CM:Fresh Air « A Mother’s Journal

Brain Food

By admin, on October 22nd, 2009%

Having in mind Charlotte Mason’s encouragment to get children into the fresh air, we pulled a plastic chair into the veggie garden for Michaela. I turned over a bucket to sit on so we could read together. The fresh air felt so good.

Well, one thing led to another and we pulled our plastic card table out into the veggie garden and placed a couple of chairs. It looked like a cozy little kitchen corner, minus the walls and ceiling.

We began reading about outdoor survival as part of our school lessons and we thought it’d be fun to really build a fire. Actually Michaela thought it would be fun and I’m easily manipulated into things like that.

This led to pulling our little chiminea into the garden and gathering up dried grass and sticks. Our cute little outside kitchen was getting cuter and cuter.

If I have learned anything at all about home education, it’s that one thing leads to another and another and another. And also we badly needed some brain food.

So we dragged out an iron skillet and some cooking utensils, paper plates, drinks, napkins, and hot dogs. You have no idea how good hot dogs are when they are cut into little pieces and cooked in an iron skillet while you are reading about outdoor survival.

I could think so much better after this. Oh yeah, we brought out the peanut butter to put on our ginger snaps.

Actually, after the fired burned out and we had eaten an entire package of hot dogs, we tried building a fire using different types of tinder we found in the yard. It was an educational science lesson, though I will put a disclaimer right here about being careful with fire. Michaela is 11 and I was there supervising the whole time. And yes, I made Michaela pull her hair back because I did not like the looks of it swinging down near the door of the chiminea.

We invited Joseph to come out and eat with us and he seemed happy to oblige. At some point Joseph and Michaela transitioned to the more open end of our outdoor kitchen and started sword fighting with two heavy wooden garden stakes. Another disclaimer: Insert here whatever injury you think might occur from this type of behavior.