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