Winter Nature Study Y'all

Let's face it! When the temperatures are below freezing, it's hard to muster the mojo to walk. (For folks down south, hot, humid, mosquito-mired days in July are no picnic). Whatever your obstacle, it's worth keeping the habit of a long, weekly walk. Our sweet spot is Santee National Wildlife Refuge, and, while it's twenty minutes from my house and ten minutes from our school, I don't mind the drive once a week. Here are a few tips, one or two gleaned from the AO forum which I encourage you to join because of their collective wisdom.

• Find a like-minded kindred spirit to walk with your family. Make a commitment with one another to walk the same place at the same time every week.
• Bring and wear what you need to be comfortable: hats, gloves, mittens, scarves, layers, boots, raingear, sunscreen, insect repellant, etc.
• Set a temperature limit (minimum and maximum) and use that to buck yourself up when it's cold but not too cold and hot but not too hot.
• Practice the habit of cheerful resilience. We have sayings to go with the weather: "Harvest kids don't melt/ freeze to death/blubber." (The kids reading Carry On, Mr. Bowditch coined that last one.)
• Take pictures to help you research what is out there. Let older children take their own pictures if they use it for nature study.
• Keep a family nature notebook for the little ones and scaffold them into doing their own when they are ready. Record common names and Latin names of what you see whenever possible.
• Keep a list of what you find at the back of your notebook like the one Laurie Bestvator shared in her book The Living Page. It becomes a handy reference during notebooking time.
• Let them develop their own names of places: we have the castles and moats, rock mountain, the frog pond, the boat ramp pond, the binocular boardwalk, the swamp boardwalk, etc.

Just over a week ago, we experienced a "long" period of freezing temperature. My friends from up North, please make sure you have no coffee or tea in your mouth. Thirty-six consecutive hours of temperatures well below freezing is long for us — especially when your house is not insulated!

We decided to make Friday's walk optional since it began just as the thermometer began passing 32 degrees Fahrenheit. My group headed straight to the water where the deer drink. Watching them play in the ice was like seeing Lucy explore Narnian snow for the first time. Ice is a rare treat for us. Seeing a section of our lake iced over is extremely rare. Rather than drag them out of the ice and walk the whole trail because that is what we do every week, I let them explore and play with ice. As you can see in the pictures, they had a BLAST.







It is especially rewarding when you get to see students making discoveries. They became mesmerized by chucking bits of ice and watching them skid across the ice. This video shows them cheering when the little chunks slid off into the water.

When this little boy ran through the cypress knees, he announced, "Hey, it's like a maze!"



Then, the kids had an idea just as we are driving away. They wondered if they could explore the ice at the little beach near the mound. They learned that the ice had already melted on the sunny side of the lake.



What was Pamela doing? Well, she and I had violated one of our tips. We had forgotten to wear boots so we did not have as much fun as the others!

Reflection about Term 1

It's hard to believe but we are half-way through our second year at Harvest Community School. We started last year with eighteen students in first through seventh grades, and now we have FORTY-THREE from Kindergarten to eleventh grade. That's not including a handful of preschoolers who join us for lunch and an hour of Harvest time after Montessori. I wish I could tell you all their stories because Harvest has been a place for children to know God, to discover God's plans for them, and to find joy.

Pamela and I go there every day. Because the junior high was overflowing, Pamela and I are working together again. She and I join the entire school for morning meeting where we listen to a devotion, recite the pledge of allegiance, sing a patriotic song or hymn, and learn Spanish (which I teach). She and I are working through a variation of AO Year 7 adapted to a private school, modified to scaffold students who have never learned through Charlotte Mason principles.

It is a challenging transition! She and I worked very hard during the first term in between trips to Indiana and Canada. In Ohio, we watched a jousting tournament! And we met Hildegard and other friends in Ontario.



You may think Charlotte Mason is all about reading tons of great books. While we do read great books, we also study things up close and personal. God has sent all kinds of creatures to us. We studied a dead bat, a baby opossum that found itself in our trashcan one morning, and a mud turtle.







We explored two Carolina bays: one at Woods Bay State Park and another at Santee National Wildlife Refuge. Their staff invited us to go on their autumn audit of snakes and salamanders. We saw how they capture and count these critters. Don't worry! This snake is venomous unlike the cotton mouth that stayed in the cage.





The staff of SNWR also gave us a tour of the bird migration fields and told us all the things they do to keep traveling birds well-fed. We learned a lot about the different habitats along our beloved trail and how to apply terms like producer, consumer, and decomposer.



Finally, we ended the term and our study of Hildegard von Bingen with a visit from the author of the book we had been reading. Megan Hoyt shared things about Hildegard that went beyond the book. We passed around herbs, and the children enjoyed grinding spelt. She passed around scrolls with sayings by Hildegard plus something they might be when they grow up. The Kindergartners was so impressed because they knew the book inside and out. When our headmaster told them that the author of the book is here, their eyes grew wide and one little boy exclaimed in surprise, "She's HERE?"



To read more posts like this, check out the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival!

The Un-Vacation

I've never cared for amusement parks. It's not because I'm old. This has been happening since I threw up on a roller coaster in fourth grade. My stomach hates curveballs. It has rejected its contents on a windy road on the way to Neueschwanstein castle in Germany, on Navy ships and sail boats, on a Navy training propeller plane and helicopter, and on a P-3 mission over the ocean near Russia. I even have to close my eyes during intense Imax moments. For many years, Steve and I tolerated amusement parks for Pamela's sake, hoping David would take on our role when he got bigger. He inherited my weakness so we take turns escorting Pamela until we all turn green.

I know families who love this kind of vacation. We're not one of them.

When I think of amusement parks, I think hot, sticky, sweaty, waiting in line, trying to block out what is offered to entertain us. The food is expensive and must be avoided for Pamela's sake. Everything is overpriced and, even if you pay for everything in advance, you end up paying for more than you intended. Lately, we've stopped at unusual places in our travels. We decided to make our weirdness official: over the holiday weekend, we attended a retreat called "Marvelous Mozart" at a Benedictine archabbey, located about half way between Kansas and South Carolina.

What about Pamela?

She loves all styles of music. Her i-Touch has every genre of music imaginable. On long drives, she chooses classical stations on Sirius with occasional dips into the broadway channel and kids' music. Pamela adores Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and too many to list here.

The retreat location was perfect and the grounds were lovely. The guest rooms, dining area, and classroom were all in the same building. Since Pamela knew how to find our room and get in with a key card, she could take a break whenever she pleased. If Steve and I lingered over coffee longer than she liked, she asked to go to the room. If she got a little bored with a session, she left early. The Benedictines built many breaks into the schedule, perfect for Pamela and I since we are both recovering from colds.

What did she do during a session? She watched a documentary about Mozart with us and watched several clips of his operas. She listened to some music as well. While some people took notes or read the handouts, Pamela doodled. She loves to doodle!
Archabbey accommodations lacked a few things. Since we pay for television at home, having no television in the room worked for us. The Internet was down, and monks aren't the most technically savvy people, which is more than balanced by their gracious hospitality. The bathrooms had a shower but no bath, just like two bathrooms in our house. We had no idea where the nearest store was, but we left the windows open at night and awakened to sweet birds. We ate our meals cafeteria style: simple, nourishing, filling, and good for the waistline. One night we had corn fresh off the cob — delicious!

How did Pamela do on the un-vacation? Very well. She had one moment of frustration during a lecture when someone who shall not be named was trying to figure out his complicated travel schedule. Pamela watched his every pen stroke and commanded him to stop after he made one too many changes for her taste. She demanded him to put it away and settled down after he did. She also had a mini-melt during the last lunch. She was out of sorts because she had planned for us to leave after breakfast. I had to stay for the Requiem session (a highlight for me). She rushed during lunch and dropped her tray on the floor in the serving area. I gave her a big hug to calm her because I walked her to her seat. Steve and kitchen staff cleaned up her spilled salad. To help her recover, we went ahead and got food for her. Up until this point, she had had no problems getting her own tray and serving herself.

Pamela and I took a quick nature walk around a little lake on the grounds. Steve had been spied it during his morning run and urged me to see it. Isn't the weather and view gorgeous?



I spotted several new things in this short trek: two new species of dragonflies and crawfish holes in the grass near the water. The dragonflies were moving so quickly I'm shocked my camera picked up anything. These short, stubby dragonflies are called eastern amberwings (Perithemis tenera). They hung out above the water's edge.



I've never seen anything like these black and prom-tuxedo-blue dragonflies. The widow skimmers (Libellula luctuosa) buzzed over water and fields like tie-fighters in a Star Wars movie. They went so fast all I could see was a blur of color. Apparently, the males defend their territory aggressively.



These crawfish holes remind me of mud castles I used to make at the beach as a child. If we ever come back, I want to bring a picnic lunch and watch for the crawfish to come out.



Can you tell that Pamela was in a hurry to go home?



And, in case you haven't had enough doodles....

Digging for Knowledge

I think we owe it to children to let them dig their knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of the fit book; and this for two reasons: What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as it came in, and is rarely assimilated. ~ Charlotte Mason

What does "digging for" do to the mind?

The best way to answer that question is to dig for yourself. Until we experience digging, we can only see what our children show us. Digging takes time. It is a slow process. It demands careful attention. The results are not always immediate.

Understanding Charlotte Mason's method requires us to dig. Because we are used to having knowledge poured into us, opening her books and studying them is a challenge. It's much easier to read someone else's interpretation of her ideas or to follow a checklist or "how to". This may be easier but it runs the risk of becoming a system, the very thing Mason sought to avoid. We must understand why we do what we do.

Right now, I'm digging into The Living Page by Laurie Bestvater. If you're looking for a quick summer read, TLP is not it! I read a little bit and narrate to my commonplace journal. I copy my favorite quotes and phrases. I join the grand conversation about this book with AmblesideOnline friends.

This is how I process nature study (pages 17-27), which addresses Mason's connection to scouting, how Gilbert White inspired her, what Mason expected in a nature notebook, her thoughts about nature lists, scrapbooks, collections, a family diary, science notebooks, lab books, calendar of firsts, natural history clubs, etc. I read a page and write down my thoughts. I look up examples of nature notebooks at the digital archives. I write a collection of phrases resonating with me: "make Glory 'visible and plain,'" "source of delight," "knowing glory," and "traveling companions and life records."

Reflecting upon my walks at Santee National Wildlife Refuge, I copy Laurie's words, "Perhaps it was his ongoing relationship with a relatively small patch of country over time, allowing him to form deep knowledge of a particular place and to notice even the smallest seasonal changes that Mason admires" (page 20).

I let go of my guilt about the lapses in nature notebooking last winter and spring when I read what one of Mason's student teachers wrote, "I am horrified to find that I have not written in my diary for nearly a month" (page 21). I copy her words into my commonplace journal. Then, I pull out my nature notebook and make my first entry in six months! The skink in my watercolor is too short and stubby. The artists in my family would see every flaw. I remind myself of a recent article about John Ruskin: "So if drawing had value even when it was practised by people with no talent, it was for Ruskin because drawing can teach us to see: to notice properly rather than gaze absentmindedly. In the process of recreating with our own hand what lies before our eyes, we naturally move from a position of observing beauty in a loose way to one where we acquire a deep understanding of its parts."

My goal is not to produce great art. My goals are to learn how to see, observe beauty in a skink, and understand its parts. Process, not product.

I think about the nature lists in the back of a notebook, which Laurie suggests students adapted to their own needs. I spend time in two states regularly and have a special walking place for both. Rather than sorting my items by kind (flower, bird, insect, etc.), I decide to sort mine by place. I get out my ruler and draw lines in the back of my notebook. Since I'm halfway through the notebook I begin my calendar with June 2014, rather than January. I make it a year and a half, rather than two. I leave a column for notes. I title it "Santee List." My first walk yields sixteen items: broad-headed skink (Eumeces laticeps), crane fly (tipulidae), eastern pondhawk dragonfly (Erythemis simplicicollis), roly poly (Armadillidium nasatum), daddy long-legs (Pholcus phalangioides), orchard orbweaver (Leucauge venusta), banana spider (Nephila clavipes), tiger beetle larva "chicken choker" (Cicindelinae), eastern tent caterpillar tent (Malacosoma americanum), catalpa leaf (Catalpa bignonioides), bald cypress wood (Taxodium distichum), unripened black cherries (Prunus serotina), sweet gum balls (Liquidambar styraciflua), huckleberry (or blueberry or...?), white blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium albidum), and naked puffball (Lycoperdon marginatum). Here's a video of the whacky crane fly.

Maybe, I'll attempt a calendar of firsts next spring.

I head over to AO's thread about this section of the book. One person asked about identifying and naming things. I write,

On learning the names of things, we take pictures and post them on Facebook. You would be amazed at how passionate the conversations between parents, grandparents, and knowledgeable friends get in naming things. If we don't know what something is, we give it our own pet name. There was this spider that we called either neon spiders or alien spiders and, one day, I got the perfect picture and we were able to name it: orchard orbweaver.

I think it is healthy for children to realize that *WE* are lifelong learners. It's okay not to know something and to research it together. Our elementary students do spend some of their free time trying to find the name of something and it is exciting when they figure it out and share it with the class. Also, you sometimes need to see something several times and to watch it undergo seasonal changes and to observe its behavior before you can name it. It's the relationship that really matters, not the name. The name is just the icing on the cake.

Oh, the funniest thing is when you learn that something has no common name. Then, the kids start to debate what the name should be!

Here are glimpses of Glory from our last walk.