There are days when the weather turns utterly wild, the to-do list looms, or a poorly child needs to stay tucked-up at home. On such days, it is easy to sigh and think that nature study must wait until fairer days return. However, we can find a way to invite the natural world softly in.
A single window can become a classroom filled with wonder. From that familiar pane, we might trace the slow drift of clouds, the light’s changing mood, the movement of branches, the first robin’s bright breast, or the ripples on a rain-fed puddle. Nature study, at its heart, is not about grand adventures, instead, it is about attention, & the development of patience that carefully observes.
Charlotte Mason called attention a habit to be trained, and like any habit, it grows by small daily acts. Here are a few to try:
Five 3-Minute Practices for the Kitchen-Window Naturalist
Light Watch : Notice how the light changes each hour. Is it silver, golden, grey, or something different?
Colour Hunt: Name every shade you can see from your window.
Movement Minute : Watch only for motion: a leaf trembling, a cat slipping past, a bird flying overhead.
Sound Map : Close your eyes and listen. How many distinct sounds can you name?
Change Log : Note one small change since yesterday.
Keep a small “Fixed View” log in your nature journal. Sketch what you see through the same window each week. Add a little tally of “firsts”: first frost, first snowdrop, first bee. Over time, that narrow frame will open into something quite vast.
The window, like a page, holds a world waiting to be read. And in the reading, our children (and we ourselves) discover the beauty in the ordinary.
Each year, as November arrives and frosts trace the windows, I feel the same, familiar shift. The garden still holds the memory of summer, but the air has changed ; quieter now, gentler, as though the world itself is turning inward for a rest.
It’s in this stilling of the year that my heart begins to long for slower rhythms. The lamps are lit earlier, the kettle sings more often, and I find myself craving quiet moments, to think, to pray, to notice what has been and what is yet to come.
Over the years, I have come to think of these weeks as the dreaming nights , the long, in-between evenings when the world seems to hold its breath before the light begins to grow again. Even in the darkness, something unseen is being born.
I’ve learned that these early winter weeks, from All Souls in November to Epiphany in January, hold a kind of sacred pause. A time to remember, to wait, to celebrate, and to let the quiet work of renewal begin.
A Gentle Companion For the Darkest Part of the Year
The Dreaming Nights guides you from All Souls’ Day (2nd November) through Epiphany (6th January) following the quiet arc from remembrance to revelation.
Each entry follows a gentle rhythm:
Ritual : a small, grounding act of faith, home, or nature. Reflection : a short reading based upon the day’s Bible verse, to nurture slow faith and steady hope. For Your Diary : a meaningful prompt to help you gather the season’s lessons. Prayer : a moment to draw heart and home back to God.
Through the hush of November, the waiting of Advent, the joy of Christmas, and the light of Epiphany, this book invites you to discover a slower kind of worship — faith woven through your ordinary days, resting beside the rhythm of home.
It isn’t a programme to complete, instead, a rhythm to inhabit. A way of keeping company with God through winter’s darkness, until the light returns.
Perhaps you, too, are weary of the rush at this time of the year. The endless noise, the early decorations, the long to-do lists. The Dreaming Nights offers another way: a season of sacred stillness.
No perfection required, only a candle, a notebook, and a willingness to pause. It’s a devotional for those who wish to dwell deeply in this time of year; to notice the beauty of the small and the holy in the everyday, a steaming mug, the peace of one tidy corner, the truth of Emmanuel: God with us, here too.
A Gentle Invitation
You can find The Dreaming Nightsnow in the shop: a 68 page downloadable devotional to guide you from All Souls to Epiphany.
To celebrate its release, please enjoy 20% off with the code DREAMING20 at checkout.
As we enter this darker season, may your home be filled with small lights and deep peace, and may you know that even in the darkest of nights, the Light is quietly growing.
The quiet importance of creativity for home-educating mothers
“We all have need to be artists in our lives; to see and to create, to interpret and to delight.” Madeleine L’Engle
This is Barbara Bunny. She was knitted over a few minutes here and there over several days; a row while the kettle boiled, another as I sat down with a cup of tea, until, quite without fanfare, she was finished. A pocket-sized treasure, she was made from scraps of wool left over from pullovers and mittens knitted in previous years, the sort of yarn that brings happy memories as it passes through my hands once again.
Barbara reminds me that creativity need not be grand or perfect to be meaningful; she is, after all, full of flaws that I didn’t worry about correcting! Often, it is the small, steady acts; the knitting of a winter bonnet, taking a moment to sketch a flower along side your child, baking a cake just for the joy of it, that keep us whole.
As home-educating mothers, we pour so much of our energy into tending, teaching, and nurturing. But we, too, are living souls who must be nourished. When we make time for our own creativity, even in humble ways, we remind ourselves that we are more than facilitators of everyone else’s learning. We too are learners, dreamers, and image-bearers of the Divine Creator Himself.
Charlotte Mason wrote,
“The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum; but the mother’s mind, too, requires its proper food, else she will have nothing to give.” (A Philosophy of Education, Vol. 6)
How easy it is to forget that. Yet creativity, in its many gentle forms, is not a luxury, it is a lifeline. It keeps us awake to beauty, helps us to notice the holiness in the everyday, and teaches our children that learning is not confined to books and timetables, but is also born in the quiet rhythm of making.
As we stitch, knead, paint, or knit, our hearts rest and our minds are free to turn over new ideas. Perhaps we choose our yarns for a baby cardigan, inspired by the colours of an evening sky we were recently blessed to observe. Or maybe the words of a poem or passage we read earlier begin to settle and take root as we bake.
It all enriches. It’s all valuable. We are valuable.
So here’s to the little makes, the slow stitches, the five minutes embraced between lessons. May we all find our own Barbara Bunny ! A gentle reminder that creativity belongs to us too.
Next week is Harvest Moon Week in Exploring Nature with Children. It’s a perfect time to pause, step outside, and notice the beauty of the night sky.
I’ve created free printable journal pages for your children to record their observations and wonderings, with space for copywork in both print and cursive for you to download: Harvest Moon Journal Pages
The air has shifted here in Lancashire. Can you feel it where you are? The crisp edge to the morning air, the leaves beginning to loosen their hold. October is the month when the year itself seems to turn a page, and we, too, are invited to begin again.
This is the season for slowing down, for lighting candles on the kitchen table, for noticing the small graces hidden in our days: the kettle steaming, the child’s muddy boots by the door, the gold of the afternoon light falling across the hall floor. It is in these ordinary moments that holiness hides, waiting to be gathered up and treasured.
I discovered that keeping a seasonal diary is one of the of the simplest yet most impactful ways to capture this beauty. Not the kind of diary that rushes to list achievements or to-dos, but a gentler practice of sacred noticing. A place to record the pattern of our days: the prayers whispered whilst stirring the pot of soup for dinner, the song of the robin in the hedgerow, the way the seasons brush against our lives, reminding us that we are a part of so much more…
Why October?
October is a natural threshold. Summer has truly fallen away, yet Advent is still some distance off. We stand in this in-between place, gathering the last tomatoes from the garden, pulling out cosy knitted jumpers from their warm weather storage, the kettle humming as the afternoons grow darker. We steady ourselves for the darkening days. It is a perfect moment to pause, to take stock, and to begin keeping company with a diary that honours the sacred rhythm of the year.
When we write in this way; slowly, with gratitude and attention, we not only notice the beauty woven into our ordinary tasks, but we also shape a testimony of God’s faithfulness in our lives. Over time, these pages become a prayer woven through the fabric of daily life.
A Gentle Guide to Begin
To help you step into this practice, I’ve created Keeping a Seasonal Diary: A Practice of Sacred Noticing : a seven-day guide to teach you the art of slowing down, seeing with fresh eyes, and letting your diary become a faithful companion through the year.
Over seven days, you’ll learn to:
Observe your days with gentleness and fresh vision
Weave prayer and gratitude into your words
Discover the quiet meaning in simple daily tasks
Connect your inner life to the natural rhythms of the seasons
Create diary entries that tell the story of God’s goodness in your life
This is not busywork, nor another task for your ever expanding to do list. It is an invitation to live more deeply, more slowly, more rooted in the love of God and the beauty of creation.
A Gift for October
To help you get started on your journey, I’m offering 20% off throughout October.
Let your diary become a daily companion this autumn. A place to notice what you might otherwise forget, a quiet prayer, the comfort of scripture, and the small homely graces that make up your days: steaming mugs, muddy boots, blankets pulled close.
The air has shifted, can you feel it? That first crispness that makes you draw your cardigan a little tighter, the turning of the leaves in all their finery. The days are shorter now, yet wrapped in that somehow richer, golden light that only autumn brings.
When my children were small, this was always the season we began again. Fresh copywork books, sharpened pencils, nature walks with baskets swinging at our sides. It was never about the perfect plan, of course; I soon learned as a young mother that life with little ones rarely bends to a timetable, but instead about the gentle rhythm of living and learning together through the turning of the year.
Now my children are grown. The house is quieter, but autumn has a way of speaking to me still. It calls me back to the same sacred slowness: the lighting of a candle on a grey morning, a walk down the lane to see what the hedgerows are offering, the reading of Scripture with a mug of tea warming my hands.
The years ran easily through my fingers, like water I couldn’t quite hold. If I could give one gift to young mothers now, it would be this: permission to slow down. To resist the endless striving. To trust that we do not need to replicate ‘school at home’ for our children to learn what they need to learn, and that the best lessons will be written in beautiful storybooks enjoyed snuggled up together, in the feel of the wind on their faces, in the memory of berries gathered at the edge of the wood, in prayers spoken together as dusk fell.
Because here is what remains, even when the house grows quieter: the golden light in the kitchen, the rhythm of prayer and scripture, the noticing of beauty in each turning season. These were the things that shaped my children, and myself, far more than any checklist ever could.
So as the leaves fall once more, I find myself listening to autumn’s invitation: begin again. Not with the noise of doing more, but with the quiet courage of living slowly, deeply, and well.
