The air is crisp and chill; filled with the promise of beautiful foliage in the coming days. Fall is the season I love to breathe in and be outside. It inspires me to go walking with the kids in boots and sweaters and see the artwork that God has created for us.
In Mason's first book, Home Education, she speaks quite a bit about getting children outside. She says, "Never be indoors when you can rightly be without." Those words pricked my conscience. Often we get so caught up in the things that we "have to do" that we miss out on the really important things that Mason intended to be in our everyday journey. The 6 hours outdoors can be daunting when there is so much else beckoning our attention but it is needed for our sanity and our children's.
Too much stuffy indoor air clouds our brains. I know you have experienced it. Cabin fever.
We are nearing the end of our first term and I must admit our time outside has been lacking. However, a true Charlotte Mason education depends on getting our hands dirty, experiencing our world with our five senses, and digging deep into the world that our Father has so lovingly created for us. Painting and drawing and observing the details of His love in everything around us brings us closer to God and to our home around us. However, even more so, she wanted us to spend hours in the outdoors. Formal nature studies have their place but we should also be basking in the fresh air and sunshine and informally getting to know the world around us personally.
In the Zen of Seeing, Fredrick Franck writes," In this 20th century, to stop rushing around, to sit quietly on the grass, to switch off the world and come back to the earth, to allow the eye to see a willow, a bush, a cloud, a leaf... I have learned that what I have not drawn I have rarely seen."
There is the heart of it. We are teaching our children to see. What an important trait to instill in our youth! To be knowledgeable about the things around them. To have natural curiosity. To have a sense of wonder and amazement. All of the things that we try hard to teach and encourage in their schoolwork but can not be found in books, no matter how living that they are. But, they can be found in nature!
I can tell the difference when we have been cooped up too long. Tempers flair and attitudes sour (and that is just me!). The fighting and complaining become almost unbearable. It is amazing to me how much all of that can improve with just a bit of unstructured time in a field or meadow.
So, what doe this look like? Anything you want it to be. As often as the weather allows, we like to do our readings outside. Whither it be out in our local park or just on our own back yard. Nature study doesn't have to be in a forest! There is nature wherever you are. We live smack in the middle of the city and there is always something to take note of.
My y0 kids run wild in the empty spaces of the local park playing at knights with sticks or tag running in the open (sometimes chasing the stray goose). At this tender age, just being away from distraction outside is nature study enough. How often has a sweet chubby hand brought me a flower or fuzzy caterpillar? They are learning to see!
My older children lay out in the grass with their daily lists and books. Nature has a way of making its way in. A busy chattering squirrel. A colorful spider. Clouds overhead. What lovely distractions!
It doesn't have to be as complicated as we tend to make it. Nature journaling and looking up specimens in field guides are a wonderful tool but they can also cause us to miss the forest for the trees. Just get outside and get some fresh air. Take the books outside. Sometimes it will
lead to a formal nature study and sometimes not but, whichever the case, it does us all a world of good.
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