Limiting Consumption- Beyond Montessori.

Montessori is known for limited items for children, but this idea needs to be for reasons beyond independence.  We need to help children understand why.  We need to talk to children in a real way about consumption and what it means.  It may seem grim, but I tell my children daily about chemicals in foods, and air, and stuff.  I need them to know that making the choices we do are for greater reasons than because I'm a stick in the mud.  I need them to know that the choices we make as a family are for environmental/global reasons and for the protection of their future.  I'm saddened at this reality and that they are exposed to this so young, but living in oblivion and dealing with the problem later on in life is harder when we have to make these choices daily.

This video came out just before my first daughter was born.  As much as I was aware of things, this simple video helped clarify and confirm my belief in raising a family "naturally".  Reduce, re-use, and live sustainably. I hope this helps you to make choices and to think before reaching out for things on the shelf.  Our children do not need to be inundated with so much stuff.  It's not about Montessori, it's about protecting the earth we live on.

Talk to your children at home and at school.  Bring about the awareness of living within our means.  Just because we "want" something does not mean we need to have it.  There is a chain before and after that "stuff" we possess.  Children can understand this better than we realize.  I'm constantly surprised at how my 5 year old has understood this.  Recently, she told me she wants to become a farmer when she grows up so we can take care of the earth and live with fresh milk and food without all the chemicals.  ( We are also reading Little House in the Big Woods-by Laura Ingalls Wilder)

A new year is also a new beginning and a new opportunity.  Enjoy going Back to School!

Notes from a Recent Campout

We went camping this past weekend and I realized I'm still waiting on updating my Camping with Kids 2 post.  In the meantime I wanted to share some notes on why it's so important to just get out and be in nature.

Last week, SD county was ravaged with 9 fires.  We evacuated our school and were closed for a day.   The heat in the city has been brutal with almost 100 degree days, and about 90 in the house as we don't have A/C.  Getting ourselves ready to leave after work on Friday seemed near impossible.  But we did it, and I'm so thankful we forged ahead and left our home behind, an utter mess.

With that, here are my "notes" I'd like to share.

• Book a site and go
• Plan ahead, but if you forget something, you will make do.
• The more frequently you get out and go camping, you can fall back on the "usual" necessities
• We have our camping clothes, so packing gets pretty easy and fast
• Always be prepared for cooler weather.  
• Going with friends helps in motivation and having a back up in case you forgot to bring things
• Pack lots of drinks and snacks (adult beverages included).
• Be flexible- things never go as planed and you just have to adapt and move on.  It's the best skill to be learned as a child and an adult and being in nature is the best test to this.
• Take wipes and hand soap- I don't buy wipes for daily use or even around town. I hate the waste, but for camping, you just never know and it helps to have a small pack to rely on.
• Head lamps and lantern are a must.
• Pack a few books for bedtime.  Nature based books while out really ignite the imagination.  We read about monarch butterflies and we now hope to plant lots of milkweed plants.
• Have a few dollars in quarters in case there are hot showers- helpful for kids who play in muddy ponds.  
• Nature journal with pencils and colors for writing and drawing.

As difficult as it was for us to get out, it was worth it.  Watching my two run around with their friends and seeing how much fun they had getting dirty was worth it.   Being woken up to birds and woodpeckers- priceless.  Having my daughter wake up saying she didn't sleep well and the hawk woke her up- memorable.  Watching them play in the tent pretending to be princess astronauts - Ridiculous! Having them both brood and complain that they didn't want to go home- Worth it!

Nature discoveries that are impressionable lessons:

• Baby dragonflies stuck to our legs 
• Eared grebes only a few feet away from the children
• Colony of ladybugs that have newly hatched and discovering them in the larva stage (click here for life cycle activity)
• caterpillars in various stages of growth 
• Baby lizards
• Moss and lichen and the symbiotic relationship with fallen trees
• Wild flowers in the spring

'Tis the season to get out and play.  Hope you find time to do so this summer.
p.s. I hope to get that second post out on camping soon- I promise!

 The children discovered a wild chamomile.  The flowers and smell were identical. 

 Some one had made a pretty cool house of bark and branches.

 The group we went with was almost 100 people. It was one of the biggest groups we've gone with but we shared a site with our friends and the kids had a blast hanging out together.

 Foil pack smores.  Let it be said that the 365 dark chocolate makes for excellent melting chocolate!

 Even when camping the children can help with chores.

We still need to look up what kind of caterpillar this is.

Dirty Hands, Big Mind: A Lesson in Gardening with Children

Recently, a friend emailed me and asked me to give her some ideas on setting up a gardening lesson.  I thought about it briefly but had a lot to share with her.  I figured it would also make for a good post.

There is one thing I'd like to highlight.  When you introduce a child to gardening be ready to get dirty.  Both the child and adult must get past any squeamishness and be ready to get their hands dirty.  Using tools and gloves will only distract the child from the most important lesson: DIRT.  Dirt aka soil is an essential ingredient in gardening (hydroponics aside).  Working with soil involves your hands and getting intimate with it.  You need to connect directly and develop a love for it.

Besides getting dirty, there is another very important and vital aspect to putting your hands in and getting them dirty.  This is a sensory experience that most people area lacking today.  The dexterity, fine and gross motor coordination that gardening requires will help a growing child's brain develop in so many ways. Dr. Montessori said, the hands are the instrument of the mind. Homunculus is the perfect image of the relationship of the hand and the brain and other ways in which our senses contribute to brain development.  

The same goes for the feet.  Keeping children in shoes all the time, even outside,voids them of the opportunity for the neural connections where the senses imprint minute details.  These area all important aspects of sensory integration. 

Some further reading and links:
Sensory Science: The Mind/ Body Link
The Absorbent Mind and the Sensitive Periods
Sensory Development and Integration for Babies and Toddlers
 I have always enjoyed this site below.
Zero to Three- Brain Map

Here is my suggestion for an activity or "lesson" in gardening:
- I'd suggest starting with this book How a Seed Grows.  It's a great "lesson" to help guide the kids.  Also, it has step by step instructions that the kids will understand on how to start a bean in an egg shell.  Make sure your shells are at least 3/4 instead of half.  If this is not possible, then collect toilet paper rolls tape paper on bottom and fill with dirt. If this too is too much, then have them collect yogurt cups and punch a few small holes in the bottom for the water to drain out.  You can also do a few extra so you can pull out and show them the roots and such, or grow them in a small plastic cup. 

-Start the bean seeds in the shells and water ever so little.  Best would be a spoon or dropper or small pitcher. Initial watering needs to be deep and thorough, soil should be moist all the way down. You can keep the shells in the carton too.  I suggest a bush bean variety over a vining one.  Blue Lake Bush beans and Yellow wax are good ones.  This way they also see that beans come in different colors. 

-Give this as a small group lesson.  It might be too much to keep doing individually.  It would be a good activity to have a mix of all 3 ages and so have 3 children.  It might be a little too challenging for the little ones so if you have 3 with you then you can have them guide each other.  I have done this with my girls by age 2, but that's only 1 child every 2 years :)  I also suggest putting down lots of newspaper on the table and having them use their hands and fingers to push down the dirt and seed.  The most important lesson you can give a child about gardening is that you need your hands to do it, and getting dirty is part of it.  Tools and such tend to distract them and they can loose focus.  Once the seeds start and you start to transplant, then you can introduce the tools.

-You will need at least 5-6 hours of warm sun for your seedlings.  If not, at least 3 hours and you can help them germinate faster with heat underneath or close by.  You can create a "greenhouse" by getting foil trays with a plastic dome, or buy one similar to that at Lowes or some other gardening/hardware store.  They can help the seed start.  It should take about 10 days max and then you can work on transplanting. 

-An "additional" exercise would be labeling the plants, so the children know what type of bean they grew, so each tray/carton is Blue Bush or Yellow Wax.  You can write their names directly on the egg/container in marker.

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Parks vs. Playgrounds

Most of my friends know how I feel about playgrounds. In fact, it's a running joke now whenever a new article or post is written by another mom about how they shudder at the thought of taking their children to a playground.  Well, I figured it was time I articulated my feelings and sentiments.  Today, was the perfect day for this.

In the last few months we've been frequenting both playgrounds, and wide open spaces for hikes such as parks and canyons.  Even during our holiday travels we managed to squeeze both in checking out the newer designs of "natural" playgrounds, and Texas trails which included 2 live armadillos.

We even had a white Christmas which was a lot of fun for the kids.

So, what's my beef with the playground?  I'll get right to it.  4 years ago when I had my first, and I was more of a sensitive mom, attending to her needs and listening to the chatter, I felt as though I was not attentive enough by the other moms' standards.  I didn't hold her hand the entire time, I didn't help her down the slide, I would feel eyes on me questioning if I was the nanny or the mom.  I didn't care, but it got to me.  Besides, that, I was frustrated in having to explain that I didn't have to clap each time my child came down the slide (even thought I was elated on the inside- at first), I didn't want to fall pray to the continuous praise of "good job," "you can do it," and my all time favorite "share".  I grew tired of the same structures, the same routine, and the exhaustion of being on guard.  It was nice to let me husband go with her and for me to stay home.  Somehow, I don't think Dads get this feeling.

Anyway, rather than focusing on this, let me tell you why I prefer the unstructured parks.  In an open space where things aren't orderly and organized by age or skill level, a child must figure it out for themselves.  Today when my 2 year old and I went on a hike, I was reminded of this.  You see, at their height, and still introduction to this world, all things present a challenge.  Each one unique and one that develops strength, agility, and eventually mastery.  When we decided to climb the small rocks and boulders, she approached them with caution, looking back at me and reaching out for my hand while still clutching to her apple slice with the other.  As much as I wanted to talk and explain and tell her things, I recalled Rachel Carson's wisdom "it is not half so important to know as to feel.  If the facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow."  It's far more important for us to allow children to explore nature with their emotions than for us to teach them at these moments. At this time, it was far more important that my daughter come to realize she needed both her hands, her balance, how to use her feet to guide her over each rock and boulder, to examine that each one was different in shape and size, when to go over and when to go around.  The lessons that nature presented in this small patch of rocks allowed for her to develop far greater skills than any "structured" playground could offer.

These days, all playgrounds are void of rocks and boulder, of tree limbs to climb on, pebbles to fall and feel.  Instead their senses are refined through synthetic tactile experiences.  The feeling of falling on rubber or mulch.  The foamy squishy stuff where you don't get cuts and scrapes.  The "natural" plastic trees and painted branches and nylon ropes to climb and swing on.  Don't get me wrong, as cynical as I am about this, I'm also glad that playgrounds are being updated and a bit more thought and care are put into it.  I'm just trying to also say that this is not enough.  These experiences are not real, and for a child we must give them what is real from the start so they can experience it fully and understand the consequences of nature as well.  Falling from a plastic log onto a rubber mat is not the same as falling from a tree limb onto rocks and pebbles, or mud.  They way in which the body feels this fall is quite different.  (btw, I'm not advocating to let your child fall and get hurt, but if it needs to happen, well...).

When is the last time you as an adult climbed a tree and took a look at the world from that perspective, when did you hike over boulders and realize you foot slipping in that fine sand between your rubber sole and the rock.  This past weekend, we went camping and did quite a bit of hiking with the kids.  Both my husband and I put ourselves in a position where we were off the trial and on boulders and rocks and having to have our knee up by our ear to climb over something.  The perspective this gave me as an adult and how we need to continually challenge ourselves and our bodies was thrilling.  We truly need to get off the beaten path often and frequently if we are to raise our children to do the same in nature and in their lives. 

A few pictures from this weekend (a whole post on that coming soon):

Few more pictures from this morning:

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Gardening and Camping

The past two weekends have been a rush of outdoor activities.  Last weekend we had our friends over for an annual (since it's our second time) gardening event.  We expanded the yard with boxes, pulled out the rusted rose bushes, and got a few seedlings in the ground.  With all the new babies and growing kids, it was a rush of activity and LOADS of fun.

 Making homemade finger paint for the kids.

 The garden "To Do" list.  Still lots to do.

 Next year, we may need an adult size wheelbarrow.

 Before, or in the process of.

 After, and still more to come.

The beets that got pulled out to make room for the beds.  Not fully grown, so slightly on the bitter side.  Golden Beets and Chioggia.

This past weekend, we went camping with some friends for two nights.  Our departure times was quite a few hours later than planned which left us with cranky kids while packing, cranky parents trying to pack, a tired family heading on the road at 4 pm on a Friday, and getting to the campsite just before sunset, only to have to unpack and get kids fed ASAP before the freezing weather set in.

This had to be one of the more memorable and miserable trips we've had in the recent years.  Memorable since the kids had so much fun, on their bikes, hiking, and playing in "the wild".  The set up their own fort/camp just behind our campsite in the bushes under some old oaks.  They ran around getting ready to build campfires and have their own adventures.  It was about 10 minutes after they left their "wild" that we heard the cracking of a branch and about 30 seconds later a HUGE limb of an old oak came crashing down 10 feet from where the kids had been.  Well, what can I say.

 Hiding in the "wild"

 See that giant limb on the ground to the left, that's what fell.  See the sprigs of a bush on the right, that's from the picture above where they were hiding under.

California lilac bush that blooms this time of year.  Just gorgeous!

The misery came at night.  The cold was tolerable wearing 3 layers of clothes and 2 jackets, a hat, gloves, and 2 pairs of socks including Himalayan yak wool ones from India.   But no, this is not what was truly miserable.  It was my 1 year old who decided she wanted to nurse about every hour and screamed so loud the entire campground could hear her.  Since we only took our sleeping bags and lots o blankets for under, inside, and 1 for baby and me to go over, she was nice and toasty.  I on the other hand, had only my feet tucked into the sleeping bag and the rest hanging out.  Getting the top half of my clothes partially off to nurse her every hour and then have to get it all back on and tucked in to keep warm all took approximately an hour, so as you can do the math, I would just about fall asleep when she was about ready to be at it again.  2 nights of this and I was about to go insane.  The day time, on the other hand, made up for it all, and I suppose I'm ready to do it all over again in a few months, like in April, oh wait, that's next month.

 A mix of greens from our garden and homemade anchovy dressing, my new addiction.