Daily Archives: August 7, 2009

Book Review: “Gardening With Young Children” by Beatrys Lockie

Posted on by
2

I have to admit right off that this is one of my favorite books because I feel it brings the experience of a wonderful gardener and Kindergarten teacher and marries it to an imaginative approach to nature and gardening for children between the ages of three and seven. 

This is one of my favorite quotes in the entire book, presented in the “About This Book” section (and this is after the author presents a case that children live in pictures, in stories, in the imagination):  “Many grown-ups, by contrast, live in a world of the intellect, of logical cause and effect. This is foreign territory for a small child.  The child can make little of this approach, and quickly becomes bored.  Worst of all, a child fed nothing but intellectual fodder can later become emotionally stunted.  An intellectual adult  often finds it more difficult to conjure vivid images than does a more intuitive person.  But we can all try.  Otherwise, what we give to children goes right over their heads.”

Many parents coming to Waldorf lament that they “don’t know how to NOT teach” or they have no idea how to answer children’s questions in a pictorial way.  This book will give you some great ideas!

The first chapter of this book talks about some of the practical aspects of gardening with small children that the adult needs to be aware of: soil acidity, plant preferences, soil acidity,  weather, fitting gardening into your schedule.  The next four chapters cover each season with plentiful suggestions and examples of stories, activities, songs, arts and crafts ideas, baking and cooking ideas.  Such traditional festivals as Advent and Candlemas are also covered.    After that, there is a section on “The Town Child” for folks who live in densely populated cities and how to work with that, and the last chapter includes a month-by-month gardener’s calendar.

This book packs in a lot of information and suggestions for its 136 pages, and I feel is a resource one will refer to for multiple years.  Again, this would be an especially wonderful resource for those just starting out in gardening and those unsure of how to approach gardening and nature in a more imaginative, wonderous way.

Blessings,

Carrie

Book Review: “Earthways: Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children”

Posted on by
2

“Earthways:  Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children” by Carol Petrash is a much-loved book by a Waldorf teacher (and her husband, Jack Petrash, as many of you know, is a Waldorf Class Teacher) and is an easily accessible place to start to learn about how to construct a nature table, how to look at arts and crafts from a natural materials standpoint, how to work seasonally within your homeschool. 

My copy was published in 1992, and has about 202 pages.  It opens with an introduction regarding the environmental problems that are facing us today, but places this within the context of the developmental age of the young child:

“They come into life with a sense that the world is good and beautiful.  Our interactions with them and the ways in which we bring them into contact with nature can either enhance these intuitions or destroy them.  When children are met with love and respect, they will have love and respect to give.  Our task as the parents and educators of young children is not to make them frightfully aware of environmental dangers, but rather to provide them with opportunities to experience what Rachel Carson called “the sense of wonder.”  Out of this wonder can grow a feeling of kinship with the Earth.

She has a whole section of how to use this wonderful book, and how the book works in many projects from whole to parts (a foundation of Waldorf Education!)

Fall includes such things setting up an Earth-Friendly home and classroom, creating a Seasonal Garden (some of us may call this a Nature Table or Nature Space that changes with the seasons), and then a myriad of arts and crafts using natural materials – leaves and paint, pinecone people, baking activities, using pumpkins and Indian corn for baking and crafts.  Winter focuses on the indoor play space, what your Seasonal Garden might look like for Winter, some finger knitting, woodworking and other indoor projects and things that would be appropriate for Saint Valentine’s Day.  Spring focuses on the use of natural products to clean your home and classroom, the Seasonal Garden, experiences with the element of wind, working with wool from whole to parts, starting a garden.  Finally, Summer focuses on creating an outdoor play space, the Summer Seasonal Garden, harvesting and eating berries, and more arts and crafts projects designed to capture the feeling of Summer.

There is a complete listing of mail-order supply companies, an extensive bibliography for teachers, and a list of picture books for small children arranged by season. 

This book can sometimes be found on the shelves of local libraries, but I do think this is one you may want to have on your shelves.  You will return to it time and time again!

Blessings,

Carrie