A Place of Their Own

Way back in the woods behind our house, there is an old wooden fort.

Knut used to play in this old pile of wood back when he was a kid.  When we first bought his parents house Silje and David were 3 and 2.  It wasn’t exactly a great place for toddlers to hang out.  I always hoped that the kids would have many magical adventures back in the woods.  This last winter, David discovered the old fort, and asked Knut about it.  We thought that maybe the older kids might be old enough to make something of it.

I have long wanted to do some in depth nature studies with the kids, Charlotte Mason style, but due to the duties I have at home and responsibilities to the babes, and the sheer frigidness of the elements in our region, it’s been hard.  I love the concept Charlotte Mason has about children spending a significant amount of their education while outdoors.  I just like being warm.  The the kids’ science has been mostly textbook based thus far.  There’s nothing wrong with that, you know.  It’s good to get information in their brains.  I think that’s exactly what textbooks do: put information in their brains.

But experiencing the outdoors is far more than learning.  Sure, you learn things, but you learn things and are transformed by them.  You don’t just read about nature.  You hear it, smell it, get it under your fingernails, and make some great memories there.  This type of knowledge is the kind that shapes a mind, not just fills a mind.

The kids called their dad up at work and asked to borrow a hammer and nails so that they could secure a few boards, which he willingly let them have.  Elias wants to be part of the adventure as well.  He was the first, (and so far, only) one of the kids to get a scrape in this adventure.  It worked out okay, though, because all 3 of them are extra cautious now.  I think it’s good for them to recognize risk, and learn to deal with it appropriately.  There are things far worse than scraped knees, and one of those might be never experiencing anything that could scrape a knee.

I could see all of them had ideas swirling as they imagined all that the fort could be.  They looked around for pieces of wood to reinforce, and they looked for long sticks to extend the roof.  They haven’t had much success with the hammer and nails yet.  I think they need a bit more umph than their arms can do right now.  Well, Knut said they grabbed from his tool bench the largest nails possible too.  Some smaller nails might help a bit.

I’m hoping this fort will be a summer hang out for them.  The last few years we have kept our bird field guide in our kitchen and reach for it often when birds come to the bird feeder right outside the window. It’s at the point where Silje and David can identify most of the local birds.  We’ve started dating in our field guide the first sighting of the year for each species.  It’s fun to see the how close to the same day they migrate back to our yard each year.  Silje keeps a bird journal with all the dates and descriptions as well.

Recently I had her start a nature sketch book.  Basically I wanted her to find something interesting to sketch out, and come back to the same spot at least once a week and re-sketch the spot, noticing the differences over the weeks.  She found a bird’s nest in the works in the lilac bushes, so that’s her sketch spot.

On a side note, while looking outside our kitchen window during breakfast one morning, we all saw the male robins around our yard picking up large chunks of fluff that Missy is now shedding off her coat, and bring it back to their nests in the large oak tree.  Apparently the baby robins will have their beds lined in Great Pyrenees fur this year.

This summer I want to broaden our nature knowledge as a family.  To add to our bird field guide, I got a field guide to trees, and one of wildflowers.  I’m hoping we can do a bunch of nature exploring this summer and get some identification done.

School this summer looks like it’s going to be fun.  Not only do I want to visit some state parks with them, they’ll be able to just run outside and be surrounded by the elements we will be studying.  I love seeing their imaginations spark out here.  I love their passion to rebuild and restore.  Who knows what adventures they have in store!