Flowers by the fistful – also known as Spring and Summer.
Three little nosegay vases sit in our foyer just waiting to be filled. At the birth of each of my sons, a dear friend gifted us a small posy vase. She shared that the mama of small children should always have small vases to collect their flowers. At the time, I had no idea what joy and beauty she was inviting into our home (also, if you’re my friend, you have probably received this gift at the birth of your babies).
Working our way through The Garden Guide is the most fun. We have worked with seeds, a variety of plants, watched color absorbed into stalks of celery, and more! Recently, as my boys brought me flower, after flower, we naturally found ourselves arranging them in our sweet vases. The boys oohed and aahed over their collections. They were inspired to collect more and more flowers.
When we had an afternoon inside, I set up their sweet arrangements on our art table and placed some rosehip tea in nice tea cups (yes, boys love tea time too). I invited them to get the watercolors out and we painted our arrangements. We got out our Linnea books and poured over the images of Monet’s water lilies, garden paintings, and bridges. My boys especially liked the bridges and were so sad to hear about Monet’s slow loss of vision.
My eldest enjoys destroying things. It is sort of his natural inclination. In many ways, I have struggled to accept it. However, I am learning to approach this as part of his learning style. So, he was delighted when I told him we were going to dissect a flower. He took great pains selecting the perfect daffodil for our project. Then we used gentle hands, tweezers, and some tissue paper to slowly separate each part of the flower. The Garden Guide had the perfect flower anatomy and then we paired it with Nature Anatomy to dive deeper.
If you own The Garden Guide, you will note our mixture of activities doesn’t necessarily follow the schedule perfectly and that we completed some activities from different days all at once. Truth be told, this is the norm for our home! It is so nice to have these things compiled in once manual for us to use as works best in our own space. Make sure you don’t miss out on the thrill of learning because you feel the need to stick to the schedule. Sometimes we skip activities, and sometimes we do three in one day! Happy gardening!