Here’s my almost-nine-year-old’s nature journal drawing from this morning – salvaged from the trash can after being torn out of his nature journal, crumpled up and put in the trash. I thought it was one of his best paintings. Unfortunately, jumping in the waves all day, getting too much sun, and staying up late […]
Crumpled Up Attitudes Read More »
And dew-bright webs festoon the grassIn roadside fields at morning. ~Elizabeth AkersThe general shape of the web is like that of a broad funnel with a tube leading down at one side. This tube is used as a hiding place by the architect, the grass spider, which thus escapes the eyes of its enemies, and
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Now that our fourth child is just over a year old and toddling around on his two fat wobbly legs which carry him to investigate whatever interests him in the moment, I am finding myself back in the throes of training once again. Just to name a few things that have been of interest to
Training the Will of a One Year Old Read More »
The more observant one is, the more one can find in the natural world to inspire awe. Cultivating your child’s powers of observation is like handing that child an antidote against boredom and an inoculation from becoming jaded. I want my children to have what Douglas Wilson calls a Contempt for the Cool, and part
Our Nature Journals Lately Read More »
Laguna Coast Wilderness Park is full of blooms and ticks at this time of year. Here’s a list of what I can remember seeing in bloom today: White Sage Black Sage Bush Mallow Wild Grape California Everlasting Chalk Dudleya Night Shade Caterpillar Phacelia Jimson Weed Mexican Elderberry California Sunflower (Encelia) There were other yellow, telegraph
Nature Finds – 06/14/12 Read More »
Sometimes in homeschooling, we have to set aside doing school to do school in a different way. Today in Huntington Beach, several Charlotte Mason nature study groups got together for a handicraft fair, a chance to see what other families have been working on and to buy each others’ treasures. Charlotte Mason wrote about the
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A while back our friend from South Africa invited us for tea. What a pleasant surprise when we arrived to find fresh scones, or biscuits as she called them, homemade cream, jam, and other treats all arranged beautifully on a table with tea cups and saucers – each with a different floral pattern – little
Caspers Wilderness Park, located on Ortega Hwy (a freeway alternate to the Inland Empire that winds through the Santa Ana mountains and spits you out in Lake Elsinore) is one of the places that really starts getting you into the local mountains of Orange County. I recently took the kids to their Wildflower event and
One of my favorite things about reading Robinson Crusoe was his thoughtful reflections on what was happening in his life. The author gave us a window into the thought process in Crusoe’s mind as his character is forged through circumstances hand placed in his life by God Himself. I was reminded of this today as
We’ve completed reading through Henry V, our first Shakespeare play! Well, we’d read many of his plays in story form in Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, which I’m now re-reading with my 8yo son, but this was our first ‘real’ play in full Shakespeare language. Here’s a list of the Lamb’s tales we read over the
Shakespeare King Henry V Read More »