A Thankful Heart

While the thanks continue, it is only occasionally that this online list is updated - it is mostly maintained in my handwritten journal. I consider the transcribing from the one to the other to be another Gift, an opportunity to review the Gifts, to repeat my thanks for them, to remind myself of gratitude.

113. Friends to pray with.

114. A God Who is too great to comprehend.

115. Truth in the open.

116. Cuddles from a little boy who might one day not offer them as willingly.

117. Sneaking kisses.

118. Talking together rather than maintaining a wall of silence.

119. Encouraging experience with Nature Study.

120. Wanting to abide. The wanting itself is a Gift, a sign that the Spirit lives in me.

121. Softening heart.

122. Friends in unexpected places.

Click here to view my One Thousand Gifts list.

Abide

"Abide in me...Abide in my love...You abide in me if you keep my commandments." John 5

Abide - live, be, rest, stay awhile. Difficult, though, to slow my mind to abide in You. But the want is there. Thank You for the wanting. The wanting is a gift, a sign that there is more to aim for, more awaiting me; a sign that the Spirit does live in me, for one cannot want the Father unless the Spirit gives the desire. So the wanting itself is a gift.

Everything is a gift. Do I believe it? Is this situation a gift? Well, yes, because it will push me to You even more. The "potential for a deeper relationship with You" is definitely there in this, but so is the potential for bitterness and shriveling of my soul. It comes to a choice. Will I respond with grace, with leaning on You? Or will I respond with opposition, with unwilling receipt of this situation?

I cannot know if it is what You would have chosen for me if people's own wills were not involved. But I do know that now, in this circumstance that has come to be, You want to draw me closer. So draw me, Lord God...Whisper to me of Your abiding love for me even through this. Especially through this, the challenge I now face in how I will respond...I'm not ready to rejoice. I'm not sure I'm even ready to forgive. But I am ready to trust You to carry me through whatever comes as a result of it.

So I will abide.

Green Hour Challenge #5 - A walk down the street

Our focus on insects got off to a slow start last week. I think the weather was so cold all the insects were wisely staying in their nests and holes!

Today was much more successful. We saw lots of ants; it seems there were three different varieties: 2 smaller ones, only about 1/4 inch long and quite slender, but of differing colouration; the third was much larger and thicker. In fact, the contrast was similar to that of a sketch done in fine tip felt pen and a broad tipped marker!

All three children loved trying to pick up the ants to get a closer look. They encircled the ant with their fingers flat on the sidewalk and stayed like that until the tiny fellow decided to climb onto their hand. Then cries of pleasure: "I've got him! Come see!" and we would all circle round to admire the fine catch. After the novelty of catching them was worn off a bit, we tried watching them to see where they would go once they had crossed the sidewalk. Through the grass, over and under little broken bits of bark and twig, until the interest in that, too, grew thin. But attention was there! They were looking, they were watching, and they were intent!

Along with the insects (okay, it was 'only' ants, but at least we saw insects this time!) we saw two male cardinals, a male and a female robin (but not together), and a small dog out for a walk with his owner. A variety of animal forms, wouldn't you say? :)

At the end of our road is a very tiny clump of small trees and shrubs with a little path through it. I'm talking only about 10' by 20'. Tiny. But the children spent some time wandering the path, checking for hidey-holes they could squirrel themselves away in, and looking for anything else of interest. Maybe on our next walk we'll head straight there and see if we find some great insect specimens hidden in the greenery and ground cover.

I've enjoyed reading the insect sections in the Handbook of Nature Study, by Comstock. What lively pictures she paints of the lives of these little creatures, giving them personality and character! There are several tidbits I intend to share with the family over dinner time tonight.

Our Green Hour Assignment

We've been slowly following along with Barb's Green Hour Challenges, over at the Handbook of Nature Study. I know, she's already on Assignment 14, and I'm only on Assignment 4. But, as you read before, I'm trying to lose the perfectionism and simply do what I can.

So here's what Green Hour Assignment 4 looked like for our family.

Choosing a focus: Options for our yard and immediate neighbourhood were birds, insects, wildflowers, garden flowers, weeds, and trees. A little bit of talk narrowed it down to birds and insects, and in the end we chose insects.

Heading outside: The kids eagerly donned their runners and jackets (it's been pretty dreary, cold, and wet the past few days) and we started in the back yard. While there, I tried to encourage them to look where insects might be: on branches, under leaves, on the ground, etc., as well as to look for other insect-related things like chewed branches, webs (I know, spiders aren't insects, but they do catch insects in their webs), and so on.

After about 15-20 minutes outside corralled the kids and brought them in. It wasn't too hard, because of the cool temperature (only about 5 degrees C). We talked a bit about what we saw and heard, and then we got out all our nature journals and began to draw and write.

Here's what the two oldest came up with:

The Little Man (age 5) drew the honeycomb from a wasp nest that we found on the ground after it was pulled out of the garage roof during construction last week. Being the only one of us to actually find an insect, The Little Man made sure to include a drawing of it in his entry (top right, yellow). I transcribed his descriptions and put on the date.

My Girl spent a great deal of time working on her depiction of the comb from the wasp's nest. She paid careful attention to the colour, and even indicated the size in her entry. (After that she just explored the art equipment I had brought out for the occasion: watercolour pencil crayons, brand new LYRA pencil crayons, watercolour crayons, and so on.)

We had a great experience with this Green Hour Assignment! I'm so thankful for Barb's initiative as it has really inspired me to make Nature Study a bigger priority without being overwhelming!

We can't wait to get out again soon, especially as the weather should be turning around in a couple of days, too!

Come Visit the Whole Hearted Home Educators - Canada blog

It's been a busy week. You can read my post on the Whole Hearted Home Educators meeting and discussion of Charlotte Mason's Volume 2, Parents and Children over here at the WHHE blog that's just been started. Hope you'll visit often.

Year End - Nature Study and Reviews by CM

The content of this year-end meeting was two-fold: philosophical, led by Liz; and application, led by Sandy. There was so much content and I'm finding so much great stuff to think and write about, that I'm going to split it into at least two separate posts.

Liz led the philosophical portion and succinctly summarized and highlighted portions of the reviews Charlotte Mason had written of three different works: The Moral Instruction of Children, by Felix Adler; Education from a National Standpoint, by Alfred Fouillee; Faith, by Rev. H. C. Beeching; and an article by General Booth in Darkest England; all found in volume 2 (Parents and Children), Chapters XI -XV.

What I find to be some of the best quotes from reading and discussing those chapters are the following (including my own comments for some of them):

"But it is singular that so few educationalists recognise that the Bible is not a single book, but a classic literature of wonderful beauty and interest; that, apart from its Divine sanctions and religious teaching, from all that we understand by 'Revelation,' the Bible, as a mere instrument of education, is, at the very least, as valuable as the classics of Greece or Rome. Here is poetry, the rhythm of which soothes even the jaded brain past taking pleasure in any other. Here is history, based on such broad, clear lines, such dealing of slow and sure and even-handed justice to the nations, such stories of national sins and national repentances, that the student realises, as from no other history, the solidarity of the race, the brotherhood, and, if we may call it so, the individuality of the nations. Here is philosophy which, of all the philosophies which have been propounded, is alone adequate to the interpretation of human life. We say not a word here of that which is the raison d'etre of the Bible, its teaching of religion, its revelation of God to man; but, to urge only one point more, all the literatures of the world put together utterly fail to give us a system of ethics, in precept and example, motive and sanction, complete as that to which we have been born as our common inheritance in the Bible." Vol. 2, Ch. XI, p. 104

When my husband and I had been married for 4 years, before we had children, we spent a year in south western Russia. That in itself was exciting, but what was more exciting was the reason for our being there. In the early 1990's, when Communism had collapsed in Russia, the whole moral and ethical structure of their society collapsed with it. They had no more backbone or ruler by which to bring up the next generations of Russian children into lives of great character and integrity. So what did they do? The Russian Ministry of Education turned to Western Christians to provide them with a curriculum of Christian Ethics and Morality based on the life of Jesus Chirst. They were making no claims to validate the theology of the Bible, but they certainly recognized this very thing that Charlotte Mason said nearly a hundred years earlier, that the Bible provided a fully comprehensive "system of ethics, in precept and example, motive and sanction"! Truly a miraculous period of Russian history to have been a part of!

The Bible's position as the holy Word of God, God-breathed, living, and inspired, is, in my mind inseparable from its value as a moral code, as a literary work. He planned it that way. But in the context of this statement by Charlotte Mason, we also recognize its value as the ultimate educational tool for all children. (And through that educational tool, might it be that some will come to know the God of all Creation for themselves? We pray that it may be so.)

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"I am inclined to think, too , that fairy tales suffer in vigour and charm when they are prepared for the children; and that Wordsworth is right in considering that the very knowledge of evil conveyed in fairy tales under a certain glamour, is of use in saving children from painful and injurious shocks in real life." Vol. 2, Ch. XI, p. 107

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Regarding Bible stories:

"The child is not an exegetical student. The moral teaching, the spiritual revelations, the lovely imagery of the Bible, are the things with which he is concerned, and of these he cannot have too much...Read your Bible story to the child, bit by bit; get him to tell you in his own words (keeping as close as he can to the Bible words) what you have read, and then, if you like, talk about it; but not too much." Vol. 2, Ch. XI, p. 109, 110

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Regarding a Child's Inducements to Learn:

"The motives proposed for seeking knowledge are poor and inadequate: to succeed in life, to gain esteem, to satisfy yourself, and even to be able, possibly, to benefit others, are by no means soul-compelling motives. the child, who is encouraged to learn, because to learn is his particular duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call him, has the strongest of conceivable motives, in the sense that he is rendering that which is required of him by the Supreme Authority." Vol. 2, Ch. XI, p. 114

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"Probably the chief source of weakness in our attempt to formulate a science of education is that we do not perceive that education is the outcome of philosophy.../we are content to pick up a suggestion here, a practical hint there, without even troubling ourselves to consider what is that scheme of life of which such hints and suggestions are the output...What we have to do is to gather together and order our resources; to put the first thing foremost and all things in sequence, and to see that education is neither more nor less than the practical application of our philosophy." Vol. 2, Ch. XII, p. 118, 119

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"As has been well said, 'Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.' And a great function of the educator is to secure that acts shall be so regularly, purposefully, and methodically sown that the child shall reap the habits of the good life, in thinking and doing, with the minimum of conscious effort...Educate the child in right habits and the man's life will run in them, without the constant wear and tear of the moral effort of decision." Vol. 2, Ch. XII, p. 124

This is pure Charlotte Mason, a quotation we've all heard parts of so many times that it seems to almost embody the whole of what people think of when they hear "Charlotte Mason". As with so much of her writing, she addresses is so directly that it seems obvious, simple even. But we know that it is not so. Much of what we do as parents and educators comes from moment-by-moment action, not from the well thought out plan that she describes in horticultural terms here. And without that plan, there is no laying down of the rails of good habit. There is simply then a fly-by-night, come-what-may approach to education. It comes back to whether we have a philosophical spine to our educational approach, or whether we are grasping for whatever technique is current, appealing, popular, or what have you. (See the quote directly above the one I'm commenting on.) It isn't simple. Charlotte Mason doesn't say that it is, although she does present it very directly, very matter-of-factly. It it truly hard, truly challenging, and, in the long run, truly effective and rewarding.

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"As we have had occasion to say before, in this great work of education parents and teachers are permitted to play only a subordinate part after all. You may bring your horse to the water, but you can't make him drink; and you may present ideas of the fittest to the mind of the child,; but you do now know in the least which he will take, and which he will reject. And very well for us it is that this safeguard to his individuality is implanted in every child's breast. Our part is to see that his educational plat is constantly replenished with fit and inspiring ideas, and then we must needs leave it to the child's own appetite to take which he will have, and as much as he requires. Of one thing we must beware. The least symptom of satiety, especially when the ideas we present are moral and religious, should be taken as a serious warning. Persistence on our part just then may end in the child's never willingly sitting down to that dish any more." Vol. 2, Ch. XII, p. 127

You heard me comment on this one at the meeting, so for fear of not stopping when I should, I'm just going to say "Stop When It Is Enough!"

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"...we shall most likely be inclined to agree with his conclusion that, not some subject of mere utility, but moral and social science conveyed by means of history, literature, or otherwise, is the one subject which we are not at liberty to leave out from the curriculum of 'a being breathing thoughtful breath.'" Vol. 2, Ch. XII, p. 127-128

I simply love the last phrase here, speaking of our children as 'beings breathing thoughtful breath.' It's poetry. It's rich. It's all that I long for my children to be.

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If you have others that you really liked or would like to have conversation about, please, please, please comment below. This blog is intended to be an extension of the dialogue begun at the meeting, and what I, or any other post authors, write in my posts isn't meant to be definitive.

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The discussion about Nature Study was really encouraging for me, and, judging from the engagement of so many of you, I'm guessing that it was for you as well. The next post will look at some of the comments that came out of that conversation and will include some links to websites and blogs that were mentioned.

Blessings to you all,

Jennifer

Walked this morning. The blessings of time alone, rising sun, and friendly walkers surrounded me. Two new swan nests visible so far; I'm sure when I return with the children I'll see more. Mothers sit protectively, proudly, on heaps of branch and leaf, awaiting the chipping, cracking arrival of cygnets to join the flock on the river.

This photo is of last years two-day-old cygnets. Pray we see them as early this year.

112. Proud beauty on water's surface.

To view my One Thousand Gifts list, click here.

Love that Brown-Eyed Boy

111. Brown-Eyed Boy

One Thousand Gifts

107. Projects progressing.

108. Comforts.

109. A good book read with a loved one.

110. Dirty hands and knees, marked by work and play.

To view my One Thousand Gifts list, click here.

Cardinals and Charlotte Mason

A Charlotte Mason education is rooted in Nature Study. Charlotte tells us that children should be familiar with the wildflowers, crops, trees, insects, birds, and small mammals that populate their community.

To make this work for us, in our small urban yard, we have hung bird feeders. And we are blessed to live next door to two avid gardeners, whose beautiful shrubs, flowers, and trees attract birds as well.

For the second spring in a row there is a pair of cardinals nesting in the cedar shrub adjacent to our back deck. We can watch the male travel to and from the nest, invariably following the same pattern: land in a barely leaved tree at the far end of the yard, look carefully around, flit to the lilac bush halfway across the yard, quickly look around again, hop to the bare shrub next to the cedar where the nest is, and, after one last check, disappear into the centre of the cedar to visit the nest. (He follows the same route inversely when leaving the nest.)

By watching his movements thus, my Little Man was able to determine the exact location of the nest. He watched carefully and saw the female moving around in the nest, while the male travelled into the cedar, perched on a nearby branch, and flew out again. The Little Man was enthralled! We have looked for weeks to find that exact spot, to be able to pinpoint the nest itself, up til yesterday only hoping that we would actually be able to find it.

I wonder if God will grace us with the gift of seeing the little ones shortly after they've hatched? Wouldn't that be a wonderful gift!

Five Days

Five days. They breezed into our lives, coming from the ocean's coast to this diamond surrounded by lakes. Their journey took them more than fourteen days, over eighty hours of driving, covered over seven thousand kilometers, saw fourteen grandchildren. These dear ones who we see once a year, twice when God blesses us with that extra grace.


Five days of sleeping four to a room. Five days of giving up school, schedules, and regular bed-times (and rising-times). "It's been disruptive enough," they say. "Its' time we let you return to normal." But normal can happen the other 51 weeks of the year. What's 'disruptive' when it means walks with grandpa to the corner store, folding laundry and baking with grandma, sharing joys and struggles and sorrows with a mother seen so rarely?


Five days. Five days of laughter. Five days of smiles. Five days of creating new memories and reliving old. Five days of trying to make the time seem longer, yet knowing it was going to end.

Five days ended this morning and the tears flowed.

Who Am I to Talk About Nature Study?

Tonight we meet to discuss Charlotte Mason's ideas on Nature Study, especially as they apply to Home Education.

Now, Nature Study has never been my strong point, although it is something that I really embrace conceptually. Here's what the debate looks like in my brain:

• Nature Study is a natural first exposure to science education.
• But it's hard to bundle up 3 children, two of whom are quite small still, and get them outside.
• Once they're out they love being there, exploring, looking, listening.
• If I'm going to go to all the effort of getting everyone out, it seems a shame to end Nature Study after just 10 minutes, but longer than that means missing out on too much other school time for the older child.
• It doesn't have to take an hour or even a half hour to have a nice time of Nature Study. It can be done effectively in 10 to 15 minutes segments, even once a week.
• I don't know enough about the trees and plants that grow in our neighbourhood. What happens when the children ask me about them?
• It's better if the parent doesn't have all the answers. This is an opportunity for the children to learn it, to experience the joy of discovering things themselves. Use the questions they ask to spearhead quick searches in simple, well laid out field guides. A little bit of reading on my own in the evening, from the field guide or the Handbook of Nature Study, will provide ample material to talk about with the children over snack the next day.
• But it's so cold in the winter. What is there to see when we're buried in 2 feet of snow?
• Even winter can be an opportunity for observation. Bird feeders will keep birds in the yard through the cold months. Trees' shapes and structures are more easily observed when they aren't covered in leaves.

I could go on. By now you see that, although I know the benefits of and reasons for Nature Study, I'm a reluctant participant. Even as a child, I would rather have curled up and read about nature than go exploring in it. Attribute it to allergies, too many tough hikes forced on me as a small child, or any other thing. I need to look at the now of it, and, quite frankly, the truth for me is that once I'm out there, I love it! It's just the 'getting there' that my mind and body resist.

Given all that, what makes me think I'm qualified to lead a meeting on nature Study? It sure isn't confidence in my own practices. It's something more simple than that. It's that I'm learning: I'm learning that it doesn't have to be complicated; it doesn't have to be long; it doesn't have to result in beautiful Nature Journal entries on each occasion; it doesn't have to be perfect.

That's it. I'm letting go of the perfectionism, because it doesn't have a place in Nature Study. And there's too much beauty to enjoy, too much detail with which to be enthralled, too much of heaven crammed into the earth's creation for me to not get out there because I 'can't do it right'. So I'm just going to do it, however it turns out.

Will you join me outside this week?

Jennifer

1000 Gifts

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God gives only gifts. Everything is a gift. The gift in everything is the possibility of a deeper relationship with Him.

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The One Thousand Gifts list is a running list of His gifts to me. Not everything is noticed. Not everything is acknowledged. But everything is a gift, and He is teaching me to open my eyes.

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To view my Thousand Gifts List, click here.