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
September has arrived, carrying that curious mixture of beginning again & also of beginning to gather in. The mornings have a noticably different feel now, & even when the day turns warm, there is a coolness at the edges; the light falls lower across the kitchen, spiders have begun stringing their webs between the plants, apples are dropping, berries are deep dark jewels tucked into the hedgerows, & here and there, the first leaves have changed colours.
September has always felt like a threshold month to me; it’s not quite summer, not quite autumn, but a little of both. And for mothers, of course, it can also be extraordinarily busy. There are routines to find again, books and lessons to begin, appointments to remember, meals to make, clothes suddenly outgrown, and all those ordinary household jobs that did not politely disappear simply because a new season arrived. September can bring with it a strong urge to sort everything out: new rhythms, habits, & systems. A fresh start in every possible corner of life!
And perhaps we do need a little reordering after summer, but we do not have to remake our whole lives before Michaelmas. September can simply be a month of returning.
Returning to the table, to familiar rhythms, to books left waiting on the shelf, soup on cooler evenings, cardigans by the door, an earlier lamp lit in the sitting room. Returning, too, to the small practices that make our homes and days feel like our own.
So I have made another little free September Joy page for you.
It is only one page, & deliberately so. There are a few gentle permissions for the month ahead, some cosy September pleasures, small nature-noticing ideas, three very short journal questions, and a September blessing. Nothing needs to be worked through in order, and there is absolutely nothing to keep up with. This is not a September reset, nor a challenge, a routine, or a list of things that we ought to be doing. It is simply a small reminder, from one busy mother to another, that beginning again does not have to mean beginning everything again.
You might pin the page beside your calendar, slip it into your planner or morning basket, or leave it somewhere you will happen upon it during a busy day.
May September bring you golden afternoon light, and the grace to find steadiness without asking more of yourself.
I am thrilled to welcome families back to another year of ENWC, and my warmest wishes to our new families! Thank you for joining us.
Next week we begin with Seed Week, which really is a smashing week with which to get started studying nature. Here are some links to help with your nature study:
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 hashtagwill be:#ENWCseedweek
Autumn can so easily become another season to organise, curate and fill, with lists to make, traditions to remember, meals to plan, rooms to cosy, candles to light, books to read, outings to take. Even the loveliest of things can begin to feel like one more set of expectations.
But home does not need to become a seasonal performance, in fact, sometimes, the deeper work is simply to notice what is already here. The light changing at the kitchen window, apples appearing in the shops, gardens, and orchards. Perhaps the first evening when you reach for a cardigan, and soup returning to the table. The familiar comfort of drawing inward as the year begins to turn.
There is something profoundly steadying about allowing ourselves to live with the season rather than racing ahead of it, cooking what is plentiful, maybe bringing a few branches or berries indoors. Walking beneath the changing trees, and making ordinary meals with care. Mending something. Baking something. Sitting down with a well-deserved cup of tea before beginning the next task. Not because any of these things will create a perfect autumn, but because small acts of attention help us to inhabit the life we already have.
It is a gentle seasonal companion for tending your home, and yourself, with greater intention, beauty and gratitude throughout September, October and November. No challenge to complete, or another list to keep up with, just an invitation to slow the pace, notice what is good, and allow the season to shape the ordinary rhythms of home.
Because perhaps the loveliest autumn is not the one in which we manage to do everything, instead it is the one we were present enough to notice.
I really do hope that you have enjoyed your time with ENWC, and hope that you’ll consider using it again, as it has been written to be used year upon year for layered learning.
We shall be kicking off a new year of nature study on the 2nd of September with Seed 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 hashtagwill be: #ENWCdiscussionweek
Perhaps you have been longing to spend more time out of doors with your children, maybe nature study is something you have admired from afar, but you are not quite sure how to begin, r perhaps you have opened the curriculum, seen all the lovely possibilities within it, and wondered how to fit everything into your week.
The first thing I want you to know is this:
You do not need to do everything! Exploring Nature With Children was written to be used year upon year for layered learning, and was created to make nature study easier, not to give you another list of things to keep up with. It is there to guide you, inspire you, and to help you to notice the natural world alongside your children, one week at a time.
What is Exploring Nature With Children?
Exploring Nature With Children (ENWC) is a complete, 48-week nature-study curriculum designed especially for Charlotte Mason home educators.
Each week has its own seasonal nature theme and includes:
authentic extension activities to help you to explore the week’s subject a little further
The curriculum follows the changing year, so the things you are studying are connected, as far as possible, with what is actually happening out of doors.
However, ENWC is not intended to turn every nature walk into a lesson, quite the opposite, it gives you knowledge and direction to help you and your children to look at the natural world more closely.
Begin With the Nature Walk
If you do nothing else during your first few weeks of ENWC, begin here. take the week’s theme, read through the nature-walk guidance, and go out of doors. That really can be enough!
You do not need a beautiful woodland or acres of countryside; use your garden, a local park, a nearby footpath, the lane behind your house, or somewhere you already visit regularly, and you certainly do not need to know the answer to every question your children ask. One of the great joys of nature study is being able to say:
“That’s interesting, I don’t know. Let’s see if we can find out.”
The aim is not for the parent to become the expert dispensing information, instead, it is for parent and child to become fellow observers of the world around them.
Follow the Week, Rather Than the Checklist
When you open an ENWC week, you will find several different ways to explore the theme, so please don’t look at these as a list of assignments, but consider them as a table laid with possibilities.
One family may take the nature walk, read a poem and spend the rest of the week talking about what they found.
Another may borrow several books from the library, look closely at the week’s artwork and complete an extension activity.
An older child may want to investigate the subject completely independently, whereas a younger child may be perfectly content in watching a snail for twenty minutes – all of these are nature study! Simply choose what suits your own family, your season of life, and the week you are actually having.
You Cannot Fall Behind in Nature Study
You really can’t; there is no such thing as falling behind. If rain, illness, appointments, babies, tired parents or simply ordinary family life mean that you miss a week, you have absolutely not failed the curriculum. You can choose to move on to the next theme, or you may linger with the missed week.
You can return to a missed subject another year, spend two weeks on something your children adore, abandon a planned nature walk because somebody has discovered frogspawn beside the path.
As I mentioned earlier, ENWC is intended to be returned to year after year. A five-year-old may notice something completely different than a ten-year-old, and a child who watched a butterfly one summer may return several years later ready to understand its life cycle in much greater depth. Simply put, the curriculum grows with your family because nature study itself grows with your child.
Keep Your First Weeks Very Simple
If you are beginning ENWC for the first time, I would suggest making your first few weeks deliberately uncomplicated.
Read the week’s nature-walk guidance to yourself. Go outside. Notice what you can find.
Look at the recommended art. Read the poem together. Choose a book from the booklist if one is easily available.
And then stop, you can always add more later.
There is no prize for completing every suggestion in the curriculum and the richest nature study often comes from doing less, slowly enough to actually notice.
What About Nature Journals?
A nature journal can be a beautiful companion to ENWC, but it does not need to become another source of pressure. Children might draw something they noticed, add a date and location, copy a line of poetry, label a specimen, paint a leaf or simply record one interesting fact. Some weeks they may fill a page, whilst weeks may fly by and they may not journal at all. Observation comes first, and the journal gives somewhere to process and keep a little of what they have noticed. As a parent, you may find the Guided Journal helpful to give your child some structure, and often parents of littles use it to create a scrapbook of sorts, a combination of learning & memory keeping.
The Most Important Thing
If there is one principle I would love every new ENWC family to carry with them, it is this:
You are not trying to get through a nature curriculum, you are building a relationship with the natural world.
That happens slowly & faithfully
One familiar tree, a bird known by its song, a child who suddenly calls you outside because “You have to come and see this!”
Over time, those small acts of attention accumulate into something very precious: children who know how to look, who are curious about the world around them, and who feel at home outdoors.
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 hashtagwill be: #ENWCsummerpondweek
On the 12th of August 2026, the Moon will pass between the Earth and the Sun, creating a solar eclipse. Here in the UK we will see a deep partial eclipse, while parts of North America and much of Europe will also see a partial eclipse. A total eclipse will be visible from Greenland, Iceland, parts of Spain and a small part of Portugal.
As always, my aim is not to turn a beautiful natural event into lots of busy work, but simply to help our children to look carefully, wonder, and remember.
The final week of the Raising Little Shoots Summer Sale has begun, and today I wanted to point you towards the little corner of the shop that is just for you.
We have an understandable tendency to spend these August days thinking about the children:
Plans to make, books to order, rhythms to reconsider, and beautiful, golden days of autumn to prepare for.
However, our own inner lives matter too, & if you are longing to enter the coming season a little more slowly and intentionally, you might enjoy:
The Sanctuary of Home ~ Autumn A seasonal guide for women who long to tend the soul of their homes with faith, beauty, and rhythm.
This Autumn Edition (September, October, November) is shaped around the theme of Gathering & Gratitude, inviting you to notice the shifting light, the ripening harvest, and the quiet turning of the year, and to root your days in peace and thanksgiving.
Keeping a Seasonal Diary A practical guide helping you to notice and record the ordinary, beautiful details of your days and the changing of the natural year. practical guide that will help you capture the sacredness hidden in ordinary moments.
Light: A Simple Pattern for Everyday Prayer A six day workbook that teaches you how to create a rhythm for returning to God in the midst of your ordinary life. Light gives you a pattern that you can remember and use on the spot, so that prayer becomes very much something that you do as you go, not something you only do when everything is neat and calm.
Or perhaps one of the Winter Devotionals, tucked away in preparation for the darker days ahead.
Resources created from my heart to help you to notice, pray, breathe, and inhabit your own life just a little more fully.
The Raising Little Shoots Summer Sale ends 16 August, with 20% off every resource in the shop.
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: #ENWCsenseswalkweek
