Candlemas falls on Monday February 2nd and takes its name from the blessing of candles for use in church throughout the coming year, marking the presentation of the Holy Child in the Temple, where Simeon held Jesus and called him a ‘Light to the World’. For many cultures, February 1st was an important festival to celebrate the returning light.
Here are some links to help with your nature study:
February can appear as a somewhat awkward month for nature study. The brightness of spring hasn’t yet arrived, and the drama of winter has mostly passed. It can be tempting to rush through walks at this time of year, assuming there is “not much to see.” However, in reality, February is one of the most instructive months for learning how to notice.
From a Charlotte Mason perspective, this is a season ideally suited to careful observation, comparison, and the slow building of attention; all skills that we hope to help our child to develop, and that matter far more than knowing names or collecting facts.
Why February Matters
Without leaves, flowers, or full growth to distract us, the structure of the natural world becomes clearer: Trees show their shapes, hedgerows reveal their careful rhythms, and small signs of life stand out more precisely. Thus February teaches our child (and ourself!) that nature study is not about constant novelty, but about noticing change over time.
What to Look for on a February Nature Walk
Buds and Branches Look closely at the buds on trees and shrubs. Some will still be tightly closed; others may already be swelling. Compare different species. Are the buds opposite or alternating? Smooth or fuzzy? Large or tiny?
Early Flowers Snowdrops, winter aconite, and other early bulbs often appear now. Notice where they grow best, under trees, along verges, or in sheltered spots. Are they fully open, or still half-closed against the cold?
Birds Birds become easier to see and hear in February. Listen for repeated calls or short bursts of song. Watch behaviour rather than trying to identify species: feeding, chasing, nesting activity, or quiet observation.
Tree Bark and Trunks With leaves gone, bark becomes a key feature. Look for patterns, cracks, scars, lichen growth, or signs of age. Compare the bark of different trees that grow close together.
Mosses and Lichens February is an excellent month for noticing mosses and lichens, which thrive in damp, cool conditions. Look on walls, stones, tree trunks, and fallen branches. Notice colour, texture, and where they choose to grow.
Seed Heads and Last Year’s Growth Many plants still hold seed heads or dried stems. These tell the story of last year’s growth and provide food and shelter for wildlife. Notice which plants remain standing and which have already collapsed.
Tracks and Signs Softer ground can reveal footprints; human, animal, or bird. Look for nibbled shoots, disturbed soil, or narrow paths through grass and undergrowth.
Walking in February
Rather than covering a long distance, February walks work best when you stay in one place. Choose a short stretch of path, a single hedge, or one tree and spend time there. Ask simple, observational questions:
What has changed since January?
What looks different from last week?
What is clearly alive, even if it is not yet growing?
Children do not need to answer these questions aloud. Often, the act of noticing and pondering is enough.
A Charlotte Mason Reminder
Charlotte Mason emphasised that nature study should be direct and living. Books and names have their place, but they come after first-hand seeing. This is one reason that Exploring Nature with Childrenfocuses less on providing answers, and more on guiding attention, helping parents know what to look for, what to talk about, and how to support children’s noticing without over-directing the experience.
You do not need specialist knowledge to do this well. Careful looking is the skill that February helps us to practice, and it’s one that carries us right through the year.
Nature Notebook Prompt
Choose one small area , a hedge, a tree, or a patch of verge, and observe it closely.
In your notebook, draw or write about:
one thing that has changed since January
one thing that looks exactly the same
one quiet sign of life you might have previously missed
There is no need to label or research, unless your child wishes to.
Each year, Lent arrives and I meet it with a curious mix of longing and resistance.
This season matters. It carries great depth, gravity, invitation. And yet, Lent has become tangled up with ideas of striving, giving things up “properly,” or doing it right , as though the forty days were a spiritual endurance test, rather than a companioned journey.
But historically, Lent was never meant to be a productivity challenge.
Instead, it was a preparation for love.
A Brief History of Lent (and Why it is Important Still)
The roots of Lent stretch back to the earliest centuries of the Church. Long before devotional booklets and daily email prompts, Lent emerged as a season of intentional preparation , particularly for those preparing for baptism at Easter.
The forty days echoed biblical patterns that we recognise, such as Christ’s forty days in the wilderness, Moses’ forty days on Sinai, and Israel’s forty years of wandering.
In Scripture, forty is never about efficiency, or a job well done, but testing, preparation, formation.
Lent was a time when the whole Christian community slowed its pace to walk alongside those preparing for baptism, praying, fasting, and attending more carefully to their lives. Over time, this widened into a season for everyone: a shared turning of the heart, a re-orientation of attention.
When Lent Becomes Too Loud
Somehow, somewhere along the way, Lent picked up noise.
Rules. Targets. Pressure. The quiet assumption that if we are not doing enough, we are missing the point. For those of us already weary, mothers, carers, those navigating illness, grief, or overload, this can make Lent feel like one more thing we are failing at.
And yet, the older rhythm of Lent hints at something quite different.
It says: Come and walk. Not stride out, or perform. Just walk.
Lent as Pilgrimage, Not Performance
A pilgrimage is not about arriving quickly. It is about allowing the journey to shape you.
Historically, pilgrimage and Lent were deeply connected. Both asked for attentiveness, faithfulness, and willingness rather than achievement and certainty. A pilgrim does not conquer her path, she walks it. She notices the weather, her fatigue, the beauty that does indeed surround her, her own resistance, and the companionship by her side.
I wrote this not as a daily task-list, but as a seasonal companion , something you will want to return to, gently, honestly, in the midst of you own, very real life.
Nature and Lent
For much of Christian history, Lent unfolded alongside the land.
In the Northern Hemisphere, Lent sits at the threshold between winter and spring, a time when life is stirring but not yet visible. Seeds are hidden. Buds are tentative. Growth is slow and quite easily missed.
Nature understands Lent instinctively. Nothing is forced or rushed. Transformation is taking place beneath the surface.
The Pilgrimage Journal weaves this natural wisdom into the Lenten journey, inviting you to notice what is lying dormant, what is being asked to rest, and what is quietly preparing to rise, not as metaphor alone, but as a lived, and embodied prayer.
Lent is not about keeping up, it is about staying close.
The Pilgrimage Journal is offered as a companion for that walk, and if you are looking for a way to enter Lent that honours both your faith and your humanity, you can find the journal in the shop now, available at the sale price until Sunday.
There’s something quite refreshing about winter nature study. It’s a season made for noticing small things: buds forming, birds calling, winter colours, and of course the simple pleasure of coming home again to warmth, a cup of tea, and a slice of cake!
Winter strips the year back to essentials. Without the distraction of abundant flowers or long summer days, children will often notice more, the shapes of tree branches, patterns in bark, birdsong, changing light, the quiet signs of life that wait beneath the surface. For many families, this makes winter an ideal time to gently establish (or return to) a nature study rhythm.
But this is also where many parents begin to feel stuck.
We want to do nature study “properly,” but aren’t quite sure what that means. We worry that we don’t know enough. We struggle to find consistency. And, we over-plan… or give up altogether.
Exploring Nature with Children (ENWC) is a gentle, year-long nature study curriculum designed to support parents who want to get outdoors with their children, without pressure, perfectionism, or overwhelm.
ENWC offers weekly guided nature walks that help you to:
know what to look for in the natural world
feel confident starting meaningful conversations with your child
turn ordinary walks into rich learning experiences
It works with the seasons, follows a reliable rhythm, and allows nature itself to remain the primary teacher.
You don’t need to have specialist knowledge, and, as ENWC is ‘open & go’ you don’t need to prepare in advance.
How ENWC works in real life
Each week, ENWC gives you a clear but flexible focus, something to notice, explore, or gently return to during your time out of doors. This guidance helps you to slow down, ask better questions, and the freedom to notice alongside your children rather than feeling you must lead or instruct.
From there, learning flows naturally: children observe, they ask questions and form connections, and they return home with something to talk, draw, write, or think about.
No pressure. No falling behind.
One of the most important features of Exploring Nature with Children is that it removes the sense of failure that is able to creep into our home education.
You can dip in and out, pause for weeks, or linger on a single interest for longer, and because ENWC is written to be used year after year, learning naturally layers and deepens over time. What a young child notices one year will look different when they return to it a year later, and that’s exactly how it’s meant to be.
Who is ENWC for?
Exploring Nature with Children is especially well-suited if you:
are new to nature study and don’t know where to begin
are returning after a long break
want a calmer, Charlotte Mason–inspired approach
are teaching children with additional needs
want structure without rigidity
want to spend less time planning and more time out of doors
It’s equally at home in full-time home education, part-time learning, or simply as a family rhythm alongside school life. Over time, these short, nature walks become something deeper: a shared language, a seasonal rhythm, a way of seeing the world more closely.
Winter Sale: a gentle invitation
If this feels like the kind of support that would serve your own family, Exploring Nature with Children, along with its companion Guided Journal, is currently included in the Winter Sale with 20% off.
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: #ENWCwinterpondweek
January is loud with bold intentions, whilst March carries the promise of movement and growth. But February sits quietly in between, the shorter days tentitively beginning to lengthen, whilst the land is still resting, life is still hidden.
Many of us feel this tension in our own lives at this time of the year. It’s tempting to look ahead now, however, February still asks of us to stay focused exactly right where we are. To hold steady rather than to hurry, and to listen more deeply; to ourselves, and to God, to the season we are actually in.
February can teach us that love does not always look like progress. Often, it looks like faithfulness.
Small acts done with care. Attention given where it will not be noticed. Choosing presence over performance.
In the Christian calendar, early February is marked by Candlemas, a feast that remembers the presentation of the infant Christ in the Temple, and Simeon’s words about light held in waiting. It sits at a gentle threshold: Christmas has passed, Lent has not yet begun, and the light is returning slowly rather than suddenly.
Candlemas is not about completion, instead it is about recognising what has been given, and learning how to carry it forward faithfully.
If you would like a place to begin, you can download the free February Joy page , a single sheet designed to offer encouragement for listening deeply and tending nature-touched February days.
Also available is my latest resource, Abiding Light a Candlemas Companion, a contemplative devotional . Rooted in Scripture, the Christian tradition, and the natural rhythm of the year, this companion invites you to pause and acknowledge the Light that has already been given, and to abide.
Through gentle reflections, Scripture readings, prayers, a simple candle rite, and optional journaling or non-writing practices, this companion offers space to rest with Christ as the Abiding Light: present even when faith feels faint, unclear, or quiet.
This is a book to move through slowly, or to return to when words are hard to find, a guide for recognising Christ’s presence in ordinary days and carrying that Light forward with us into the season ahead.
A companion, not a programme to follow, offering gentle structure without pressure:
• space for simple reflection • small, do-able practices • a way of noticing love as it is lived, rather than measured
There is a quiet moment in the Christian year that often goes unnoticed.
Forty days after Christmas, long after the decorations have been packed away and before Lent has begun to shape our attention, Candlemas arrives. It does not announce itself loudly. It does not demand preparation or resolution. Instead, it adds a pause.
Candlemas is the feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple; the moment when Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus into the ordinary faithfulness of the law, and two elders, Simeon and Anna, recognise what others overlook.
They do not rush the story forward. They do not ask for proof. They simply notice.
A Feast of Recognition, Not Arrival
Candlemas is often described as a feast of light, but not the triumphant light of Easter morning. It is a much gentler illumination.
This is light recognised rather than amplified. Light carried quietly into the ordinary days that follow.
Simeon does not rejoice because the world has changed. He rejoices because his waiting has been met. His peace comes not from resolution, but from recognition: this is the Light, and He is here.
For many of us, this matters deeply.
There are seasons of faith where we are not full of certainty or clarity. Where our prayers feels meagre, words are hard to find, and the energy to strive simply is not there. Candlemas does not interpret these seasons as failure. It tells the truth alongside them.
The Light has come into the world, and He remains.
Abiding Light: Faith That Does Not Depend on Feeling
One of the most misunderstood aspects of Christian faith is the idea that light must always feel bright.
Scripture tells a different story. Jesus does not speak of creating or maintaining light. He speaks of abiding.
To abide is not to cling. It is not our effort or performance. It is His presence that does not withdraw when conditions change.
Candlemas names this kind of faith. The Christ-child is not yet teacher, healer, or risen Lord. He is small, dependent, and carried, and yet He is fully Light. Not because of what He will go on to do, but because of who He already is.
This is grace.
Why Candlemas Still Matters
Candlemas falls at a subtle turning point in the natural year, too. Winter has not yet loosened its grip, but the lengthening of days has begun. In many traditional calendars, this was the moment when stored candles were blessed for the months ahead, a deeply practical act shaped by hope rather than certainty.
It is a reminder that faithfulness is often quiet, and that light does not need to be proven in order to be real.
For those of us who are weary, uncertain, or learning to trust again, Candlemas offers a different way forward: not striving toward illumination, but learning to walk with the Light that already abides.
It is not a book to rush through or to complete. It offers Scripture, reflection, prayer, a simple candle rite, and optional journaling or non-writing practices, all designed to help you pause, recognise, and carry the Light forward without pressure.
There is nothing here to master or perform correctly. Nothing that depends upon how you feel.
You may forget the words – nothing is lost.
The Light abides.
Winter Sale Now On
If you’ve been waiting for a quieter moment to explore seasonal resources, the Winter Sale is now on across the shop, including Abiding Lightand other contemplative companions for the darker months of the year.
These resources are designed to support gentle, grounded faith that honours real life as it is, not as we wish it to be.
You can explore the Winter Sale from the menu at the top pf the website.
Whether Candlemas is a long-held tradition for you, or a quiet turning you are only just discovering, my hope is that this season offers you rest rather than requirement, and also the reassurance that the Light you need has already been given.
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: #ENWCwintertreeweek
A gentle note to let you know that the Winter Sale has now begun, and if you’ve been meaning to stock your shelves for the colder months, this is just the time to do it.
Over time, Raising Little Shoots has grown into a whole library of resources; for nature study, home education, seasonal living, and gentle faith-filled rhythms, and I wanted to highlight the different categories that you can now browse on the website (so that you can head straight to what you actually need).
Nature Study
If you’re craving simpler, steadier nature study, the kind that works in real family life, begin here. Expect resources that help you get outside, notice more, and build habits gently over time.
Celebrating the Seasons with Children
Seasonal living isn’t required to be Pinterest-perfect to be meaningful. This section is all about creating traditions, rhythms, and small celebrations that help children mark the turning of the year.
The Charlotte Mason Homeschool Planner
A Home education planner that helps you to hold your days with more calm. Planning pages, gentle structure and support for keeping life-and-learning workable.
The Sanctuary of Childhood
A place for child-centred resources that honour wonder, attention, and wholesome formation, without rushing childhood along.
The Sanctuary of Home
Home isn’t just where we live, it’s where we recover, regather, and begin again. This category is for building a home atmosphere that feels steady, comforting, and quietly life-giving.
Nature-Inspired Devotionals for Grown-Ups
For the grown-up heart that wants faith that feels lived . Rooted in the seasons, and the quiet presence of God in our ordinary days.
Free Resources
If you’re new here (or just need something small and encouraging), don’t miss the free library, little pages of help and beauty you can download and use right away.
A Gentle Way to Shop the Sale:
Choose one resource to support your home rhythm
Choose one to support your learning rhythm
Choose one to support you
Ready to browse?
The Winter Sale is now live, and you can explore by category from the menu at the top of the website.
