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In December we love reading classic Christmas stories and have a tradition of reading or watching A Christmas Carol each year. I was not familiar with Dickens' other Christmas short stories so when my friend suggested that we read Cricket on the Hearth for our book club this year I whole heartily agreed! The story… Continue reading Cricket on the Hearth

American Beautyberry is stunning when you can spot it at the perfect time! Unfortunately our nature lesson was too late for the local plants in our nature park so the berries weren't as beautiful as they usually are! We still had a wonderful time at our nature lesson talking about this amazing plant. This morning… Continue reading Beautyberry

Last year, during our No Frills Book Club, we read the Iliad and the Odyssey. It made sense to continue this ancient epic series with Beowulf and it turns out that it has been one of my kid's favorite stories! There are a lot of ways to go about introducing this literature to students. You… Continue reading Beowulf Book Party

When we picked this book for our November book party I was judging the book by the cover. I love stories about animals and knew this was a book written from a fox's perspective. I didn't realize the heavy themes that would be woven throughout the story but I am so glad we read it… Continue reading Pax Book Party

Here is a title list of the books we read as our "No Frills Book Club." Each year we read one book a month for the school year! We met after reading the book to discuss what we learned. War Horse / Bud, Not Buddy / Nerviest Girl in the World / Inside Out and… Continue reading No Frills Book Club

I remember the first time I encountered American persimmon in the wild. It was the first week of October and we were hiking in Kentucky when I stumbled across several trees where the fruit was EVERYWHERE on the ground! My curiosity led me to do some research into this amazing plant and I fell in… Continue reading Persimmon Nature Study

When I began planning our lesson for the month I noticed how much ironweed was blooming in the fields around our house so I prepared some resources on this beautiful plant! When it came time to meet with the class all the ironweed I had found in the park had gone to seed! So, our… Continue reading Ironweed and Goldenrod

Over the past two years our nature journaling habits have included foraging and tasting herbal recipes while learning more about the plants. We did this with the Herb Fairies books from February 2021-February 2022 (see the posts here) and then from March 2022-May 2023 with a special class! What I loved about this special class… Continue reading Staghorn Sumac

Book party by RaeAnna My daughter Eva Mae has been interested in "spy" work for several years! She asked for a spy kit for Christmas a few years ago and every time I set off her laser beam motion detector my heart would jump out of my chest at the loud and blaring siren! This… Continue reading Harriet the Spy