Growing Whole Children in the Garden

⭐ Your weekend activity with the family has arrived 😆 This weekend is all about vernal pools.⁠
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Vernal pools are temporary ponds that come to life at a certain time of year and dry up at other times. They are called "vernal" or "spring" ponds because in snowy landscapes, their active time is spring when the snow melts and deposits water in low ponds. In a Mediterranean climate zone, there is no snow, and the rainy time is winter, so they are really winter ponds that gradually dry up in spring. 🌀⁠
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This weekend, take a stroll with the family and look for vernal pools that have been created due to melting snow or rain. Note what you see inside. ⁠
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🛑 Please don't forget to be respectful!!! Vernal pools are easily destroyed and are homes to wildlife. 🛑⁠
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Spotted 🐄⁠🔎
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There's art in nature. There's math in nature. There's art in math or math in art? (both?) 🟪🔶💠🔴⁠
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Kindergarten art is the best! Check out the colors, the blending, and the line work. 10/10 🎨👨🏿‍🎨🧑🏾‍🎨⁠
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watercolors

Freshly picked 🍊🍋

In the fall we like to take nature walks and collect treasures in a bag or basket. We find leaves and seeds in nearby parks, and pumpkin and sunflower seeds in the garden.🌻

If you have a ripe sunflower from your summer garden, give children tweezers to take it apart, perhaps counting the seeds as they come out. It’s also fun to guess how many seeds will be in a pumpkin before opening it.🎃

I walked over a hand-hewn arched bridge, through a rainforest of mossy trees and ferns, and found myself in a village from another time.✨🪵🍃

Before me were a dozen buildings, houses, and workshops, made almost completely of natural materials gleaned from the forest and the earth, molded into non-linear forms that mimic this forest itself. This method is called “cob” and has historic roots in the British Isles.

The result is a Hobbit-like village which inspires the imagination, but perhaps more importantly, challenges concepts of what houses need to be. How can we use our creativity to produce rather than to just consume?

For more information visit cobcottage.com

“Remember you are this universe this universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.”

Excerpt of the , Remember, by Joy Harjo who is the 23rd Laureate of the USA appointed in 2019 and 2020. The first Native American to hold this post.

Here's your first fall weekend activity. 🤗⁠
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Earlier this week, I shared some thoughts on Gardner's idea of naturalistic intelligence and some naturalistic skills that our children should develop, but how can we, as parents and teachers, help them to do so?⁠
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A good place to start is making a naturalist's kit with your children because it prepares them to explore any environment. 🔍⁠
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In a small cloth bag or backpack gather simple "scientific" equipment that is easy for your child to carry when you go out on adventures this fall season. 🎒⁠
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Here are some ideas you can include but are not limited to: small notebook, pencil box with pencils, colored pencils, sharpener, and water color set, binoculars, bandana for sitting on the ground, and a small disposable camera. 📸

Poets refer to flowers endlessly, as the ultimate symbol for ephemeral beauty.✨ Yet in some contexts, flowers can seem frivolous, or even unnecessary. In comparison to the lives and livelihoods lost in the pandemic, flowers seem like "nonessential" items.⁠⁠
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However, the evolution of flowers forms the foundation of the productive world we know.☝🏻 Flowers may be beautiful, sweet smelling and ephemeral, but they are also essential in ways we rarely consider. 🌹⁠⁠
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Summer is the best time for delicious things in the garden!! Consider having a melon tasting party 😋🍈🍉⁠You can get multiple melons at the grocery store or farmers market, or taste those you have grown yourself! Happy brunching ⁠🥂⁠
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These are some of the illustrations from my book, created by !⁠
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