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
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: #ENWCnestingbirdsweek
Would you like to join me in noticing your local plants more closely this year?
Not in a hurried, “must learn everything” sort of way, but slowly & imperfectly. Month by month. Season by season.
It’s a self directed project, and each month, we choose one local seasonal plant. We learn a little about it: its botany, its folklore, its history, its place in art or faith. And then we use it to dye a small piece of yarn, fibre, or cloth.
Not a full skein. Not a huge commitment. A handful of wool. A scrap of linen. A small square of cotton By the time Advent arrives, we’ll have small scraps of colour gathered in jars, envelopes, or baskets, and we’ll use them to make something of our own choosing:
A pair of socks. A patchwork square. A woven hanging. A stitched sampler. A small quilt block. Whatever feels right for you.
It will be our Advent making. A way of drawing the whole year together in our hands.
Most of us do not struggle with wanting to pray. We struggle with where to fit it. Not in theory, but in our real and imperfect life.
In the middle of half-written shopping lists. Between sibling disagreements. Whilst making, baking, or pulling boots on at the door.
We often imagine that prayer requires our stillness first, and, because stillness feels out of reach, we wait. But prayer is not something that needs to wait for life to quieten. And this is the heart behind LIGHT – A Simple Pattern for Everyday Prayer
Over six days, you will learn a simple five-step pattern that you can carry with you anywhere:
Listen · Intend · Ground · Hallow · Thank & Trust
Small enough to pray in a moment, whilst deep enough to shape your whole day.
Small steps, deep roots; Light carried with you into the ordinary.
Did you know that you can download the Nature Notebook of one of the students from Charlotte Mason’s House of Education for free from the website? It’s all sorts of wonderful!
If this is useful to you, please consider making a small donation the The Armitt : Museum, Gallery, Library – they are an incredible resource for the life and works of Miss Mason, and without them so much of her legacy would be lost.
that you hope to make nature study a part of your own family culture?
Not as another subject to squeeze into an already full timetable, but as a gentle thread that runs throughout your days; a slow walk on a Monday morning, a page in a well-loved journal, the daisy noticed, and the delight of learning the name of a bird you have heard for years.
Charlotte Mason reminded us that education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life. Nature study is all three. It shapes the atmosphere of your home, it forms the habit of attention, and it nourishes a lifelong relationship with the living world.
Exploring Nature with Children was created to make this simple. A complete, year-long curriculum that is open and go and includes rich living book suggestions, and seasonal themes that follow the rhythm of the natural year with no complicated planning or overwhelming prep. Just a clear, beautiful framework that you can gently grow into your family life.
Over time, you will notice a shift. Your children begin to notice before you do, they ask deeper questions, they care, and nature study stops being “something you do” and becomes a part of who your family is.
If you’ve been thinking, “I want this for us”… this may well be the season to begin.
This week is 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.
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
Historically, Lent was a season of preparation for baptism; a time when ordinary believers were invited to examine their lives honestly, return to prayer, and to walk more deliberately with Christ.
Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.
The word “shrove” comes from the old English word shrive, meaning to confess and receive absolution. Historically, it was a day when Christians would examine their consciences, confess their sins, and prepare themselves spiritually for the forty days ahead. It also became a very practical preparation day. Rich foods like eggs, butter, and sugar were traditionally used up before the Lenten fast began, which is why in the UK we eat pancakes.
So beneath the delicious pancakes, Shrove Tuesday is really about this: Pausing, clearing out, & quietly readying for the season ahead. It stands at the threshold of Lent, gently inviting us to prepare our hearts before we begin to walk.
And if you are sensing that you want this Lent to feel different, quieter, steadier, more rooted, I created something that I hope will help:
The Pilgrimage Journal – A Companion for the Sacred Path of Lent
The Pilgrimage Journalis a contemplative guide designed to help you walk Lent slowly and intentionally.
It isn’t a rigid daily plan. It doesn’t assume that you have unlimited time or energy, instead it offers structure without pressure.
Inside you’ll find:
• Weekly pilgrimage invitations to orient your heart • Rich Sunday entries with Scripture, reflection, journaling prompts, nature-based practices, and a simple candle ritual • Holy Week reflections so those sacred days are walked, not rushed • A deep attentiveness to the natural world as a place of encounter with God
It is grounded in historic Christian faith and woven through with the wisdom of the natural year. It holds the season gently, so you are able to inhabit it honestly.
If you would like to begin with it this week, you can use the code LENT20 for 20% off your purchase.
A Unique Bible Reading Companion for Lent
Alongside the journal, I’ve created a free companion:
This is not a reading schedule, it’s a way to practice of attention.
Each day:
We read a small portion of the Gospel of John.
We then notice one word, image, or phrase.
We sit with it.
There’s no pressure to “finish.” No commentary to master. Just the slow unfolding of John’s Gospel across forty days. It’s a beautiful accompaniment to The Pilgrimage Journal.
Lent is coming! Not as a burden, not as another thing we must do, but as an invitation.
To return. To walk. To notice.
If you’re ready to step onto that path, the companion is waiting for you.
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: #ENWCevergreenweek
Over the years, I have tried many different ways of “doing Lent.” I have tried plans., schedules, devotionals. Good intentions.
Some were quite helpful. Some quietly became one more thing to keep up with.
This year, I am choosing something simpler. Instead of adding another structured reading plan, I am going to read the Gospel of John slowly and quietly, noticing just one word or image each day.
No analysing, no researching. I’m not trying to “complete” anything. Just reading… and paying attention.
And if that sounds like something you might need too, I have created a small, free guide:
It is not a workbook or a study guide. It is simply an encouragement to:
• Read a small portion of John each day • Notice one image, word or phrase • Write one line in response
That’s all. There’s no catching up and no falling behind.
John’s Gospel is full of light and water, bread and gardens, doors and shepherds. We think we are reading it, and yet, slowly, it begins to read us. You underline a word… and somewhere along the way, you realise it has been quietly tracing its way through your own life.
If you would like to join me in this gentle way of reading, you can download the free guide.
And if you would like a little companionship along the way, I will be keeping a quiet weekly thread open in the Raising Little Shoots Facebook group.
Nothing formal. No teaching. No pressure.
Just a simple question : What have you noticed? One word is enough.
Lent does not always need more structure. Sometimes it simply needs a little breathing space.
Lent begins on the 18th of February this year, and although Lent has not yet begun, we are already being quietly gathered toward it. This is the part that often goes unnoticed: the season is already doing its work. The light lingers just a little longer in the afternoons. Snowdrops bravely push through the cold earth. Something within us knows that a turning is coming.
Lent rarely begins with a fanfare, instead, it begins with our attention.
Many of us come to Lent carrying mixed feelings. The desire to participate seriously, paired with a weariness born out of our previous attempts. We have tried the rigid plans, the daily tasks, the well-meaning devotionals that quietly assume our unlimited energy and uninterrupted time. And when we fail to keep up, the season can feel like something we’ve failed at.
But Lent was never meant to be a performance of human perfection. Historically, Lent is much closer to pilgrimage than a plan. A walking season, if you like. A slow movement away from the noise and excess, and toward truth; about God, about ourselves, about what actually gives life.
Pilgrimage does not ask us to be dutiful, or perfect participants, it asks us to be present. And this is why I chose to write The Pilgrimage Journal – A Companion for the Sacred Path of Lent . Certainly not from a desire to create another thing for you and I to keep up with, but from the perspective that we can honour Lent as it really is: a season of holy realism. Of dust and God’s mercy. Of walking alongside Christ rather than rushing ahead of Him.
The journal is intentionally not a daily checklist. Life is already full! Instead, it offers a weekly rhythm that leaves space to breathe. Each Sunday acts as a kind of resting place on the road, a moment to pause, reflect, and reorient before we continue the journey, weaving together Scripture, reflection, gentle nature-based practices, and journaling invitations, not to try to force insight, but to make room for it. There are simple candle prayers, quiet questions, and attention paid to the natural world as it moves through late winter into spring. Because Lent does not happen in abstraction. It happens while the land itself is waiting, stirring, and preparing to rise.
We also observe Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Holy Week. We walk slowly and deliberately. We listen. We the season of Lent transform us. This journal is not about becoming better Christians. It is about becoming more truthful ones, allowing God to meet us where we actually are, rather than where we think we should be by now.
It is especially for those who feel drawn to Lent but hesitant of anything that feels harsh or performative. For those who pray best while walking. For those who notice God most clearly in small, living things. For those who want their faith to be rooted not only in words, but in embodied attention. With just over a week until Lent begins, this is a gentle invitation to choose how you want to walk the season. To prepare the ground rather than to rush. To have a companion for the road ahead.
