-For the Children's Sake, S.S. Macaualy
"Look well at the child on your knee. In whatever condition you find him, look with reverence. We can only love and serve him and be his friend. We cannot own him. He is not ours." -For the Children's Sake, S.S. Macaualy "She dealt with them on an eye to eye level. She never felt that they weren't old enough to appreciate and think about things which she knew were good." "Having been treated as persons they are secure."
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I will be doing a series of posts this spring/summer that are re-posts from an old blog a few years ago. It's fun to go back and see what we did when we were younger and how we've grown since then! "Pressing flowers is a technique that has been in existence since the Victorian Era. The process was used to preserve plant specimens for cataloguing and identifying, as well as for art. Lewis and Clark collected and pressed many specimens on the Discovery Trail, a feat in itself when you consider the hardships they endured. This link takes you to a site that still contains preserved plants from their journey. Many of their plant specimens were destroyed before they returned to the East Coast. I was able to view an herbarium from the early 1800′s at a local museum, and it was amazing to see the color was still present in the specimens. The collection was very well preserved, every leaf and petal was in place." Quote taken from this site.
This is the press making information and general tutorial we used to make our flower presses a lovely little project to do for a handicraft. Each family made a press, and each child made a card using a pressed flower I had done ahead of time. This one is another great tutorial for making your own press. Instead of phone books, we cut 5 sheets of cardboard to layer inside, along with paper towels to lay the flowers on in between the cardboard. Water color paper would also work instead of paper towels. However, I have also pressed flowers using only thick books with no press around it. So don't let your lack of a press or ability to make one, hold you back from pressing flowers. Our flower presses are 10x10 in. and the cardboard inside ours is 8x8. The 3/8 bolts are 5 inches long. Great instructions for applying pressed flowers to paper can be found here. We used glue sticks and contact paper for basic supplies to make simple greeting cards. Like a moth to a flame, toddlers and chickens definitely go together, I do believe! This lovely sight was a new first for our book: First Canadian Goose nest discovered- which was being sat on until Little Eagle Eyes, quiet as he was being, accidentally startled the mama off into the water where daddy was clucking his disapproval of us. We made sure not too get too close. All we were going to do was to walk the shoreline and admire the diamond-y waves. These babies are as big as my palm! Wouldn't it be awesome catch a glimpse of the goslings later on? Words to a song that's been speaking to me:
Blessed are the ones who understand We've got nothing to bring but empty hands Nothing to hide and nothing to prove Our heartbreak brings us back to You And it all seems upside down 'Cause my whole world is caving in But I feel You now more than I did then How can I come to the end of me And somehow still have all I need God, I want to know You more Maybe this is how it starts I find You when I fall apart 1 Week ago : Sled ride/nature walk Yesterday: Planting carrots Today: Good thing it's under plastic! Happy May Day!
Winter is starting to feel really L.O.N.G. around here. We decided encourage spring thoughts and add a little bit of fresh and green to our table. I had been reading in these two books how this quick, easy and yummy little project is a great thing to do with kids. I have to agree. My 5yo thought it seemed like magic! We purchased seeds at a local food co-op but they came from Johnny Seed Catalog. We didn't buy a special container or lid, but just used leftover cheesecloth that came with our cheese making supplies and a mason jar. These homegrown alfalfa sprouts are tastier & more crisp than store-bought. We began sprouting them on Thursday morning and had our first taste by Monday. Yum! "...the function of education is to put the child in the way of relations proper to him, and to offer the inspiring idea which commonly initiates a relation."
"His little bit of knowledge is real science, because he gets it at first-hand..." "All the time he is storing up associations of delight which will come back for his refreshment when he is an old man." -C. Mason Our weather calendar is pretty simple. I just make up a blank calendar in a Word document with an image of a bird we are currently seeing at our feeder. This month is a chickadee to color in. The box at the top is for the photo I take of my son by the tree we're watching over the course of the year. We did this for preschool too and he loved it! October was his favorite month. Our elm was totally yellow and stunning.
On the first day of the new month we count out and write in the days of the month together and add the month's activities that pertain to my 5yo. He likes to know what's coming up. We color in the title. I put it and the days of the week in Spanish too. Then each school day we take a blank sticker and write a weather symbol pertaining to the current conditions. We sing the days of the week song up to the day we're on. We say the date in English and Spanish. I'm using the weather symbols from the book Natural Science Through the Seasons by James A. Partridge. Love all the ideas in this book!!! I am keeping this interest driven. So, if he gets sick of it, we'll take a step back and possibly just put on a star sticker that day and be done with it. It's pretty flexible and so far he's loving it! Something similar could easily be done in the back of a nature notebook as well. "Searching for tracks is one of the most exciting things to do in all of nature, for tracks are a direct link to an animal's presence; and you never know beforehand whose track you may discover." -quote from this favorite book on animal tracking. I tell my 5yo that we are pretty lucky that it's winter. We can get to know our little woodland animals in a special way that we don't get to in summer. We can be nature detectives and follow their tracks! We can see just where they went and guess what they might have been doing. He loves to find a fresh set and crawl alongside them to see where they lead, pretending to be the animal. Some we commonly see in our woods are deer, coon, squirrel, rabbit, mouse, chicken, cat and dog. The above mentioned book on tracking has sketches of life-sized prints that are incredibly helpful for little ones to recognize, since inches and numbers might not mean much to them yet and a rabbit vs. a squirrel track are deceptively similar. Mason says that each nature walk should afford one new thing to see and know. I didn't realize the truth in this until I made it a priority to really get to know our own woods better. We try to get out for a walk (however short due to cold temps) each day. It usually involves picking chicken eggs and bringing them the day's kitchen scraps, which they love! We put on all our warm gear, and I bundle up the baby in his tiny boots and an extra blanket. I pull him in his little sled behind me. He loves to lean over the edge and trail his fingerless mitten in the snow as we go along. Today's new discovery was a perfect set of squirrel prints, 4 front toes and 5 hind toes with even the claws and pads of the feet showing! At 31 degrees with a wintery mix of precipitation coming down on us, and morning church services cancelled due to slippery roads, the woods were calling. We took a glorious early afternoon walk in the fresh air. An untouched blanket of fresh snow dotted with drips from wet branches awaited us. I love a walk on a path with no human footprints yet. It is extra beautiful and refreshing. We (try to) walk slowly and quietly taking note of each little thing we see, at least the first time through. This photo of the squirrel tracks (above), you might notice, is incredibly similar to last winter's photo (below) of some perfect raccoon prints we came across. What I mean is, the snow is the exact same texture, even the melty drips are visible. I wonder if the temp that day was the same as today? Compare these two to the first photo on this blog entry where the temps were much colder (from my memory) and the snow a much different more powdery texture. Oh, the things you begin to notice when you start paying attention! After carefully examining, measuring, and identifying the print, we take a look at the track pattern (if we can see more prints.) Then we begin to listen, and look up and around the print for other clues. Today's tracks went around the base of a tree. On one branch some bark was scratched off. When we looked up, we saw nearby, what looked like a squirrel nest high in the tree-tops. I have SO. MANY. pictures. of prints in the snow around our farm! And each one is pretty to me. One day we saw teeny tiny mouse prints (about the size of a pencil eraser!) with a clear tail print trailing intermittently between the feet. I had never noticed such a thing. The tracks came out from a hole in the foundation of our old shed. We could tell from the direction the toes pointed that the little critter headed straight over to the drippy water spigot. My husband's footprints were visible around it, as he had filled the chicken waterer earlier that morning. It looked like the mouse got a drink, then walked around the base of the old elm tree (possibly looking for a store of seeds?) and then skittered back to his warm hole. That was another really cold day. It was that experience that got my son really excited to hunt for tracks. He seemed to internalize it, and begin to form a relationship with his newly acquired knowledge of that little critter's habits and personality after this real-life experience. I know some people think mice are disgusting, but I found the whole thing really cool! Since then, he has started noticing if the tracks we see are fresh or old (if snow has settled in them already.) He looks which direction they are going, and he notices the track pattern (squirrels and mice generally are more square and rabbits more triangular.) It might sound technical, but it really is fascinating to learn the ways we can know and describe God's creation a little better. Reading this book below also sparked his interest. Have I mentioned how much I love Millecent Selsam's books? There is a newer version of this, but we like the illustrations and order of the text much better in the old one. Look for this cover: Another book we like on the topic is Tracks and Trailcraft by Ellsworth Jaeger. In Volume 1, I think, I remember Mason mentioning the value of children learning "red indian trail games." This trailcraft book describes some interesting game ideas. I like the illustrations too! I found one bit of Native American history quite fascinating. It's about how fathers used to make/use special animal foot print stamps to teach their little children animal tracking.
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Welcome!
"I am recording this so that future generations will also praise the Lord for all He has done." -Psalm 102:18 I am a mama to 2 sweet brothers who aspires to a "thinking love" toward my children.
Take a peek into our journey towards a living education inspired by the writings of Charlotte Mason. Be sure to leave me a comment if you're inspired! I prefer to keep my text and images right here. Please don't copy without permission. Thanks! Categories
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August 2018
I Participate"In this field small efforts are honoured with great rewards, and we perceive that
the education we are giving exceeds all that we intended or imagined.”
- Mason “It may be that the souls of all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to delightful living.”
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