Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Flowers
One of the first things I noticed when I first began looking at Charlotte Mason, was her emphasis on nature and nature study. Oh, oh, I thought. I don't know anything about trees and flowers--and I hate birds! How on earth am I going to do this?
I said as much in the AmbleSide_Year0, a Yahoo email group, and was flooded with encouraging and wise advice. The lovely ladies there reminded me that I can learn along with my child and that I probably already know more than I give myself credit for.
I decided they were absolutely right and, also, that I needed an attitude adjustment! Instead of dreading the impossible task of learning the names of trees, flowers, and birds(What an example THAT sets!), I needed to get excited about learning something that I really always admired other people for knowing.
So, last Thursday at the library, a child's book about wildflowers practically fell into my hands. Thomas and I have read and enjoyed it and I wanted to share it with you. Those of you with Texas ties will especially appreciate this beautifully illustrated book, Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America, by Kathi Appelt and illustrated by Joy Fisher Hein.
The story takes Lady Bird from her birth in East Texas into a wealthy family with a black nanny, through the death of her mother when she was a child, to her marriage to Lyndon, his death, and finishes with her founding of the National Wildflower Research Center when she was 70. Parts of the story are quite sad, and the wildflowers are shown as Lady Bird's best friends and comforters throughout her life. A dozen wildflowers are woven into the story in such a way that you learn them "accidentally" and then they are also identified in the back of the book.
Today, then, in the Fisher-Price newsletter, was a link to easy flower pressing that I thought would make an especially pretty way to document the flowers that we learn about.
Then I remembered blogging about wildflowers, particularly bluebonnets, here, and here back in April on my other blog.
No turning back, now, eh?
Read or Post a Comment
Have you been to the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center yet? It is so lovely. We went last year with the kids and took some amazing photos during blue-bonnet season in Texas. Thanks for the book referral. I'll check into that one next Spring. :)
Enjoy your nature studies! :)
Just a word of awareness and reflection for you. "Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air." -Georges Bernanos