Happy Easter and a reminder to be outside

I think of Easter as a time to celebrate the marvels of the earth through this season of rebirth, regrowth and the nature’s burgeoning vitality. When days of longer light can make my own sap rise along with that of the trees and plants as I suddenly feel more energised!

What better time than this to commit to more time outside, experiencing and learning about our essential connection to the earth first hand. Learn along with the kids how all species are connected to the lives of others and imperative for the longevity of the planet, for our own health and well being and that of our children.

Article here suggests children need at least two hours a day outside.

And this one goes into more detail about the benefits to both physical, mental and spiritual health and its impact on our immune systems.

So what better time to take a serious look at increasing your outdoor time than Spring, when it is so pretty and inviting and downright dramatic with its April showers!

The perfect time to educate for increased understanding of the planet, how to live upon it with more respect and less impact. The more the children know, the more their respect will grow.

Go out to witness and experience:

• Birds – with bits in their mouths, either for nest building or for baby feeding, or singing their Springtime songs, migrants that have recently arrived
• Emerging insects – from creepy crawlies in the crevices to the first bee or butterfly you’ve seen this year
• Rain – appreciating the fact that it is essential for survival. How often do you consider that? And consider also ways in which you can economise with your water usage – waste less of this essential resource. In fact, there’s lots of varying weather to experience during Spring
• Young – the best time for seeing newborns, especially lambs. There may be a farm or a centre nearby you can visit, a river for ducklings, or listen out for baby bird cheeps in roofs, trees and hedges
• Plants, shrubs and trees that are beginning to leaf up or bloom. If you have a garden get the kids involved in growing things, in pots if you don’t, in order to learn about the vital elements needed in order to grow; nourishment, light, water – which we need too! Along with health giving contact with soil!

You may live in a concrete environment, but that is all the more reason you need to teach the children about the earth that lies underneath and to find ways to get them back in contact with it. Otherwise how will they know it’s there, grows our food, supports our lives, and that it needs our attention? Use the occasion to celebrate this earth and the abundance of life bursting around us, on which all ultimately depend, however city central we live.

Have a Happy Easter and springtime!

Spring amid the concrete

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How will you respond this Easter?

This is such a strange and challenging time. We’re going to have to dig deeper than ever into our personal resources to respond and cope with these unprecedented circumstances.

Hopefully we will learn something about ourselves by the end of it. It’s bound to change us. Has changed us already – I know my appreciation of many simple things has increased as we do without many of the things we took for granted, like popping to the shop for chocolate!

Ours have grown up now, but I can still remember how difficult it can be at times cloistered in with small children not able to get out. I know many families would occupy their time with a trip to the shops just to buy some non-essential that they don’t need. Out of the question now obviously.

But actually, what children crave – even as much as those chocolate eggs – is the engaged time and attention of their loving adult.

Many parents bemoan the fact they never have time in their lives for that. Many children feel the pinch of life without it.

So maybe that’s a good aspect of being home bound right now. You can do something about it. Children learn as much from the time and attention of an engaged adult as anything else on any curriculum!

And it’s the perfect time to give some effort to making Easter rather than buying it.

It doesn’t have to cost, if you get resourceful with whatever you have in the house. Exercise their minds and problem solving skills by giving up thinking; ‘we need to buy this, this and this’ and start thinking ‘how can we make this with the resources we already have?’

For example, paint or felt tip eggs, or crumpled up paper can make eggs to hang up, a coat hanger would suffice to hang them on although I bet you’ll come up with something better than that. Bunting can be made with old magazines, books you’ll never use again, even old clothes – you don’t have to sew it, think of another way to put it together. Get resourceful with creating rather than buying, get creating this Easter rather than consuming.

And when you get out for the groceries, get the ingredients for a simple cake.

Making a cake together is not about the cake.

Recipe from Kidspot.com

Making a cake with kids can be tricky, unless you change your agenda. Your agenda is not to make a perfect cake. Your agenda is to make some happy memories with them about the resourceful way you dealt with this crisis and the things you came up with. Stir your cake with fun and affection and lick your sticky fingers with relish over the sweet times you made together.

You are teaching the kids about resilience and resourcefulness. Both are skills that will be useful to them time and time again throughout their life long after this crisis is over.

We can spend the Easter bemoaning the things we’d usually do that we now cannot. Or we can spend the Easter creating something that’s more important than baking a cake; making good memories that will stay with the youngsters forever.

Hope you stay well and manage a Happy Easter. And if you come up with some good ideas – please share them in the comments below!

Happy Spring: What better time…

Easter Holidays!

What better time than this to celebrate the season of rebirth, regrowth and the earth’s burgeoning vitality. When days of longer light can make me feel that my own sap is rising along with that of the trees and plants!

Spring amid the concrete

And what better time than this also to get yourselves and the children outside, experiencing and learning about our essential connection to the earth, how all species are connected to the life of others and imperative for the longevity of the planet, for our own health and wellbeing and that of the children.

I was reading recently about how the increase in childhood conditions and diseases may be exacerbated by our children’s decreasing contact with the earth, the soil, fresh air and green spaces in particular. And how parents should do all they can to reconnect, to encourage learning about the natural world supporting us, and perpetuate a care of it. From the tallest tree, to the tiniest insect, and all those essential organisms we can’t even see – it’s all important!

What better time to do this than when Spring makes it easier to be outside, when it is so pretty and inviting and downright dramatic with its April showers!

So why not get out to spot and experience:

• Birds – with bits in their mouths, either for nest building or for baby feeding, or singing their Springtime songs
• Insects – from creepy crawlies in the crevices to the first bee or butterfly you’ve seen this year
• Rain – appreciating the fact that it is essential for survival. How often do you consider that? And consider also ways in which you can economise with your water usage – waste less of this essential resource
• Young – the best time for seeing newborns, especially lambs. There may be a farm or a centre nearby you can visit, a river for ducklings
• Plants, shrubs and tress that are beginning to leaf up or bloom. If you have a garden get the kids involved in growing things, in pots if you don’t, in order to learn about the vital elements needed in order to grow; nourishment, light, water – which we need too! Along with health giving contact with soil!

You may live in a concrete environment, but that is all the more reason you need to teach the children about the earth that lies underneath and to find ways to get them back in contact with it. Otherwise how will they know it’s there, grows our food, supports our lives, and that it needs our attention? Use the season to celebrate this earth and the abundance of life bursting around us, on which all ultimately depend, however city central we live.

Have a Happy Spring!

 

 

Happy Easter!

I always think of Easter as the gateway through which spring passes.  

I love it – more importantly for me because the equinox has passed and, although the weather still can throw up some challenges yet, at least we have more light than dark in a day. After long dark winter days that also darken my moods, it’s a blessing to have that.

It affects the children’s moods too, did you realise?

I relate a story in my ‘A Home Education Notebook’ when, having got pretty much to the end of my tether with the children (my mood’s fault as much as theirs) I bundled them up despite conditions and we went out for a walk. This wasn’t without protest – but I pressed on determinedly.

And I’m so glad I did. For everything changed. Their moods picked up, bickering was forgotten, spirits lifted, the grumpy tweenager even started singing! And when we got back with sniffy noses and blazing cheeks everyone was calmer, more peaceful, more tolerant! It was an antidote to doldrums I could always rely on.

Have you tried it?

There are many studies now that show the benefits of time outside everyday – most importantly for the children, both physically and mentally. And it’s so uplifting anyway.

There’s much to seek; buds bursting – look out for the sticky ones, birds carrying twigs for nests, bulbs blooming, primroses, lambs, the first butterfly/bee/ladybird. And the time when the sun actually feels warm on your face.

Turn yours up to it like sunflowers, cure your family gripes, run off all that chocolate; get yourselves outside.

Have a Happy Outdoor Easter!

A way to renew this Easter

One of the beautiful things about life with young children – as well as the children themselves, of course – is their awe and delight in

Take a moment with the kids to appreciate the little things like droplets on a feather

the simplest of little things. A ladybird on the pavement. A tree for climbing. A hole in the undergrowth just right for crawling into. A wall for walking along. The feel of mud through fingers. The splashy noise of puddles.

It’s such a magic time and parents get the joy of sharing these things – if you take the time, that is.

Are you missing it?

A way of not missing it is to slow down and look at the little things as if they were new to you too. Indulge in the delight of really looking – like kids do. Of looking through the lens of their eyes, seeing things as if for the first time. What better way to spend the weekend?

Easter is traditionally a time of regrowth and rebirth. Maybe you could do your own bit of rebirthing and learn from your kids – learn from the little people who are usually learning from you. We’re never too grown up to change. Learn how to see with a different view – their view – their delight.

So how about, whatever the weather, leaving the phones and tablets behind, getting out in a green space somewhere, and observing the world with renewed eyes, attitude and time frame?

Take time to replenish yourself by going at their pace, change your momentum and the way you race by all the tiny wonders around without really seeing, without really feeling the awe. Slow down. Look closely. Absorb yourself. It’s quite a meditative practice – just what we need sometimes!

And renewing yourself will help you be the best parent you can be – one that’s never to busy to enjoy the little things with the kids. They’ll remember you for that!

Happy Easter!

Singing of holidays

I’ve been editing my new Home Ed book; one just for all those wobbly days when you wonder what the hell you’re doing! It’s to reassure you you’re doing good, because I remember what it’s like when your mind turns deceitful and messes with your confidence. This book is to get it back on track.

I’ve been determined to get it done, it’s a lot of work and I’m that stuck to keyboard I think my fingers now have square ends. And I also get slightly loony when I’ve been shut inside, too still, for too long.

So I’m just a bit desperate to prise bum off chair and get outside; enjoy the Spring delights this weekend even if it is in the rain.

Delights like:

– Rippling Lark song as they sing over their territories and show off to a mate. When did singing stop being a way to show off to a mate? Have you sung to a mate lately? The blackbird is the best at it; I hear him morning and evenings on branches and rooves and TV aerials.

– The perfume of the soil. I guess you don’t often hear soil described as having perfume. But the scent of it turned under the harrows, drying in the Spring winds, is as delectable as the smell of the shore when you roll up at the seaside. I drink it in.

– More light than dark hours in each twenty four, increasing every day till the solstice – fair makes my sap rise! When my sap rises I feel I can achieve anything – bit like the Lark. Even singing.

– The beginnings of buds, blooms and blossom that decorate all natural spaces wherever I go – rural or urban, from the tiniest green jewels on the hawthorn hedges to the blousy buds of the magnolia in town gardens.

This is how I’ll be celebrating this Spring weekend – hope you find some delights too and enjoy yours whatever you’re doing.

Happy holidays!

Easter – wake up with the earth!

Pussy willow coming into flower

Easter time; the season of rebirth. And if we get some warmth and sunshine so I can be outside it’ll make me feel reborn too! That’s the effect being outdoors has. It wakes me up and energises!

The Easter break surely is the best time to get re-connected with earthy things.

If you live in cities it’s all to easy to forget about the earth under all that concrete – I know – I grew up in central London. It never enters your head neatly tucked out of sight beneath those hard pavements; you never think that it sustains all life. It provides all food, all the materials we need to create our homes, machines, gadgets and clothes; everything we own originates from the earth. That thought is truly amazing.

It’s also worth considering how much we’re going to pollute that life-giving earth with yet another mound of packaging over Easter.

How about doing Easter differently? How about an experience instead of packaging! One that will reconnect you and your children with the wonders of the earth at this time of year as it emerges from its winter shackles? Visit a farm and see what food is being planted, seek out some lambs, look for sticky buds and pussy willow and go somewhere you and the children can bury your nose in spring flowers. Start growing some cress (you can do this in eggshells!) or sow some sunflowers.

This doesn’t have to cost the earth, either literally or budget wise. Especially if you don’t buy into that commercial con that Easter has become. Enjoy a chocolate egg by all means but you can get ten chocolate egg-sized eggs with minimum waste, for the same price as a massive box with hardly any chocolate in it if you compare the weights. I’ve got wise to it now and won’t let companies fool me. And like to consider the needs of the earth as well as my need for chocolate! Share that with the children, help them understand the earth, its needs and and how delightful it is.

A prettily packaged egg encased in a mass of plastic lasts a few moments on the eye and in the mouth, but will pollute the planet for years.

Memories of good times spent outdoors under the sky, watching hatchlings or touching sticky buds, lasts forever and through our connection reminds us to act in ways that will preserve them!

Swallow for Easter

An illustration by C F Tunnicliffe from my favourite vintage Ladybird book ‘What To Look For In Summer’

 I’ve had the best Easter present ever.

No, not the chocolate. Not the lovely, lush, shining grass, so succulent I could eat it! Not the buds and the birds bursting with song. Not even the fresh daisy faces smiling up at me from the ground.

It’s the sight of the first Swallow with the promise of summer in its arrival.

May your Easter be as enriching as mine!

Composting the kids…

 Am I completely nuts?

I just have to go outside even if it’s like the Arctic and snow flurries keep biting my nose end. But I’m stir-crazy with confinement. And my bum is becoming sofa shaped and screaming at me to get off it. My eyes burning for a computer free day.

So whatever the conditions I’m off outdoors this weekend.

I used to see the same madness on the children’s faces when we’d been indoors too much. It was so much easier when they were young. I could convince them it was going to be great once when we got out, despite what conditions beyond the window suggested. They’re not so easily hoodwinked now!

I leave my youngest to the laptop and go dig the compost – a nice hot job for a freezing day. And it makes me go all philosophical.

There’s nothing more satisfying than to see the rhythms of nature come full circle. To physically see that whatever grows from the earth will eventually return to it. Us included. And as I fork what was once waste from our garden and kitchen it is turned into a reward for the soil for all that it gives us. And the quality is the result of all I’ve put into it.

Kids are a bit like that. They will gradually compost all that you put into them, assimilate it into their minds and morals and behaviour, and grow to reflect everything that you have spent time and bother putting there.

And just like with my compost, it’s worth paying attention to that. Worth being careful to only provide that which will nourish your kids; physically, mentally and spiritually.

A bit philosophical for a holiday but a really fitting thought for Easter and the season of re-growth.

The lure of the chocolate egg…

 It’s Easter. And I’ve been thinking; not about the Spring season, rebirth and the cycle of life but also recycling.

I was examining the extortionately priced Easter eggs looking for Easter gifts. But when I looked at the way they’re packaged in relation to the amount of chocolate in them it wasn’t just a question of budget that made me recoil in disgust. It’s also the amount of destruction to the earth that’s gone into producing them and the amount of waste there’ll be as a result. All to express what? Respect for religious beliefs? A little love? Celebration of the season?

How conditioned we become to the lure of clever commercialism. Like most other people, I wanted to provide loved ones with something truly lavish. But budget wouldn’t stretch to luxurious eggs and anyway I’m not sure that I would want to perpetuate the myth that it’s necessary to buy into all that just to show someone a bit of appreciation.

So what could I give instead? Time maybe? Definitely affection? What is it we truly value?

I value warmth and interconnectedness. I value family and home and purposeful work. I value the earth; its wonderful cycles and seasons and the resources it gives us. I value love most of all.

You just can’t package those things.

It’s hard to maintain focus on the things you truly love when the culture in which we live attaches most of its importance to the price of the things we buy and the pretty way they’re wrapped.

Our children only spent a small time in school but already perceived a sense of judgement being made about them through things like – how many sweets you got in your lunch box, how big a present you got at Christmas, the wretched party bags and how big your Easter egg was.

I was so glad that through home educating we had a better opportunity, not to necessarily decry things that others value – and it’s fine to be buying expensive gifts, but to keep them in the perspective of what we truly valued as a family outside of those powerful commercial and conditioned influences. To actually examine and discuss what really was of value to us; love, appreciation of family, responsibility towards the natural world and the waste we create, our opportunity to be together. Our time and attention to our values being the most important thing of all.

It’s a good exercise as a family to be examining what’s truly of value to you and being together much of the time gives a good opportunity to discuss it – even when your mouth’s full of chocolate!

Happy Easter.