Never be within doors when you can rightly be without ~ Charlotte Mason
Author: raisinglittleshoots
A Charlotte Mason inspired home educator, person of faith, knitter, lover of the outdoors. Author of Exploring Nature With Children: A complete, year-long curriculum
This weeks all about choosing a new place to go for your nature walk; either an entirely new place to you and your child, or somewhere you very rarely visit.
How to make a paper bag book This would be lovely to make as a special journal to document your field trip this week.
Exploring Nature With Children is an open and go curriculum. To make it even easier, I have created a free calendar for you to download.
If you’re over on Instagram, do pop over and say hello! The Instagram page is very much about community; think of it as your virtual home school co op! Our community uses the #exploringnaturewithchildren hashtag, & also specific weekly hashtags to enable you to connect with other families working through the ENWC curriculum. This week’s hashtag will be: #ENWCfieldtripweek
Exploring Nature With Children is an open and go curriculum. To make it even easier, I have created a free calendar for you to download.
If you’re over on Instagram, do pop over and say hello! The Instagram page is very much about community; think of it as your virtual home school co op! Our community uses the #exploringnaturewithchildren hashtag, & also specific weekly hashtags to enable you to connect with other families working through the ENWC curriculum. This week’s hashtag will be: #ENWCmothweek
There is a way of living with children that genuinely feels unhurried, rooted, and whole. Not perfect, certainly not endlessly peaceful, untouched by washing piles, tiredness, difficult days, or interrupted plans. But beneath the ordinary busyness of family life, there can be a deeper rhythm: days shaped by faith, woven with time in nature, and grounded in the simple beauty of home. A rhythm that gathers the ordinary and blesses it.
When we begin to see our days in this way, home becomes much more than the place where we eat, sleep, learn, and complete our tasks, it becomes a sanctuary: a place where our children feel secure, where faith is quietly practised, where beauty is noticed, and where the changing seasons help to give shape and meaning to family life.
The Sanctuary of Home is a gentle seasonal guide for women who long to tend the soul of their homes with faith, beauty, and rhythm.
It is absolutely not about creating a spotless house or manufacturing picture-perfect family moments. Our home becomes a sanctuary not because everything is beautiful, but because love, attention, prayer, and care are practised there.
The guide offers simple ways to welcome the season, tend to your own spiritual life, and create meaningful family rhythms. These small practices are important because they help us to become present; gently reminding us that our ordinary work, cooking, comforting, tidying, teaching, listening, can become part of a faithful life.
A Sanctuary for Childhood
The Sanctuary of Childhood is a Christian devotional for children, rooted in Scripture and the beauty of nature study.
Children do not need every hour filled with activities in order to experience a rich and meaningful childhood, instead they need time to wonder, to observe, to ask questions, to listen to stories, and to develop a living relationship with God and His creation. Through Scripture, art, prayer, and seasonal nature study, the devotional gently encourages children to notice the sacredness of the world around them. Nature study is not about collecting facts; although knowledge grows naturally through careful observation, It also teaches patience, attentiveness, gratitude, and reverence. It teaches children that the world is worth looking at closely.
Rhythm Without Rush
Each guide offers simple practices to help you mark the seasons and tend to your family’s faith without unnecessary busyness. There are no complicated checklists, and there’s no pressure to complete everything. No need to race through the material or feel that you have fallen behind, these resources are intended to serve your family, not become another burden, because the last thing that we need as mothers is another list of things to accomplish! We all benefit from a way to live slowly enough to notice the holiness that is already beautifully threaded through our imperfect days.
The complete collection offers a shared seasonal rhythm for both mother and child, while each resource may also be purchased individually.
You do not need to create an elaborate life in order to give your children a beautiful childhood, just begin with what is already in your hands: your home, your faith, the season outside of your window, and the precious people entrusted to your care.
Nature study is not merely the naming of birds, flowers, trees, and insects. Those names matter, of course. Learning to recognise a greenfinch or identify the tree at the end of the lane gives a child something precious: familiarity with the living world around them.
But nature study is also about relationship; the slow forming of an acquaintance with creation, the sort of acquaintance that grows through repeated meetings, careful attention, curiosity, affection, and delight.
This wonderful photograph, Dispute by Polish photographer Jacek Stankiewicz, captures two birds apparently embroiled in what could be viewed as a very animated disagreement. One leans forward as though making a particularly forceful point; the other flings out a wing in protest, and a third bird watches quietly from behind the tree, perhaps wisely choosing not to become involved! A photograph full of life, expression, and story.
Begin with what the child notices
When we share an image such as this with a child, it can be tempting to begin teaching immediately.
What species are the birds? What do they eat? Where do they live? What colour are their feathers?
These are all worthwhile questions, but they need not be the beginning of the conversation.
First, allow your child simply to look. What catches their attention? What seems to be happening? Which small details do they notice before you do?
A child might observe the open beak, the outstretched wing, the position of the birds’ feet, or the expression of the quiet onlooker. Another may immediately invent an entire quarrel involving a stolen seed or an unsuitable nesting place. This is not a distraction from nature study, it’s an exercise in attention, as before a child can study the natural world, they must learn to truly see it.
Observation comes before explanation
Charlotte Mason encouraged us to place children in direct contact with worthy ideas and real things, rather than always standing between the child and the subject, and this means that we do not need to explain everything before the child has had a chance to encounter it.
We may simply say:
“Look carefully at this photograph. Tell me what you notice.”
Then we wait.
That waiting may feel difficult; we may worry that the child has not noticed the “right” thing, or that our nature-study lesson is not sufficiently educational, but a child’s relationship with nature is not built through a stream of adult facts. Instead it develops as the child looks, wonders, remembers, compares, and begins to ask questions of their own. Information is far more likely to take root when it answers a question that has already awakened in the child’s mind.
Let them narrate the scene
A photograph such as Dispute is also a lovely invitation to oral narration.
You might ask:
“What do you think has just happened?”
“Who began the argument?”
“What might each bird be saying?”
“What do you think will happen next?”
There is no worksheet to complete and no single correct answer; the child is being asked to attend closely, gather their thoughts, and express what they have seen in their own words.
A younger child may offer a single sentence, whereas an older child might describe the scene in detail, write a short dialogue, or turn it into a poem. The important thing is not the length or cleverness of the response, it is the movement from looking to thinking, and then from thinking to telling.
Imagination does not oppose knowledge
Sometimes we become nervous about allowing imagination into nature study. We want children to understand birds as birds, rather than turning every creature into a storybook character, but careful imagination and accurate observation need not be enemies, and in fact, imagination often causes a child to look more closely.
If the child believes the birds are arguing, they may begin to notice the posture of the bodies, the angle of the heads, the open beak, and the spread of the wing. Afterwards, you might wonder together whether birds really do dispute over food, territory, mates, or nesting places, the imagined story becoming a doorway into genuine natural history. We are not asking children to replace truth with fantasy, instead, we are allowing delight and curiosity to lead them towards truth.
A simple nature-study lesson from one photograph
You could use this image for a gentle lesson with almost no preparation.
Begin by giving the child a quiet minute to look. Next, ask them to tell you everything they notice. Invite them to narrate what they think is happening. Then choose one question that has arisen and look for the answer together.
You might finish by asking the child to sketch the position of the birds, write a short conversation between them, or watch the birds in your own garden to see whether they display similar behaviour.
A rich education does not always require a complicated plan. Sometimes it begins with one beautiful photograph, one attentive child, and one adult willing to pause long enough for wonder to appear. Nature study is certainly not a race to collect facts. It is the patient cultivation of attention, and attention is one of the greatest gifts we can give a child.
As Charlotte Mason reminded us, education is an atmosphere. And sometimes that atmosphere may be decidedly argumentative!
Next week in Exploring Nature With Children is ‘Weather Week’, with Saint Swinthin’s Day falling on the 15th of July. According to traditional folklore, whatever the weather is like on St Swithin’s Day – whether rain or sunshine – it will continue for the next 40 days and 40 nights!
I adore opening a new planner; the sense of a fresh start, a hopeful beginning.
When it comes to planning our home education, a planner can’t do the work for us, but a good planner can help to hold the shape of the year for us. It can gather the many threads of our days: books, habits, nature study, copywork, family rhythms, seasonal celebrations, lessons, appointments, and ideas, and help us to see them as a whole, rather than a frantic heap of good intentions!
I created the Raising Little Shoots Charlotte Mason Home Education Planneras I was home educating my own children. Designed for families who love the Charlotte Mason vision of education: living books, nature study, short lessons, attention, beauty, habit, outdoor life, and the slow formation of the child as a whole person.
The 2026–2027 Planner includes 106 printable planning pages within a 116-page PDF, beginning in August 2026. Alongside the dated planning pages, you will also find guided pages to help you think through your year more deeply, including the Mother’s Term Compass Pages and Family Culture & Traditions Pages.
It’s always been important to me to remember that planning is not only about lessons, it is also about asking:
What kind of atmosphere are we creating in our home?
What habits are we gently strengthening?
What books will feed our minds and hearts?
What seasonal rhythms do we want our children to remember?
Where do we need more simplicity?
Where do we need more courage?
Where do we need to make space for wonder?
For those using Exploring Nature With Children, the planner has been created with that rhythm in mind, and the weeks are pre-planned and included in the calendar pages, helping you to bring your nature study, seasonal observations, and weekly plans into one place. You may also wish to download the free annual Exploring Nature With Children calendar to help you see the year’s nature study themes at a glance.
A Few Helpful Resources for Your Planning
If you are beginning, refreshing, or deepening your Charlotte Mason journey this year, here are a few beautiful online places to explore:
For classic children’s literature, The Baldwin Project is a lovely rabbit hole of older stories, myths, legends, and children’s books.
For Charlotte Mason’s own writings, AmblesideOnline’s Charlotte Mason Seriesis a generous place to begin, with access to her six-volume series. You might also enjoy their page on Nature Study, especially if you are trying to build a simple, sustainable outdoor rhythm.
For thoughtful historical reading, the PNEU archive is a treasure trove, offering articles, ideas, and glimpses into the living educational movement that grew around Charlotte Mason’s work.
Do keep in mind that a Charlotte Mason education is not built by mastering every resource. It is built by small faithful choices: a poem read aloud, a bird noticed at the window, a child asked to narrate, a habit gently practised, a beautiful book opened again tomorrow.
A Planner as a Servant, Not a Master
The best kind of planning does not make us rigid, or anxious, but instead gives us somewhere kind to return. There will be weeks when everything flows beautifully. There will be weeks when illness, tiredness, interruptions, or ordinary family life undo the plan completely. That does not mean you have failed. It simply means you are educating real children in a real home.
The planner is there to help you to begin again, to re-gather, to notice what matters. To make room for lessons, yes, but also for family culture, seasonal beauty, nature walks, poetry, picture study, handicrafts, scripture, stories, and rest. Home education is not merely a schedule. It is a life! And a thoughtfully planned year can help that life feel less scattered and more intentional.
The Raising Little Shoots 2026–2027 Charlotte Mason Home Education Planner is available now, and you can use the code PLAN20 for 20% off.
May this be the year that you plan with clarity, teach with peace, and make room for the quiet riches that grow slowly.
Exploring Nature With Children is an open and go curriculum. To make it even easier, I have created a free calendar for you to download.
If you’re over on Instagram, do pop over and say hello! The Instagram page is very much about community; think of it as your virtual home school co op! Our community uses the #exploringnaturewithchildren hashtag, & also specific weekly hashtags to enable you to connect with other families working through the ENWC curriculum. This week’s hashtag will be: #ENWCsummertreeweek
July has almost arrived, and with it that full, warm feeling of proper summer.
The grass is high at the edges, the bees are busy in the flowers, berries are beginning to ripen, and the days can feel beautifully abundant, but also a little sprawling and quite messy. Children are in and out of doors, shoes are kicked off, drinks are left half-finished, and the house often carries all the evidence of a family living close to summer.
This time of year can be lovely, but it can also feel surprisingly tiring. The end of term, the heat, the loosened routines, the desire to make summer special, it can all become another thing to hold, if we allow it.
So I’ve made a small, freeJuly Joyresource for you.
It is just one page: a gentle encouragement for the long, sun-warmed days of July. There are a few simple permissions, some cosy joys to choose from, small nature-noticing ideas, three quiet journal prompts, and a short July blessing. It is not a plan or a challenge, nor something to complete, simply an invitation to slow down a little, notice what is already here, and let July be nourishing in small and ordinary ways.
You might pin it to the fridge, tuck it into your planner, keep it beside your morning basket, or read the blessing aloud while the kettle boils.
May this month bring cool water, open windows, kind words, small treasures, and enough space for your family to breathe.
Next week is a break week in Exploring Nature With Children.
To keep up your nature study momentum, spend a little time discussing the changes that you have been observing in your own special nature spot. Talk about the topics that your children have enjoyed learning about:
•Draw a diagram of the parts of a flower • What do they remember about the anatomy of a honeybee? • Tell about the honeybee’s lifecycle. • Tell what they know about the Summer Solstice.
As you talk with your child, do keep in mind these wise words from Miss Mason’s book, School Education: We have all been in the case of the little girl who said, “Mother, I think I could understand if you did not explain quite so much.”
Exploring Nature With Children is an open and go curriculum. To make it even easier, I have created a free calendar for you to download.
If you’re over on Instagram, do pop over and say hello! The Instagram page is very much about community; think of it as your virtual home school co op! Our community uses the #exploringnaturewithchildren hashtag, & also specific weekly hashtags to enable you to connect with other families working through the ENWC curriculum. This week’s hashtag will be: #enwcbreakweek
Planning a home education year can feel like a great deal to hold at once: books, lessons, habits, nature study, faith, family rhythms, and all the ordinary interruptions of everyday home life. This planner was created to bring simplicity, steadiness, and beauty to that work.
With 106 printable planning pages to choose from, you can build a planner that truly serves your own family, helping you to move from big-picture vision to daily lessons with more confidence and less overwhelm, and if you’re usingExploring Nature With Children, the full year of ENWC has already been planned into the calendar for you.
This year’s planner also includes 14 bonus guided planning pages, including:
Mother’s Term Compass Pages to help you begin each term with clarity, realism, and peace.
Family Culture & Traditions Pages to help you preserve the books, rhythms, meals, nature places, prayers, poems, and small comforts that shape your family life.
A helpful planning tip: plan your “thread,” not just your timetable
Before filling in every week, perhaps try making a simple golden thread list for the term.
Instead of asking only, “What do we need to get through?” ask:
What do I want to keep alive in our home this term?
Your golden thread might include things such as:
a poem at breakfast, one faithful nature walk each week, Shakespeare on Fridays, a family read-aloud after lunch, a candle lit before prayers, or tea and cake after nature study.
Then, as you plan, let this thread guide you. If a week becomes busy, tired, or interrupted, you can return to the thread rather than feeling that the whole plan has failed. This is especially helpful because home education is not just about finishing lessons, but about building a full, faithful, and beautiful family culture.
