Author: raisinglittleshoots

Many of us feel the need to slow down a little. Not necessarily to do less, because for most of us, that is not particularly realistic, but to live our days more attentively. To stop rushing from one thing to the next without really taking in what is in front of us. To notice where God is meeting us in ordinary life. To pay better attention to the season, to our homes, to the natural world, and to the shape of our days.

I think this is part of why so many women are drawn to things such as diary-keeping, seasonal rhythms, and simple forms of prayer. Not because we are trying to construct some ideal life, but because we hope to live our real life with a little more care and awareness.

It is very easy to live superficially now. Modern life trains us to skim. We move quickly, consume quickly, and often overlook the small things that make up the substance of a life. Yet much faithfulness is built in exactly those small things: the work done at home, the way we speak to others and to ourselves, the way we pause, the things that we notice, the prayers that we offer in passing, and the habits we return to quietly over time.

That is the thinking behind two of my resources: Keeping a Seasonal Diary: A Practice of Sacred Noticing and LIGHT: A Simple Pattern for Everyday Prayer.

They are different resources, but they sit quite naturally alongside one another. One helps you to pay attention to the shape of your days and write them down. The other helps you pray simply and naturally within those same days.

Why noticing matters

To notice properly is a discipline. It sounds gentle, and it is, but it is not vague. It asks something of us. It asks us to stop living entirely on the surface. It asks us to pay attention to what is here and now, rather than always straining after what is next.

This matters spiritually because so much of life with God is lived in ordinary time. Not only in church services, retreats, or especially meaningful moments, but in kitchens, gardens, errands, conversations, tired evenings, and the repeated work of keeping a home and caring for others.

Learning to notice teaches us to recognise the value of ordinary days. It helps us see patterns, mercies, answered prayers, small growth, and the natural rhythms that carry us through the year. It helps us to become more rooted, and less scattered. Less likely to treat our own lives as a blur.

A diary can help you to pay attention

There is something steadying about keeping a diary, not in a performative sense, and not because every entry needs to be profound, but because the simple act of writing things down helps us to see them more clearly. It helps us to gather the day a little, creating a record not just of what happened, but of what mattered.

A seasonal diary can be especially helpful because it encourages us to notice both the inner and outer season we are living through. What is changing in the garden or hedgerow, what the weather is doing. What feels difficult, and what has been good. What God seems to be teaching us, and what has quietly sustained us.

That is the habit that Keeping a Seasonal Diary: A Practice of Sacred Noticing  is written to help you to form in your own life.

It is a practical 7-day guide to keeping a diary in a way that is rooted in faith, attention, and the natural rhythm of the year.

Over seven days, it will help you learn how to:

• observe your days with fresh eyes and real detail
• weave gratitude and prayer into your writing
• find meaning in simple daily tasks
• connect your inner life to the natural season around you
• create diary entries that become a record of God’s faithfulness over time

This resource is for people who are new to journaling, but also for those who have kept notebooks before and want a more thoughtful, and perhaps more anchored approach.

It is not about writing beautifully for the sake of it. It is about learning to look more carefully at your own life.

Keeping a Seasonal Diary: A Practice of Sacred Noticing is $9 – you can purchase & download the sample HERE

Prayer does not need to wait for ideal conditions

In my own experience, many women feel quietly defeated by prayer. Not because they do not want to pray, far from it, but because they imagine prayer belongs to a set of conditions that very rarely exist: a quiet house, a clear head, a settled heart, a long stretch of uninterrupted time.

For most of us, life does not often look like that. We have children to teach, meals to make, messages to answer, jobs to get on with, tiredness, interruptions, noise, and the general muddle of everyday life. So prayer gets pushed to the edges, or postponed for later, or turned into something we feel guilty about not doing properly.

I believe that what many of us need is not another prayer journal or complex weekly system, but a simple pattern. Something we can remember, that fits into our ordinary life as it is actually lived.

Which is exactly the reasoning behind LIGHT: A Simple Pattern for Everyday Prayer. A short, practical 6-day resource built around a five-step prayer pattern:

Listen · Intend · Ground · Hallow · Thank & Trust

Written to help you to pray in the middle of daily life: at the sink, on a walk, while home educating, between tasks, or on the days when you are exhausted and have very little to say. Rather than waiting for the perfect quiet time, LIGHT helps you to return to God in the moment you actually find yourself in.

The six days cover the whole pattern:

Day 1 – Listen: learning to pause and become aware of God’s presence
Day 2 – Intend: offering the task in front of you to God
Day 3 – Ground: praying with your body and remembering that you are held
Day 4 – Hallow: blessing ordinary work, meals, lessons, and conversations
Day 5 – Thank & Trust: practising gratitude and release
Day 6 – Living LIGHT: drawing the whole pattern together into daily use

This is a small resource, but it is meant to be genuinely useful. Not another thing to admire and then leave on the shelf, but a pattern you can carry into the day and use straight away.

LIGHT: A Simple Pattern for Everyday Prayer is also $9 & you can purchase & download the sample HERE

Using the two resources together

Although they can each be used on their own, they work particularly well together.

LIGHT helps you to pray within the day as it unfolds.

Keeping a Seasonal Diary: helps you reflect upon the day, and write something of it down.

One helps to form the habit of turning to God in ordinary moments, the other helps to form the habit of recognising those moments afterwards.

Together, they create a simple rhythm:

pause,
pray,
notice,
write,
remember.

There is nothing complicated about this, and that is rather the point.

Written for ordinary women managing full days, who want a steadier and more faithful way to inhabit them.

If you have been feeling the need to slow down, pay proper attention, and to meet God more faithfully in the life you already have, these may serve you well; our ordinary days are not empty days, quite often, they are the place where the deepest work is quietly being done.

From my home to yours,

And here is my present to you: a 21% discount code to use against any of the products in the Raising Little Shoots online shop:

BIRTHDAY21

(Oh to be 21 again!)

This is a limited time code only – valid from today, Friday the 18th of April until Wednesday morning the 22nd of April BST

You can visit the RLS shop:

Welcome

Welcome

Happy exploring!

Next week in Exploring Nature With Children is ‘Wildflower Week’.

Here are some helpful links to support your nature studies:

• UK Wildflowers
• US Wildflowers
• How to Draw Wild Flowers: Video workshop John Muir Laws
• FlowerChecker app
• PlantSnap app
• How to Create a Mini Wildflower Meadow in Your Garden – Video
• Bill Nye the Science Guy: Flowers – Video
• Come Outside: Dandelions – Video

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: #ENWCwildflowerweek

Happy exploring!

One of the gifts of a Charlotte Mason education is that it teaches us not merely to look, but to truly see.

When a child spends time out of doors, returning week by week to the local park, hedgerows, garden paths, or the small corners of their neighbourhood, they begin to form a relationship with the world around them. They notice what is changing, what is returning, and what is particular to this month, in this place. The first bluebell. The last blackberry. The curl of a fern. The colour of the sky before rain.

This is part of the deep value of nature study. It is not only about gathering information, but about cultivating attention. A child learns to observe carefully, to remember, and to delight in beauty. One of the loveliest ways to support this habit is through keeping some kind of record of their studies.

A nature journal need not be elaborate. In fact, it is often better when it is kept simple. A sketch, a date, a few notes about the weather. Perhaps a copied poem or a brief written observation these small things. Faithfully kept, these records become part of the fabric of a child’s education. Over time, they form a testimony to days spent noticing.

For many families, however, the difficulty is not in seeing the value of such a record, but in finding a way to form the habit of keeping it regularly. Our days are often busy and full. It can be helpful, then, to have something that gathers the different threads of nature study into one place.

Exploring Nature With Children: A Guided Journal was created with this in mind, as a companion for your child to use alongside the Exploring Nature With Children curriculum.

The journal follows the rhythm of the curriculum through the seasons and months, offering 48 weeks of guided journaling. Each week includes a themed prompt, space for sketching, a place to record the date and time, and a weather box, as well as poetry copywork, an art study page, and pages for written or sketched responses to the extension activities. At the back, there is also a Calendar of Firsts, where a child can note the first signs of the season that they observe, and pages to record the nature books read throughout the year.

What I especially love about this resource is that it gives shape to our lessons without becoming a burden. It offers a framework, but still leaves room for the child’s own encounter with what they have seen and known. It helps to make the habit of keeping a record more natural, and perhaps more sustainable, over the course of the year. And of course, when such journals are kept over time, they become more than just a part of lessons, they become a treasure: a record of seasons gone by, poems learned, art works studied, and the slow growth of a child’s powers of observation.

In a world that often urges haste in education, nature study invites us to go more slowly: to pay attention, to get to know a place well, let learning take root through direct acquaintance and quiet reflection. The Guided Journal  can be a very simple help in that work.

For those who are using Exploring Nature With Children, I am currently running a special offer on the companion guided journal for children. If you have been wanting a gentle way to help your child keep a more regular record of their nature study, this may be a lovely time to add it to your plans.

Use code: GJ20 for a 20% discount on your Guided Journal  purchase.

Happy exploring!

Next week in Exploring Nature With Children is ‘Plant Life-Cycle Week’.

Here are some links to help with your studies:

• BBC Plant Life Cycles
• Attracting Pollinating Bees
• How to draw plants: A series by John Muir Laws
• Come Outside: Bulbs
• Bill Nye the Science Guy: Plants

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.

Happy exploring!

The freedom to explore nature with my children was a driving force behind beginning my family’s home educating journey almost twenty years ago. I’ve discovered that many parents share this initial enthusiasm, but translating it into a meaningful outdoor education often proves difficult.

‘A Nature Study Primer – 21 Days to the Habit of Nature Study‘ is the resource I wish I’d had from the beginning: a workbook that brings Charlotte Mason’s nature study methods to life, step-by-step, making them both doable and achievable, and supporting you as you cultivate a habit of curiosity and observation for your whole family in everyday life.

The workbook has a daily format, featuring:

A thoughtful quote to inspire you.

A lesson for the parent to deepen your understanding of nature study.

A clear focus to consider, and a meaningful goal to help you integrate nature study into your routine.

Gentle, step-by-step instruction as you learn alongside your child and grow in confidence each day, combined with interactive & reflective journaling prompts to help you slow down and truly notice the world around you.

This unique workbook is more than a guide, it’s a 21-day journey toward a sustainable habit of nature study, tailored for busy parents who wish to connect more deeply with their child, and the natural world around them.

Download the free sample to find out more – the Primer is now on sale for $10 – use code PRIMER

Happy exploring!

Why Nature Study Is So Much More Than Learning Facts

It is not uncommon for a parent to plan a nature walk with their child, only to feel discouraged within a few moments of beginning their walk. You point out the blossom in the hedgerow, the birdsong overhead, or the pattern of moss on an old stone wall, and your child shrugs, uninterested. They do not get excited over the beauty of a flower, or eagerly try to identify a bird. They do not appear to notice much of the natural world at all.

For many, this can lead to a creeping sense of failure. Perhaps, we think, nature study simply is not for this child, they are not observant. Or perhaps we think that we are at fault; we are doing it incorrectly. However, when we look at this from a Charlotte Mason perspective, our concern usually comes from a place of misunderstanding what nature study is actually meant to accomplish.

Nature study is not a test of how much a child can immediately see, name, or remember. Neither is it to be a performance of enthusiasm. We do not prove success with a filled nature journal, or a perfectly correct identification. Nature study is in fact part of a larger education in attention.

Charlotte Mason understood that education is not merely the accumulation of facts, but the formation of relationships. A child is not educated only when he knows about things, but instead when he comes to know them, and this distinction is vital. To know a bird, a tree, a hedgerow, a pond, or a familiar footpath is not simply to store away information, but to actually enter into a living acquaintance with this world.

We cannot hurry along this sort of learning, not in the slightest. A child who appears not to notice much at first may actually be laying important foundations; becoming accustomed to being outdoors, learning the feel of the seasons, and receiving impressions which may not yet be ready for his own expression. In Charlotte Mason’s terms, we might say that the mind is feeding, even when the parent cannot immediately see the results. This matters greatly because the habit of attention is not formed through force or pressure, but through repeated opportunities to attend.

If we make nature study primarily about getting the right answers, we risk reducing it to another lesson in information retrieval. The child learns, perhaps, that the important thing is to produce a name or a fact quickly enough to satisfy the adult. But this is something quite different from the slow and reverent work of learning to notice, and actually see.

Charlotte Mason’s approach asks more patience of us than that, instead inviting us to trust that direct contact with the natural world has its own formative power. The child who returns again and again to the same lane, tree, field, or garden begins to develop familiarity, familiarity leads to affection, affection leads, in time, to curiosity. And curiosity, once awakened by real knowledge of a real thing, is far stronger than the shallow interest produced by forced instruction and rote memorisation.

This is one reason why nature study should not be confused with outdoor activity. Fresh air, free play, and adventure are all wonderful in their own right, however, nature study has a more particular end. It is not simply being out of doors, but being brought into attentive relationship with what is found out of doors.

A child stoops to pick up the same kind of feather he ignored three weeks earlier. they notice that the buds on a branch have opened. They begin to look for daisies in the same patch of grass each time you pass. Another child says almost nothing at all, yet months later recognises a tree in winter by its shape alone. These are signs that the child is becoming at home in the natural world.

Charlotte Mason believed that children should grow up in living relation to many kinds of knowledge. Nature study is not merely preparation for science, though it may certainly support scientific understanding. It is also a moral and spiritual discipline in the broadest sense. It teaches humility, because the world is not centred on us. It teaches patience, because things unfold in their own time. It teaches accuracy, because the child must look carefully rather than guess. It teaches delight, because creation is full of particular and often unexpected beauty. It teaches reverence, because we are dealing not with abstractions, but with living things. In this sense, nature study is about far more than learning facts, though of course, facts do have their rightful place:

The name of a flower matters, the habits of a bird matter, the difference between oak and ash matters. But these facts are best learned in the context of acquaintance. They mean more when attached to something seen, and truly met, and perhaps met again and again over time.

This is why a child who does not seem to notice much at first should not be judged too quickly! Noticing is not always immediate, and it is not always outwardly impressive, some children being exuberant observers, others are more slow and reticent. Some speak before they have really looked; others look long before they speak. A wise parent does not demand one uniform response, but offers steady opportunities for encounter.

What, then, should we do when a child appears not to notice anything out of doors? We begin by lowering our anxiety. We remember that our task is not to force delight, but to make room for it. We choose one or two simple things to attend to rather than filling the walk with constant commentary. We return to familiar places so that the child has the chance to know them well. We allow silence. We resist over-explaining. We ask fewer testing questions and make more room for direct observation. We trust that seeing often begins in stillness, repetition, and freedom.

Above all, we remember that Charlotte Mason’s vision of education is generous. It leaves room for growth, and it assumes that children are persons, not machines, and that living ideas cannot always be measured at once. A child who doesn’t notice anything today may, in truth, be in the earliest stages of learning how to notice well. We reming ourselves that the aim of nature study is not to produce little experts who can recite facts on command, but children who have learned to look steadily, and who love what they know.

From my home to yours,

Next week in Exploring Nature With Children is ‘Spring Tree Study Week’.

Here are some helpful links to help with your studies:

• Identifying your tree: UK
• Identifying your tree: US
• How do trees know when it is spring?
• Claire Walker Leslie’s Guide To Drawing Trees
• Come Outside : : Wood

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: #ENWCspringtreeweek

Happy exploring!

As Easter approaches, many of us find ourselves wanting to mark the season in a way that feels meaningful. There is nothing wrong with crafts, treats, or simple celebrations, of course, but sometimes we are look for something quieter too. Something that helps our children to notice, and that makes a little room for wonder.

That is exactly why I created An Easter Nature Walk.

This resource was written for families who want to step outside during Holy Week or Eastertide and pay attention to the season of resurrection as it is unfolding in the natural world. Spring light returning. Birds building nests. Blossom opening. Buds unfurling. The whole natural world quietly bearing witness to new life.

The heart of the resource is an invitation to go out of doors and to notice. Inside, you will find a short Easter reflection, gentle nature journal and sketch pages, simple walk invitations, and a special printable page designed to become part of your family’s Easter tradition year after year.

It is not a busy resource, and it is not meant to be rushed through, Instead, it offers a peaceful way to connect the message of Easter with the life of the season around us. It helps children to look closely, to wonder, and to begin making those important connections between faith, nature, and attentive observation.

This approach is deeply shaped by Miss Charlotte Mason’s idea that children learn best through direct encounters with the world that God has made. Sometimes the most lasting lessons are not the fanciest or loudest ones, but the ones discovered quietly, under an open spring sky.

If you are looking for something thoughtful and unhurried to use with your children this Easter, An Easter Nature Walk is a lovely companion for the days ahead.

You can find it here & download the sample:
An Easter Nature Walk

From my home to yours,

April can feel like a month of movement and energy.

One day is soft and golden, the next full of wind and sudden rain. The hedgerows are greening, blossom is beginning to appear, and the birds seem busy with their serious work. Everywhere you look, something is opening, stretching, unfurling, or returning; a month that feels more fully awake.

For many of us, April can bring a curious mixture of energy and untidiness. We want to throw open the windows, freshen the house, and begin again, however, ordinary life is still ordinary life. The washing still needs doing, the floor still needs sweeping, and our own energy may not quite match the season’s enthusiasm. The children often want to be outside more, and the days begin to take on a different shape.

So I’ve made a small gift for you: a simple one-page April Joy sheet. Not a plan, a challenge, or another thing to keep up with. Just a gentle encouragement for these bright, growing days. You don’t need to use it perfectly. You might pin it to the fridge, tuck it into your diary, or read the blessing aloud while you wait for the kettle to boil.

Download here: free: AprilJoy

From my home to yours,