p. 16).
They were then ready to get up again so we headed over to the pond when it started to rain.
It was a magical time, just the 3 of us staying dry under the branches of the big tree, enjoying an apple and the pitter-patter of rain. It was an afternoon of curiosity and discovery, fresh air and exercise, friendship and self-expression.
And then last year I discovered the British educator Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) from a homeschooling family we knew and fell in love with her philosophy of education and especially her ideas of nature study. Mason insisted that children get outside every day (much like the NWF's Green hour). She believed that children had a natural curiosity for the natural world and it was a parent's job to encourage it. So in the last year, we've tried to add the element of nature study to our walks. Keeping in mind that we don't want to change the feel of our rambling walks, we let the children freely roam and become lost in exploration of what piques their interest. And usually all of us find something we can observe closely together whether through our prompting or theirs: a bug or snake across our path, the moss on a fallen tree, a stream, leaves on the ground, new buds on the trees. We share what we know of the object right there and if appropriate learn more when we get home.
For many homeschooling family, a weekly nature walk fits into their schedule with some sort of journaling on the walk or at home. Children are either taught about a subject before they enter the trail and then sent to observe that aspect or find something on the walk they want to study in more detail once they return home or a mix of both.
I had thought my oldest daughter (4 1/2) and her friend were ready for nature study and wanted to try it without the distraction of younger siblings. So on a recent afternoon I had the opportunity to take them to the Tyler Arboretum. We went through their herb garden, meandered on the lawn of the house on the grounds, sat by a creek and practiced listening.
I had a backpack filled with all the needed supplies: colored pencils, good paper, magnifying glasses, water bottles, bug spray, sunscreen, the Nature Study Handbook, and a Field Guide for Trees.
Using their magnifying glasses to study ants.
A wonderful resource for nature study.
We then came across the leaves and blooms of the poplar tree and together studied the tree until we could identify it. The girls were so proud when they could find and identify another poplar leaf as we walked.
"we found another poplar!"
The girls showed such interest that we decided to lay down our blanket right there to do our nature study. We studied and described the details of the tree, its leaves and flowers. We were amazed to learn it is one of the biggest in PA.
the poplar towering over the girls.
Then I pulled out the paper and pencils and encouraged them to draw the poplar. I was amazed how engrossed they were. As Anne B. Comstock writes in the Handbook of Nature Study,
"When the child is interested in studying any object, she enjoys illustrating her observations with drawings; the happy absorption of children thus engaged is a delight to witness…The young, untutored child seeks to express herself…" (Comstock p.17)
“making crude and often meaningless pencil strokes, which is the entertainment of the young child, to the outlining of a leaf or some other simple and interesting natural object, is a normal step full of interest for [the child] because it is still self-expression” (Comstock p. 17).
Though they were the drawings of a 4 and 5 year old, they showed the close details of their observations.
"Too much have we emphasized drawing as an art; it may be an art, if the one who draws is an artist; but if he is not an artist, he still has a right to draw if it pleases him to do so" (Comstock p. 16).
They were then ready to get up again so we headed over to the pond when it started to rain.
It was a magical time, just the 3 of us staying dry under the branches of the big tree, enjoying an apple and the pitter-patter of rain. It was an afternoon of curiosity and discovery, fresh air and exercise, friendship and self-expression.
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