Apple Picking

Yesterday for our Nature Group Day, we went up to North Georgia to pick apples at an apple orchard. The fall foliage was beautiful, and the apples were nice and ripe.

Our silly Nature Group... plus some littles.

The orchard with the foothills in the background... so beautiful!

We came home with pounds of apples, so now I have to figure out how to use them all. I see lots of apples crisps and pies in our near future, and I'm OK with it.

Field Trip at the Farm

This year, we are fortunate enough to be a part of a Nature Group with some friends and fellow homeschoolers. Every Friday afternoon, we get together and spend some time outdoors for Nature Study. We usually have a short nature lesson, sketch in our nature journals, and spend the rest of the time playing / exploring. 

Last week, we had a special Nature Group day at a local organic farm. We learned about everything from pollination to composting, and we got to meet some sweet animal friends as well...

Lucy and Alice got to brush a pony...

...and pet a sweet donkey.

We had a great time with our Nature Group at the farm, and we are excited to go back next year!

Phenology Wheel Updates

Remember our phenology wheels? We have been making some great progress, if you'd like to see...

Lucy's phenology wheel

My phenology wheel

Drawing does not come naturally to me. In fact, it is really difficult for me to not be critical of my own work. Fortunately, developing artistic ability is not the point of keeping these phenology wheels (though growing in this area might be an added bonus). The purpose is to be more intentional in our observations of nature. I used to have only a vague idea that I always heard the peepers in early spring, but I didn't know exactly when. Same with the blooming of the daffodils in our neighborhood, the blossoming of the Japanese magnolia trees, and the first fireflies of the year. Doing this exercise along with Lucy has helped me to pay attention to the calendar of the natural world, and maybe my drawing will improve in the process. At least, I can hope this will be the case!

Living Books

As I've mentioned before, we home-educate using Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education. One of the core tenets of this philosophy is the use of "living books".

Charlotte Mason said, "The selection of the first lesson-books is of grave importance, because it rests with these to give children the idea that knowledge is supremely attractive and that reading is delightful."

As someone who grew up reading textbooks in school, memorizing facts and information, it is so refreshing to read these "living books", which are filled with beautiful, "living" ideas. This particular book, Houses from the Sea by Alice E. Goudey, contains the same information about shells that a textbook would, but it is presented in a beautifully-written narrative. Lucy was captivated the entire time I was reading it and has asked to read it many times since. Unsurprisingly, we both learned so much about shells, and we can't wait to take these "living" ideas to the beach with us next week. 

"Give your child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of  information." 
- Charlotte Mason 

Signs of Spring

The other day on our Nature Walk, we went looking for signs of spring. Spoiler alert: they were everywhere!

All of the Japanese Magnolia trees in our neighborhood are starting to bud and bloom. They are so beautiful!

The girls found a tiny violet down by the creek. Lucy was so proud of this discovery.

the "shy little violet"

The weather was so warm and sunny for awhile, but it's back to cold and rainy. Hopefully our flower friends will survive these last, cold days of winter!

Phenology Wheels

The weather has been so cold and rainy the past couple of days, so we have been stuck indoors a lot. Today, we decided to make Phenology Wheels, which are basically Nature Study calendars. They are very pretty to look at when they are finished, and they are also quite useful for reference. I am no artist, but we had fun making them anyway!

Lucy accidentally recorded May and June instead of January and February, but it's an easy fix. I think her cardinal is quite good!

Learning along with Lucy is more fun than teaching her. 

We can't wait to see what our phenology wheels look like when they are finished!

Sun Printing

Today, since we had such beautiful weather, we tried out sun printing...

Lucy and Alice's collected subjects...

Sun print in progress...

... the finished product!

I treasure these slow, quiet days with my girls!

"In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air."   

 -  Charlotte Mason 

Fall?

It is finally - FINALLY - starting to feel more like fall. The mornings have been cooler lately, and the trees are starting to change color. We have been collecting leaves around our neighborhood, and the girls have had such fun identifying them - oak, sweet gum, dogwood, magnolia. (It helps that we don't have that many different types of trees!)

Of course, the afternoons still feel like summer. But hopefully, fall is just around the corner!

Nature Journaling

Part of our routine these days is to try to spend as much time outdoors as possible. This is certainly easier said than done. Between the heat and the bugs (not to mention that I am hugely pregnant), we would much rather sit inside in the air conditioning. But, I have found that going outside - even if it is just a little stroll through the woods in our backyard - is so good for our bodies and our attitudes. If we are having a hard day - complaining, whining, moodiness - some fresh air seems to be the magical cure.

As an added bonus, there is always something new to discover, wherever we happen to go. Lucy even started keeping a nature journal to record her observations.

{Lucy making a nature journal entry, after yesterday's Nature Walk.}

Charlotte Mason said, "It is infinitely well worth the mother's while to take some pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children spend hours daily amongst rural and natural objects; and, in the second place, to infuse into them, or rather, to cherish in them, the love of investigation..." 

How right she was! It is infinitely well-worth enduring the heat and the bugs just to see their little faces light up over the discovery of a mushroom or a spider's web. Their wonder at an acorn or a wildflower gives me new eyes to see that which I foolishly considered ordinary. 

"We are all meant to be naturalists, each in his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things."

- Charlotte Mason

Homeschooling Update

We have just begun our second week of homeschooling, so I wanted to share a little update on how things are going. Last week was very much about getting used to the new rhythm, and some things proved to be more challenging than expected. For one thing, the weather in Georgia has been extremely hot, and the mosquitoes have been even worse. This made spending time outdoors a bit of a challenge. We had to forego our forest exploration and head to our local park instead, where the mosquitoes were not quite so bad. Thankfully, today was cool and overcast, so we were able to take our first Nature Walk.

Lately, we have noticed these large web-like nests in the branches of our neighborhood trees. Today, we were finally able to get a closer look and learned that they are made by web worms, a type of caterpillar that builds its nest in late summer / early fall. Eventually, the web worms will emerge as a type of moth.

A close-up look at the web worm nests... I actually think they are kind of amazing.

Lucy has also been working on her reading. This is something that she initiated, and she has made some amazing progress. Last week, we started with reading the Mother Goose rhyme "I see the moon, and the moon sees me..." 

Today, Lucy was able to read the words even when they were out of order and all mixed up. She even put them back in the correct order. 

This month, we are reading books about the calendar, learning the seasons, holidays, days of the week, and months of the year. My favorite book that we read last week was Seasons by Blexbolex. 

The illustrations are really beautiful and simple, and many of the words are easy enough for Lucy to read herself. Highly recommend! 

Week 2, here we go!