Chickweed

In 2021 we are beginning a new Nature Adventure focus! The Herb Fairies books are the “spine” for our monthly gatherings. Each month we will learn more about foraging local herbs and hopefully tasting each herb every month! This was our first meeting of the year and we learned about chickweed.

I brought our book to share some pictures and a few short stories about how chickweed can help heal skin, provide vitamin C, and relieve muscle soreness when used as an infusion in a bath. The story has a troll that was miserable with many ailments and “Stellaria” the chickweed fairy was able to help heal the troll!

I washed some chickweed that I foraged from our community garden and the kids used the sample to draw in their nature notebooks and then eat as a snack!

I also made this yummy chickweed pesto! After students observed the chickweed they came up and tried a bit of the pesto and I think the pesto went over a little better than the raw chickweed!

The students were excited to hear that it can be used to help heal cuts! Eva Mae told her story about how she spit the chickweed on her cut from her hand. I guess from her story it sounded pretty miraculous! I wouldn’t say it heals a cut in 5 minutes!!! But I’m super impressed with Jackson’s attention during our discussion. A student asked “how long do you need to leave it on?” And I said “about 5 minutes” but should have mentioned it could take multiple applications! Read this article about using chickweed for healing cuts!

Our group was amazing this month and we had a lot of first timers! I loved gathering with the students before and after class to talk about nature! Before class we started with our “story stick” and allowed students to share a nature story from a recent observation. We hiked to our normal lesson spot after our gathering song and after the lesson closed with the Thanksgiving song. It’s so much fun to see these children each month and enjoy our time exploring and learning! I am looking forward to learning more about violets next month!