Nature Study Outing :: Dewy Spring Morning

On this visit to our favorite vernal pond, we found that the water level had risen a good five feet thanks to a weekend of heavy rains.  This day wasn't actually rainy, but we all still got pretty soaked and muddy!  The sun hadn't come out yet, and dew blanketed the fields.  We waded through wet grasses hunting for wildflowers...

american vetch, aka hairy vetch, aka winter vetch

common vetch, aka spring vetch
( i always forget which is spring and which winter because they both bloom in winter here!)

wild onion

triphysaria eriantha

sky or dove  lupine

popcorn flower

owl's clover

blue dicks

two-toned tidy tips!  (with a couple beetles along for the ride!)

don't know this one yet -- there are so many yellow wildflowers!  anyone know?

bladder parsnip

The dew also highlighted the spider webs that stretched across the tips of the field's grasses.  I hadn't realized there were so many there!  My friend drew our attention to the funnels, now visible with water droplets, and we waited a moment to see if a spider would pop out of the burrow.  No luck.

The kids did plenty of running, climbing, wading, and tree frog catching...

...and let's just say more than one kid in my family came home with their rain boots full of pond water.  Ahem.

They left happy and with a handful of specimens for our nature tray.

We had to hurry off that morning after a couple hours out because my big kids were heading to daily Mass with my husband, but all of us would have liked to linger a bit longer.

The dew really brought to life the shapes of these wildflowers rather than their bright colors, which are usually what first catches our eye.  I have Botany in a Day and this trip motivated me to get it out and start a routine study of some sort so I'm able to group a bit more confidently by family now that we "know" some of these so well.  As we have gone week in and out looking for our favorites and taking notes on where and when they bloom, I'm inspired to mentally make sense of all the little features we notice as we get more and more attuned to the size, shape, and structure of these plants, in addition to their lovely shades.

And I'm always surprised by how consistently we find flowers we have never seen before, even in places we go to weekly.  The variety is simply amazing!  God is good.

{This and That} :: Easter!

Alleluia, He is Risen!

Hope you all had a blessed Triduum and a joyous Easter Sunday!  We had a beautiful Mass, a delicious breakfast, and I got a photo of all the kids together, so it was a happy day all around. ;)

the Easter breakfast table is my favorite of the year

lotsa baskets!  or in our case, repurposed ice cream tubs. (obviously we eat a lot of ice cream.)

Someone asked what was in all those Easter baskets, so I thought I'd do a little round-up:

:: free coloring pages courtesy of GraceLaced
:: WoolPets felting kits (I'll review these once we have a chance to try them out!)
:: Mad Libs and Sudoku
:: holy cards for their holy card rings
:: more Schleich animals for our collection
:: more notecards and gel pens for the big girls
:: puzzle cards for the little girls
:: and a bit of candy, with chips for the hubby ;)

And books, of course!  Details on those coming soon in my {What We're Reading} for April. ;)

I also gifted myself a new loupe for nature study, which has a pretty terrible smell right out of the package but works wonderfully!  I ordered a second one, a different model, to try out and compare, so I'll let you know which loupe wins. :)

~~~

I shared our annual Easter candle project over on Instagram, and someone asked for a quick how-to.  There are already some lovely tutorials out there: one for a more ornate candle than ours using the same materials (I always love Jessica's work!) and one for a simple form you can do right now with a grocery store "novena candle" and a printer (thanks, Jennifer!).

For ours: I buy a short plain beeswax pillar because we only light it during our rosary times through the Easter season.  (This two pack is also good value, and then you'd be a step ahead the following year! ;)) If you want a cheaper option, you could definitely just do this on a non-beeswax pillar.  Or you could opt for a taller pillar candle and keep it going longer!

The other item you'll need to buy specifically for this project is a set of decorating beeswax sheets.  (You only use a very tiny bit for each candle, so this box can last for years and years.)

First, you'll need to buff up the beeswax, as it sometimes gets a cloudy sheen if it has sat too long.  We just rub it all over with a rag until it's nice and clear.

Then you're ready to cut out all the bits from your beeswax sheets!  I just use regular scissors and cut:
:: two strips for the cross
:: the alpha and omega signs
:: the numbers for the year

This is definitely the trickiest part!  Straight cuts are super easy, but curly letters and numbers like 0 and 6 can be a challenge.  I often just cut a somewhat rounded shape, then use my fingers to form the figure I need.  The wax is very pliable.  Since our candle is small, we're cutting very small shapes.  We only use about a square inch of each, red and blue.

I place the figures lightly onto the candle as I go to eyeball size.  Once all is cut and ready, press the pieces on firmly with your finger.  They'll easily "stick" to the candle.

Last but not least, you need some kind of marker for Christ's five wounds, as in the prayers Jennifer provides on her tutorial.  We used jewel stickers, like these, but you could use cloves, grains of incense, or even cut circles from the wax sheets in gold or silver.

And that's it!  Your candle is ready to be added to your home altar and lit on Easter Vigil.  (Or Easter Day, if you are a house full of little children and aren't up to braving the Vigil Mass just yet!  Maybe next year. :))

~~~

In non-Easter news, we are on our last week of school, with exams next week and then the start of our "summer" break.  We started our school year last July, so it's wonderful to be so near the end!

My plan is to spend exam week doing my filing and scanning of school paperwork and straightening up binders, folders, and school shelves.  Then I'm off to the CM West :: Retreat at the Beach!  When I get back, it will be a true break for all of us for a couple weeks.

We'll spend May and June doing a very light summer schedule, which I'm pulling together right now, as well as lots of beach days, mornings at the park, and long stretches in the backyard.  My kids keep a list of the activities they want to do during their break--I will share that here soon, because it's a hefty list and going to keep us quite busy in the best of ways.

~~~

Last but not least: Pam kindly invited me to share about doing Morning Basket with all little ones for her Your Morning Basket podcast.  We recorded it last month, but I didn't know it was going to pop up on the podcast channel today until I got a bunch of kind comments on social media.  Thanks, friends!  If you're interested in listening, click on over. :)

{From My Commonplace} :: Just and Only

I was catching up in my commonplace this week and came upon this passage from Gilead about one of my favorite words to overuse...

"In writing this, I notice that it costs me not to use certain words more than I ought to. I am thinking about the word "just." I almost wish I could have written that the sun just shone and the tree just glistened, and the water just poured out of it and the girl just laughed--when it's used that way it does indicate a stress on the word that follows it, and also a particular pitch of the voice. People talk that way when they want to call attention to a think existing in excess of itself, so to speak, a sort of purity of lavishness, at any rate something ordinary in kind but exceptional in degree. So it seems to me in the moment. There is something real signified by the word "just" that proper language won't acknowledge. I regret that I must deprive myself of it. It takes half the point out of telling the story."

 -- from Marilynne Robinson's Gilead

Besides being a lovely reflection on the simple beauties of life and a careful consideration of the craft of writing, it reminded me of another passage I read this week with the kids in Madam How and Lady Why, which was both extraordinarily funny and wise:

"What is that coming down the hill?

"Oh, only some chalk-carts.

"Only some chalk-carts? It seems to me that these chalk-carts are the very things we want; that if we follow them far enough--I do not mean with our feet along the public road, but with our thoughts along a road which, I am sorry to say, the public do not yet know much about--we shall come to a cave, and understand how a cave is made. Meanwhile, do not be in a hurry to say, 'Only a chalk-cart,' or only a mouse, or only a dead leaf. Chalk-carts, like mice, and dead leaves, and most other matters in the universe are very curious and odd things in the eyes of wise and reasonable people. Whenever I hear young men saying 'only' this and 'only' that, I begin to suspect them of belonging, not to the noble army of sages--much less to the most noble army of martyrs,--but to the ignoble army of noodles, who think nothing interesting or important but dinners, and balls, and races, and back-biting their neighbours; and I should be sorry to see you enlisting in that regiment when you grow up. But think--are not chalk-carts very odd and curious things? I think they are. To my mind, it is a curious question how men ever thought of inventing wheels; and, again, when they first thought of it. It is a curious question, too, how men ever found out that they could make horses work for them, and so began to tame them, instead of eating them, and a curious question (which I think we shall never get answered) when the first horse-tamer lived, and in what country. And a very curious, and, to me, a beautiful sight it is, to see those two noble horses obeying that little boy, whom they could kill with a single kick."

 -- from Kinglsey's Madam How and Lady Why

Obviously, these two selections are talking about different things: one refers to a word that emphasizes the words around it (until it gets overused and loses its effect) and the other refers to a word which de-emphasizes.  Similarly, though, these examples speak to the power of a single simple word to heighten or minimize a point.  They both speak to the importance of language.

What struck me, however, was that only and just can mean both the same thing and the exact opposite:  "Only a chalk-cart" and  "just a chalk-cart" mean the same thing.  But in the Gilead-ic (can that be a word?) sense, just works in another way entirely.

So intriguing.

I'm not going anywhere special with this except to say that reading multiple books at once forges all these small, unexpected connections.  I never thought my fourth grader's earth science text and my Lenten novel would have anything in common!

And I certainly never thought my fourth grader's earth science text would get me thinking about minute linguistic distinctions.  But it did, partly because it's a living book and has that capacity, and partly because when you are a literature-lover, you can't help but pull out the literary bits to fawn over.  That's part of the Science of Relations too. :)

I'll be taking a break from posting for the Triduum, so I wish you a blessed time and will be back here on the blog next week!  (In the meantime, you can probably find me sharing snippets of Holy Week and Easter on Instagram. ;))

{This and That}

First, since I have had a couple more inquiries: yes, CM West :: Retreat at the Beach is full!  If you're interested but didn't get a chance to sign up, we do have a waiting list going, so feel free to add your name.

There are a couple regional conferences in the works for the West Coast in 2017, one in Northern California and one in Seattle.  Amber has more details over at Charlotte Mason West, including an offer to save your spot with a small refundable deposit toward one (or both!) events.

And one last note: CM West is now on Facebook!  Head over and "like" to get notice of upcoming events and plans for West Coast Charlotte Mason homeschoolers.

~~~

I shared this podcast with John Muir Laws on the Joyous Lessons Facebook page last week.  It's short but packed with encouragement.  I particularly liked the prompts he recommends asking oneself when in the field.  It has me adjusting my journaling style a tad and eager to learn more!

Speaking of, I got his new book in the mail a couple weeks ago and it's a fantastic resource!  Meaty, inspiring, detailed.  He has some great tips and tricks for drawing in there, but more important than that, he presents a way of looking at the nature journal that is super helpful for those of us without artistic backgrounds or a wealth of nature knowledge.  He encourages questions, annotations, sketches in a variety of media, very careful observation.  He emphasizes process, practice, and patience.  It's an all-around great book, and I know Charlotte Mason mamas will get a lot out of it.

His website is full of other goodies, including links to his blog tutorials and YouTube videos and a set of lesson plans for school kids.  Have you seen those plans yet?  I used them a bit with the kids when I first came across them a couple years ago, but I just pulled them back out as I plan our spring.  It would be a great way to jump start your spring nature studies!  (And like I said, it's free!)


~~~

Last week was a long week of rain, so we decided to head to the aquarium for a bit of nature study...

moon jellies

puffins

My favorites are always the deep sea tank (with hammerhead sharks, pelagic rays, huge tuna, and thousands of sardines!) and the jellyfish, but this time we spent some time watching the plovers in the aviary, whom we see in flocks at the beach all the time but never get very close to since they're skittish in the wild.

And hey, it's Minn!

Actually, as my kids pointed out with exasperated sighs, "Minn is a snapping turtle, Mommy."  But we had a great time examining this guy up close--apparently we have passed him by on previous visits.

~~~

On a less rainy note: all in all, the weather here has been amazing for late winter, and we're back to our weekly beach trips.

After a few months away from the coast after Justin's birth, we're noticing how different the sandscape is since the last time we were there in October.  We were going so often back then that it was more difficult to notice those bit-by-bit changes.

But now we find we have come back to a very different-looking beach.  Very little seaweed, no "cliffs" of sand separating the dune from the water's edge, huge mussels and clam shells washed ashore.  I'm taking notes and hoping to compare the February-March coastline to next year's.

Like I mentioned over on Instagram, we usually have the place pretty much to ourselves.  I am so thankful for my husband's current work schedule that allows us to take mid-week treks there together.

And you know what that means: more {Nature Study at the Beach} coming up soon!

~~~

Baby Justin turned four months old!  He spends the day scooting himself backwards under sofas and chairs, chewing on his newly-found fingers, and attempting to grab his sisters' hair with his slobbery hands...

See?  Hands in mouth, all the time!

This week he got an impromptu first haircut this weekend because his "bangs" were getting in his eyes.

See?  Long bangs!

He's rarely out of someone's arms, even while he's sleeping.

See?  This is how we  do narrations!

And he's thisclose to crawling.  I am so not ready for that!
~~~

A friendly reader, Erika, was kind enough to email me about how she organizes her nature collection, and I think you'll agree it's neat, usable, and beautiful too:

those cubbies that I love, and a nature tray too!

It got me thinking: if any of you that don't blog or post on Instagram would like to share your nature collection, email me a photo (with permission to share) and I'll put them into a little round-up post here.

~~~

In case you're wondering how we observe the Holy Week, you can see a pretty detailed description of our family's traditions a few years ago: Welcoming Holy Week.  Do you have any favorite Holy Week observances that you think we would enjoy?  Let me know.  I'm always looking for ways to grow our prayer and practice.

~~~

Later this week I'm hoping to finally get up my recap of our Year 4 and Year 1 exams from a couple months ago.  Yes, I'm late on those, and I know a few of you are waiting. :)  Next week at the latest.

And don't forget about Keeping Company--if you'd like to jump in, please do!

What We're Reading :: March

Me

Bronte's Jane Eyre (re-read for local book club with free Kindle edition -- just finished)

Cather's My Antonia (I've read several of Cather's books, but this is my first time through this one)

Robinson's Gilead (after being recommended in the same month by Angela and Leila, it went to the top of my TBR list!)

Karen Glass' Consider This for my local Charlotte Mason study group (re-read)

Vincent, age 9

From the Year 4 free reads list: Lassie Come Home and Gentle Ben

Nature Anatomy (of course)

Gianna, age 9

Hunt's St. Patrick's Summer (a Lenten re-read)

Garnett's Crossbows and Crucifixes (another re-read from our Year 3 history studies)

Allen French's The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow (from Bethlehem Books)

Brill's Madeline Takes Command (I didn't realize she's reading so much historical fiction right now!)

Cate, age newly-7

She has been busy with her birthday books:

a few from the Flicka, Ricka, Dicka series (great for new readers!)

Neumann Press' A Story of St. Catherine of Alexandria

To the Littles

Jim Arnosky's Wild World (5yo Xavier's favorite book he got for Christmas)

Sylvia Long's Mother Goose (4yo Bridget reads this to Clara and Andrew all day every day)

Elsa Beskow's Around the Year (3yo Clara is rarely without it!)

Aurelius Battaglia's Animal Sounds (1yo Andrew mimicking animal sounds is the sweetest)

Reading Together

Swallows and Amazons on audio (almost finished!)

Gone-Away Lake (Year 4 free read in the Morning Basket)

Forbes' Johnny Tremain and...

Garnett's The Red Bonnet (two Year 4 tie-ins that the kids and I are reading separately together ;))

Beatrix Potter stories (before bed, with Daddy on audio when there's time)

In the Mail...

I have a backlog of in-the-mail photos from the past couple months, so bear with my gazillion book photos here!

Walter Buehr's The Crusaders (haven't read it yet, but we like his Marco Polo and it looked intriguing...and that cover!)

Boggs' Three Golden Oranges (Spanish folk tales)

Our Country's Story (a fabulous vintage history find for the younger set)

A Newberry Christmas (already stowed with the other holiday books for next year!)

Cranberry Thanksgiving

Robert Lawson's Watch Words of Liberty (great for copywork and I love Lawson's illustrations)

V is for Verses (a lovely poetry compilation for children)

My Shadow (Stevenson and Rand are a great combination!)

Peck's A Year Down Yonder

We Were There at the Battle of Gettysburg (because Molly threw it in for free ;))

Ox-Cart Man (because we needed a new hardcover version)

O'Dell's Sing Down the Moon

Church's The Odyssey of Homer

Enright's Thimble Summer (to replace our paperback -- a Year 4 free read)

Hilda Van Stockum's The Angels' Alphabet

Galdone's The Three Bears (because I never pass up Galdone)

Holder's The Lord's Prayer (the prayer set to beautiful illustrations)

St. Pius X Daily Missal (I have had great luck finding these at thrift stores lately!)
Mr. Gumpy's Outing
Garfield's Shakespeare Stories (we use Lamb, but you can never have too much Shakespeare!)
Birds of North America (large photos will help with identifications)
Bernadette Watts' St. Francis and the Proud Crow
Lullabies: An Illustrated Songbook (I buy any books for children that the Met puts out because they're always fantastic!)

Willa Cather's Shadows on the Rock (haven't read this Cather either, but it was scheduled for Well-Read Mom this year and I heard lots of raves from friends)
...and a few vintage readers

Augustus Caesar's World (in hardcover)
The Raphael Bible (with text by Rumer Godden -- so intriguing that I couldn't pass it up)
another version of Little Men that matches my edition of Little Women (pretty sure I now have three of each, but this is my first matched set ;))
Scott O'Dell's Streams to the River, River to the Sea
Nature Atlas of America

I didn't chat about books here in February, so it was nice to catch up!  What are you reading?

(Links above are affiliate links.  I left unlinked the books that are recommended by AmblesideOnline because I'd prefer if you bought through their affiliate links. ;)  As always, thanks for your support!)

Nature Study Outing :: First Wildflowers and Early-Leafers

Our last couple nature outings have been taken over by the wildflowers.  And it's no wonder: we're having so much fun spotting our "old friends" again, whom we haven't seen since last spring.

We're making careful notes in our Calendar of Firsts--we're on our fourth year of data and it's getting really interesting to compare year by year.  Each season adds a new layer to our understanding of the changes in this area.  People always say that here in California, we don't have seasons.  But as a native Californian, I know we do.  We just have to be a bit more attentive!  Careful keeping of our Calendar of Firsts and nature journals help us to do that.

Like I said before, February starts "green season" here in California--that means early leafers and first wildflowers.  Here is a bit of a mish-mash of some favorite finds from the past couple weeks...

Plenty of vetch leaves cover the ground, but no blossoms yet.  This is one of my favorites, so I'm waiting eagerly for them to pop up!

Mustard and fiddlenecks are responsible for all the yellow around here.

Henbit, aka Giraffe head. (The perfect name for this guy, right?)

Sweet shepherd's purse with its heart-shaped leaves is always up by Valentine's Day here.

Wild cucumber leaves, blossoms, tendrils, and immature seed balls.  It loves to intertwine with the very-plentiful poison oak around here, so we have to beware.

It's not as common now for us to find one we're not familiar with, so it's always a real treat when we do.  This one I had never seen before.  It's called Persian Speedwell, which somehow sounds like a Bond girl to me?  Ha.  The tiny striped blooms are a pretty shade of blue.

This next one is blurry, but I couldn't leave out the other new flower we found: purple nightshade.  Cate said the middles (with their banana-like stamens and prominent pistil) look like pumpkins.  I agree!  There were two lone clumps of this, and I haven't seen it anywhere else nearby.

The wisteria--not a wildflower but beautiful all the same.  We always catch it when it's already in bloom, so I hadn't seen how the flowers are partially enclosed in a kind of casing and then unfurl.  The shapes and textures in this stage are so interesting.

When we get home from an outing like this, I prepare a nature tray for our journaling session.  The kids love to help me label it.  Here's ours from last week...

You can see a couple of the early leafers there on the tray: the willows that line our pond have both new leaves and small catkins, and the California sycamores have tiny velvet leaves and seed balls that hang in a line (which, I believe, distinguishes it from the American sycamore).

my willow sprig sketched and ready for painting

Since wildflowers are so small and delicate, I took the opportunity to talk with my kids once again about slowing down, observing, and trying to attend to the little details that make each one unique during our journaling session.  They made lots of little discoveries as they were drawing and did slow, deliberate work.  (Gianna's on the left, and my kindergartener's on the right--he really did a great job paying close attention and being true to the flowers he chose to draw.)

And it's not all journals and wildflowers!  There's lots of romping, building, climbing, and more going on when we get together...

not all the kids, but a good bunch of them!

I'm desperate to take the kids to some spots on my running trail because I noticed last weekend that the first lupines and vetch are in bloom, and I've heard there are shooting stars just around the bend of my usual route.  I'm thinking that's where we'll head next week!