Weather reports predicted 90 degrees for our nature study day today. Enough heat to sway our plans to meet up at the botanical preserve. So some of us headed to a more shady trail while we opted for the beach. Having been the first week of summer heat after a long bout of June gloom, […]
His thoughts are wandering on forbidden pleasure, to the hindrance of his work; he pulls himself up, and deliberately fixes his attention on those incentives which have most power to make him work, the leisure and pleasure which follow honest labour, the duty which binds him to the fulfilling of his task. His thoughts run
A Disciplined Will Read More »
We saw this very unusual looking wasp today at the Niguel Botanical Preserve. The picture is not mine, unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me. © Copyright John Ascher, 2006-2010 It was one of those “What on earth is that!?!” sightings. Its thread-like waist was just so unusual, I stopped to get a closer
Isodontia Philadelphica – Grass Carrying Wasp Read More »
On the last night of our trip at the Childlight Conference, many of us gathered at the Broad River Greenway for a nature hike and listened to Janet Pressley play her awesome blues in an old cabin in the humid air, watching (and of course catching) fireflies. I wish I could have bottled a few
Broad River Greenway Read More »
I attended Deani Van Pelt’s workshop at the Childlight conference on Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition and its possible implications for education today and have been chewing on it ever since. Here is a little background on Mason’s Great Recognition in case it is new to you: In 1893, the year following the opening of the
I found this poem in a book I picked up at the Childlight conference for $3 called Readings and Recitations for Juniors by Eleanor O’Grady. The Discontented Buttercupby Sarah A. Jewett Down in a field, one day in June,The flowers all bloomed together,Save one, who tried to hide herself,And drooped, that pleasant weather. A robin
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This was my first year attending the Childlight Conference. It was an amazing experience and there is much to tell, but for this post, I must tell you some of what Carroll Smith said on Thursday morning in discussing A Framework for a Mason Curriculum. I am hoping they will make the mp3 available immediately
Do you get that thrill when you identify something new to you? Or something you have seen countless times but never had a name or an idea about it? I do. Our neighbor found this little bug on her back. My five year old helped me figure out what it was with our Kaufman Field
Insect Field Observations Read More »
I found this lovely poem today in an old copy of “Favorite Poems of Emily Dickinson”. I came across it at the library in the used books they were selling – along with Black Beauty, Stone Soup, and Famous Poets for Young People (which my daughter said “Pleeease can we get it?” {sigh of pure