peasloveandahappymess

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ARCHERY A bow across the sky, Another in the river, Whence swallows upward fly, Like arrows from a quiver. - John B. Tabb

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"Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment." -Dr. Maria Montessori

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[peasloveandahappymess]

The most interesting treasures seem to appear after the worst storms.

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[peasloveandahappymess]

Exploring the bay... It wasn’t a long walk for these little ones, but we moved slowly, stopping often. When we move slower, we can dig deeper. We noticed that closer to the ocean are more diverse treasures. We recognized some shells from the tide pools (those resembling mussels and limpets), and some unexpected objects, like a pinecone with no conifers in sight.

We carried some home in a makeshift knapsack and washed them cautiously, examining each. With the kids’ help, we will write down the story of the walk and add in pictures. Questions will come up. Someone will likely search for mollusks in our natural history book. We will revisit often. Day by day, we are learning the land around us. We are fostering ecological identity by establishing familiarity, awareness, and connection to the land.

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They love to play an active role in their meals. Burning off a little extra energy is an added perk!

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“I think mapmaking is an inherent human endeavor. Mapmaking, in the broad sense of the word, is as important to making us human as music, language, art, and mathematics. Just as the young child has in innate tendency to learn to speak and count and sing and draw, the child also tends to make maps.” -David Sobel

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Tide pool work continues in the form of clay and watercolor. We’ve made impressions in clay, read stories, and studied our natural history book to make line drawings for watercolor.

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Shark or whale? First, we examined their tales.

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Rainy day project: Our nature basket is overflowing, so we turned many of our treasures into a garland. Now we have inspiration right in our main work space, even on days we don't get outside much.

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Tide pool texture… This exploration will be long term and revisited often. Lots of intrigue, questions, and inspiration.

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Matching upper and lower case letters.

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This began with a question of, "How do we make brown?" and soon the discovery of, "Red and green make brown!" We have talked about color opposites, so we started there, making shades of brown. The kids were mesmerized watching colors blend together. We guessed what each new color would look like as we moved through the wheel.

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Handmade snow family❤️: Air-dry clay, braided yarn scarves, found buttons and sticks.

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Nature outing