flowermoon

Today in my part of the world is the first day of November, or Flowermoon. As we head into summer, the beautiful world out there is simply irresistable to us, and we spend less time over lessons at our dining room table. We go for long rambling walks. We absorb the gorgeous colours of flowers and trees and the sky, then paint them on wet paper, blur them with beeswax crayons onto warm paper, dye them into muslin scarves, and weave them with wool and cotton thread. We make flower wreaths, butterflies for our windows, hang crystals, play with water, and decorate our path with bright spirals, flowers, and poems. We clutter our windowsills with small painted, beglittered pebbles. We do lessons in the garden, while on a picnic, and late in the afternoon when it is cooler for thinking.

Although we are more untethered in this season, we do continue our homeschooling right through. Summer is a great time to begin a unit study of astronomy ... trees ... the sun ... the coastline ... the sea. It is also just right for studying Monet, the music of Mozart, the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Frost and Shakespeare.

I miss my shawls and slippers in this third of the year. I suffer from the heat. But with Christmas and baby birds and a luxury of flowers to look forward to, this surely is the best season of childhood any mother could wish for her daughter.