Lesson 1 in Learning Seashore Animals (You can find more info about that in this post), sets the scene, when Danny Field Mouse finds himself thrust into life at the seashore. We paired Chapter 1 of The Burgess Seashore Book for Children with two picture books that discuss the seashore in general, and introduce some … Continue reading Learning Seashore Animals – Lesson 1

Have you ever been strawberry picking? You end up stained, sticky, and smelling sweet. The farm where our CSA farm share comes from opened last week for Pick-Your-Own strawberries and we were so excited. We had to book a spot online and adhere to strict rules and social distancing, but we booked the first spot … Continue reading Strawberries

Some kids need a gentle nudge towards appreciating the vegetables they find on their plate. These books can help! We've been reading all of them to Big Kid who has decided the only vegetables she's eating lately are avocados, frozen peas, and frozen green beans. I mean, we have fresh peas, radishes, kale, and lettuces … Continue reading Nudging Them Toward Veggies

Do you compost? Many of us are trying to be a little more self sufficient and eco-friendly as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. I know we beefed up our vegetable garden this year, and are taking better care of it than ever. We hope to get most of our vegetables from that and our … Continue reading Compost

I need help!! My garden poetry collection is in need of some serious help. While writing this post I discovered both of these books seem to be out of print and are difficult to find at a reasonable price. I guess I need to update. I am always trying to incorporate more poetry into our … Continue reading Garden Poetry

In this fast paced world where do you find peace? My quiet place around here is in our backyard in the evening sitting in the hammock next to our vegetable garden. Since we've been spending more time at home, I've been make a conscious effort to slow down and notice the little things going on … Continue reading Being Quiet

How do you bond with your family? I feel like we have been spending a ton of time as a family lately, because we still don't really want to get to close to people we don't know. We have been bonding over things we may not have had as much time to do together before … Continue reading Bonding With Family Through Gardening

Do you have a little bird lover in your life? If you do, definitely check out Ivy Bird by Tania McCartney & Jess Racklyef from Blue Dot Press. This was the perfect book for us to read after Big Kid learned about birds commonly found in North America as part of her distance learning Montessori … Continue reading Ivy Bird

This week is blossoms week in Exploring Nature With Children. A lot of our nearby trees have already blossomed, but we do have a few trees/bushes in our backyard and neighboorhood that still have blooms. We're also going to take this opportunity to look a little more closely at flower anatomy. We'll be using this … Continue reading Blossoms Week

Did you plant a garden this year? We beefed up on vegetable garden this year after we had trouble getting some foods right after Covid-19 hit New Jersey. Food supply chains have settled back to somewhat normal, but we are really enjoying our vegetable garden nonetheless. Everyone, even Little Kid at 1 is helping. We've … Continue reading Planting a Garden

This week is Bee Week in Exploring Nature With Children, which we are very excited about. We love bees around here because they help pollinate our large vegetable garden. I was so excited when I saw these beautiful bee resources from Stephanie Hathaway Designs (I LOVE all her work). Big Kid has been working on … Continue reading Bee Week

As part of the Peace Program at Big Kid's Montessori school, the teacher has been sending home blurbs about people who have spent their lives working for peace in one way or another. I, of course, wanted to dig deeper, so paired the blurb they sent home with a picture book. This week, we learned … Continue reading Fearless Female Book Friday – The Watcher: Jane Goodall’s Life With the Chimps

"But remember this: Joys are the same, and love is the same. Pain is the same, and blood is the same. Smiles are the same, and hearts are just the same - wherever they are, wherever you are, wherever we are, all over the world" - Mem Fox in "Whoever You Are". If we all … Continue reading Board Books That Celebrate Diversity

Our little pea plants are starting to flower, so we will soon have fresh peas on our table! Luckily, both girls love to eat peas in any form, so this will be exciting for them. I pulled these two books featuring peas off our shelves to read with the kids before we harvest. Little Pea … Continue reading Peas

The Big Picture Atlas from Usborne is getting a lot of attention at our house this week. As part of her distance learning this month, Big Kid has been learning about North America. They have covered countries, flags, climate, landmarks, and animals. One day she chose this map work where she colored the map and … Continue reading Big Picture Atlas