Our Nature Journals and the Charlotte Mason Method

I'm so excited about our Nature Journals!! We just got started with these and I hope to make it a regular activity. I have come across nature journaling at various homeschool sites and I've always been intrigued. We love getting outdoors and I find that purposeful exploration is something my son really enjoys and he is learning so much. He made sure I participated too, and I just loved it. We live in a condo complex and so we went exploring around the connected yards and then across the street where there is a lovely pond. We can't wait to do more!

Mommy's Nature Journal Pages:

Things I Collected

Drawings of What I Collected with Details at Bottom

J's Nature Journal Pages:

Things J Collected

Drawings of what J collected

In doing a lot of research over the past couple years on homeschooling and the various curriculum available, I find that I really like many aspects of the Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling. There are a few things that really stand out. The first is the value she placed on the study of nature. She emphasized with her students a daily ritual of spending time outside in their natural surroundings. Taking part in nature walks, creating nature notebooks, these all help children in learning to observe and appreciate the delicate intricacies of the world around them. It is so great to get out in the fresh air and go exploring with my son in our outdoor classroom.

Her emphasis on reading by focusing on good children's literature is another. I've been enjoying discovering the sweet stories of olden days, bypassing what Charlotte refers to as meaningless "twaddle" and seeking instead what she refers to as "living books". A few of our favorites are the Thorton Burgess series of children's nature books, The Brambly Hedge series by Jill Barklem as well as the books of Beatrix Potter.

Another aspect I enjoy which we've brought into our own homeschooling is narration. My son has an incredibly creative side of him that is really blossoming as we've taken off in our homeschool journey. He loves to tell stories. This fits very well with Charlotte Mason's emphasis on narration as a powerful learning tool. We've incorporated narration as we go through different books and J will summarize as we go along retelling the story in his own words.

I have really enjoyed engaging in this type of learning style with my son in addition to the homeschool program we're doing through Hearts of Dakota (Little Hearts for His Glory). I am so thankful to be able to be home with him in this season of our lives!

Thanks for visiting!

My Computer is NOT fixed ... But I Need to Catch Up!

So my computer wasn't fixed after all. I had it home less than 24 hours and it was constantly crashing so it had to be sent back! Thankfully, we do have a back up computer, but it is so old and slow that I haven't been able to put together a post of significance until now.

I have had no shortage of projects keeping me busy ... I decided to do homemade gifts this year (keeping those a secret until after Christmas) and I'm finding that very enjoyable. Making things by hand has been really rewarding, especially as I get closer to the finished product. We've also had some fun Christmas parties we've attended. One of them was with my mom friends as our husbands watched the kids which gave us a chance to get together. We had some really good conversations as we shared a meal, enjoyed Christmas music and decorated Christmas cookies together. Last night we went out caroling for our 3rd or 4th year. My husband likes to organize it, printing out the music and coordinating everything, then a few friends join us for the caroling. It is a lot of fun going out and bringing glad tidings to a few families, one of whom was a 92-year old woman still living in the home she grew up in.

My husband and I have been going through a really good book together, Celebration of Discipline - The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster. Each chapter looks at a different discipline of the spiritual life (prayer, meditation, fasting, study, confession, etc.) and it has opened up some good discussions. Lately, a struggle has been sitting down for an extended period of time just being quiet before the Lord; taking time to read his word, reflect and pray without any interruptions. It's been hard to do that regularly since my Thanksgiving vacation where I had some extended down time and it came naturally.

One place it seems to come more naturally is out in nature. I love getting outside in the fresh air and taking time to appreciate the beauty around me. I have really been hoping for some snow since we've only gotten a light dusting a couple of times so far. I love winter. Especially putting on snowshoes and heading out with my husband with J in the backpack to spend time together as a family just enjoying creation. I am always refreshed spending time outdoors yet I haven't been getting out enough lately.

I hope to post again soon, but I'm not sure when I'll get the chance. In light of that, I want to take time to thank you for reading and visiting and I wish you a very blessed Christmas.

Returning Refreshed

We had a really nice Easter vacation spending time with my dad "Boppy" and step mom, "Mimi" (what the kids call them). It was so nice to go back "home" to Illinois, to the suburb of Chicago (Palos Park) where I grew up. It is so peaceful, an area filled with forest preserves and lots and lots of old, old trees. My favorite are the old oak trees scattered throughout.


The days went by fast, but they were well spent. Easter dinner with the extended family was just lovely as my southern step-mom created an authentic Southern Easter dinner and J had a blast playing with all his cousins. I made a couple of my recipes during the week, Tray Baked Chicken and Papa's Goulash which my dad and Debbie (and J) really enjoyed. I was able to catch up with a couple of my good friends from childhood and they got to spend some time with J.


I would have to say that my most favorite part of the trip was my daily walks while J was napping. I was able to leave the house while Boppy and Mimi kept watch. I spent time just drinking in the beauty of the Lord's creation as I explored the familiar area. Taking time to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells drew me closer to God. I took time just gazing in front of the pond that is down the road where a pair of geese have made their home. I loved just listening to the birds and watching the trees sway in the breeze. A couple of my walks were 30 minutes and a couple over 45 minutes. Each walk enabled me to spend quality time in prayer and communion with the Lord out in nature. It was very sweet. It also brought back so many memories of riding my bike up and down the roads and running all over the neighborhood. The houses themselves have changed so much. On each street, several of the old houses have been torn down and immense homes have taken their place. Some look like castles, some look like mountain lodges.




During my walks, it was a treat to see a flock of migrating warblers. They let me come incredibly close and I knew they had to be some type of warbler by their mix of yellow, gray and white colors. After searching the internet, I discovered they were yellow-rumped warblers (first picture). I really enjoyed watching the birds throughout the week, and saw another bird, the white crowned sparrow (second picture), which stopped over at my dad's house. I also enjoyed hearing the birds. The call of the woodpecker, the songs of the robin and the cardinal, the noisy call of the blue jay. My dad's porch was a great place for watching and listening to the birds. It was such a blessing to me.



Another favorite from the week was spending lots of time with J reading books. I didn't have my computer with me and we watched very little TV, so we had lots of time together. I took some time to go through our old kids books in the dank, musty basement and my dad let me take several of them home. They were a wonderful discovery for J, who spent literally hours with me each day, just having me read them to him. He loved this finger play book (picture above) and after having me read it several times, he enjoyed doing the finger play on his own. Frog and Toad are a new favorite.




One of our final treats was making a trip to our little town's ice cream parlor, The Plush Horse, which has been around since 1937. They have a life sized white stuffed horse inside and J was just thrilled to see it. He picked his seat at the cutest little tiny kids table. It was fun taking him to a place his mom used to visit often as a kid. The ice cream is just delicious.

We had plenty of unpacking and settling in to do once we got home, but it's good to be home after having a nice little vacation away.

Our Ducks are Back! (Musings of Spring)

It has become my true harbinger of Spring ... when my ducks come back to our yard! For the last 3 or 4 years, our yard and bird feeding area has been a welcoming place for the return of a pair of mallards. I can't for sure tell if they're the same ones, but I do know when I moved my feeders from the side of the house to the back of the house they found them ... and they are the only 2 ducks that come each year around this time and visit every day. So I call them "our ducks".

Our Cute Ducks

To rewind a bit and share why this is so special to me, when we first moved into our home, (a condo with a sparse yard which is close to a 4-lane road), I didn't have a lot of hope for viewing wildlife here. Yet I did pray that the Lord would bless our little yard and allow it to be home for any critter he would choose. Over the past 8 years here with our little condo yard, we've been blessed to see so many different creatures. They've included a wild turkey who once visited our feeder, a ground hog that made a temporary home in our rock wall, several litters of 13-striped ground squirrels and chipmunks that grew up here, a raccoon who ransacked our feeders a few times, a couple gray squirrels and various birds like sparrows, grackles, chickadees, mourning doves, a pair of resident cardinals, a robin pair, a few blue jays, house finches, an occasional goldfinch or two and the Cooper's Hawk who comes to hunt them. Yet the ducks remain my favorite. They come at the end of March and visit every day, and are usually gone by May. Momma duck loves just sitting in my bird bath, which is just a giant plant saucer I leave right on the ground and fill with water.

Our Backyard Critters

This time of year is such a special time for me. I love watching the birds flying around with straw in their beaks as they bustle about making their nests. Once the baby birds come, I love watching the parents feed their fledglings and see them learning to fly as they hop around the small back yard. I love watching the baby ground squirrels as they wrestle around and play near the rock wall which is their home.

I love taking rides out in the country and visiting the state parks nearby. This weekend was our first trip out to the state parks in the area and we enjoyed a lovely ride out in the country. I love seeing the rolling hills, the open farmland interspersed with swaths of trees, fields dotted with cows. The smells, the sights, the sounds are such a comfort as our little corner of the world is warming up and new life abounds. It also means I'm out prepping our garden; cleaning out the flower bed, pruning, preparing to plant.












































I love the deeper meaning for me, of how the Lord working in my life is like this. He seeks out the hardened areas of my heart, the places that need weeding out like ugly attitudes, bitterness, selfish tendencies and he brings light and warmth into those places encouraging me to let him in to refurbish and refine me. It's a season that I like to take time to pause and reflect, not only to enjoy what's happening in nature but to look within to work in the garden of my own heart. April 22nd is the anniversary of my adult baptism in 2001, and I like to celebrate every year in this way. We're several months out from the new year and it's a good time to take stock again of what ways the Lord wants my garden of life to grow.

Recently, we had a speaker at our mom's group who talked about taking time with the Lord every day. She encouraged us to learn our pathways to God. She was inspired by a book she read called Sacred Pathways (Discover Your Soul's Path to God) by Gary Thomas. He talks about the various ways we connect best with God. For some it is through nature, some through group study, some through worship, etc. This really resonated with me. For me, nature is the most powerful way that I connect with the Lord. Being out in his creation, enjoying nature just renews and fills my spirit. What is your favorite pathway to God?