The seasons in Colorado, especially spring, aren’t exactly clearly-defined. Just the other day, I took the dogs on a morning walk through icy sleet, only to enjoy a hot, sunny afternoon at the park with the girls mere hours later. We dance between snow, rain, hail, and sunny 80 degree days from mid-March until, sometimes, the beginning of June. Even so, spring is magical. And it’s one of my favorite times to play hooky from table work in pursuit of muddy puddles and new, green sprouts.
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Any fellow Wildcraft fans out there? We got this game as a Christmas gift from my sister and, from the moment I opened it, I was in love. It’s got everything that makes my inner nature-nerd swoon! We’ve played it several times since then, and my daughters have already learned so much. We love incorporating games into our homeschool routine, so it was a perfect fit for our nature-based homeschool.
Spring is upon us! Soon the weather will be warming up and the inspirational Instragram posts will start flooding in, distracting us from our math lessons and laundry piles. Beautiful photos of wildflowers blanketing a mountainside, nests full of little blue eggs, and children romping through muddy, fresh-green fields will flash past us on our feed, urging us to bring out our inner-Charlotte Mason and dive full-throttle into the glory that is nature study.
Peanut butter and jelly. Peas and carrots. Peaches and cream. STEAM and nature study.
Yes, they belong together that much. This isn’t a new concept, it’s just that back in the olden days when we were kids, they didn’t call it “STEAM” (or “science, technology, engineering, art, and math.”) But we built forts, bridges, and hide-aways none the less. We forged ramps for our bikes, pulleys to get snacks to the top of the tree, and leaf crowns for our heads. We rigged up makeshift roller coasters, launched pinecones with homemade catapults, and sent crude little boats down drainage ditches. Most of us spent our childhood steeped in STEAM outside, from the time the sun came up until the street lights came on.
With all of the ideas and resources available to homeschoolers today, it can be really hard to resist the urge to do all the things. One hour on Pinterest and you can rack up a pretty hefty list of crafts to do, unit studies to execute, math games to try, and field trips to plan. Sometimes these fit in seamlessly with our existing plans. Sometimes, they forcefully wedge into them like linebackers, tackling any sense of rhythm we’ve worked so hard to establish and
Edwin Hubble said, “Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.” Of equal notability (in my humble opinion), Richard Louv said “If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.”
As homeschooling parents, we often project our impression of our learning time together onto our children. But how often do we take a step back to see the day through their eyes? Speaking for myself, not often enough. I know my girls are happy, stimulated, and learning–I can see it in their faces and their muddy toes, and I hear it in their dinner-time banter. But what do they remember most