I finished Last Child in the Woods yesterday. Most of the last section consists of ideas to change the alienation of children from nature. The author has some very interesting ideas. One mistake he thinks environmentalists make is in discouraging fishing and even hunting--Louv thinks this can be an important gateway to interest in nature. He writes, "In an increasingly de-natured world, fishing and hunting remain among the last ways that the young learn of the mystery and moral complexity of nature in a way that no videotape can convey. Yes, fishing and hunting are messy--even morally so--but so is nature. No child can truly know or value the outdoors if the natural world remains under glass, seen only through lenses, screens, or computer monitors." He also writes of the bond that fishing can forge in families; I've seen this in my own. My husband's father loved to fish, and this became one of my husband's favorite memories of his father. He in turn has taken our sons fishing. It is a link with Grandpa which is especially important since Grandpa is no longer here.
Louv also discusses schools and how they present nature to children. His upshot is that most schools in America don't even try. He holds up European schools as doing a better job of this; in fact, I was so delighted with this quote from Finland's Ministry of Social Affairs and Health: "The core of learning is not in the information . . being predigested from outside, but in the interaction between a child adn the environment." Wow, that sounds very Charlotte Mason to me.
He also takes on city design and landscaping--and here I so agree with him. Leveling all the ground everywhere, making developments of identical houses with little cookie-cutter yards covered in nonnative grasses that must be kept mowed and trimmed--why do we do this? I live in one of these sorts of communities, and I hate it. I would much rather be on the edge of town, still close to the town things but with an edge of wildness--a small ravine, the edge of a woodland or meadow, a creek--this is how I grew up, in a town so small that nearly everyone was near the edge of town, vbg. Louv points out that there is no reason we HAVE to design towns like we do now--he brought up many ideas from planners. It's odd, many of them sound strangely like Nauvoo's large plots. :-)
I took my children yesterday to one of our area's "wild" parks. It is a few minutes' drive from my home; if only it were within walking distance I'd be thrilled. But instead of being leveled and planted with Kentucky Bluestem, it has areas of grass around a few playgrounds, and the rest is left close to wild, with a few benches scattered about. We sat, yesterday, looking down on a pond surrounded by meadow and woods, and just soaked up peace. We watched the butterflies, chased a small garter snake, surprised an enormous turtle on a log. I imagined towns with wedged sections like this scattered all throughout, with local residents keeping them trash-free and maintaining wildlife habitat--what a lovely thought.
An interesting part of Louv's book is his emphasis on what nature means in the spiritual life of a child--something I've never heard discussed by many leftist environmentalists. Listen to this quote:
"God communicates to us through each other and through organized religion, through wise people and the great books, through music and art, but nowhere with such texture and forcefulness in detal and grace and joy, as through creation, and when we destroy large resources, or when we cut off our access by putting railroads along river banks, by polluting so people can't fish, or by making so many rules that people can't get out on the water, it's the moral equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the last Bible on earth. It's a cost that's imprudent for us to impose upon ourselves, and we don't have the right to impose it upon our children."
Or this one:
"We cannot care for God if we do not care for his creation. 'The extent tha twe separate our children from creation is the extent to which we separate them from the creator--from God."
I think of the stories President Hinckley has told, of things that affected him as he grew--watching the stars at night, working in the orchard, caring for trees. How I want this channel to God to remain open to my children, to this generation from which will someday come another living prophet--will he have such stories of nature to tell, that nurtured his beginning faith and spirituality?
I often don't know what I think of specific nature "controversies"--global warming, Arctic drilling, etc. But I do know this--the lives of our children are being impoverished by our keeping them inside, playing computer games and watching TV, and letting them outdoors only to play organized sports. They are missing out, and Last Child in the Woods is an important step in raising awareness and the beginnings of an action plan.

More "Last Child in the Woods" commentary.
Louv interviewed many naturalists, educators, parents, psychologists for his book. Some quotes that struck me:
"Natural spaces and materials stimulate children's limitless imaginations and serve as the medium of inventiveness and creativity observable in almost any group of children playing in a natural setting"
Hmm. I've always tended to blame the difference in what I see of this sort of play in my children, as compared to what I remember of my childhood--I see the discrepancy, and blame TV, Palms, iPods--the electronic world. Well, maybe that is part of it, but maybe another part is that they just don't have the open spaces, mysterious scary woods, etc. that I grew up with. We've bought more "stuff" to entice our children outside more--swingsets, sandboxes, play equipment--but that hasn't seemed to solve the problem. Perhaps there is something to this, that a vacant lot, a forest edge, a prairie meadow, a creek, would solve--these are things I had, as a child, that my children do not have.
Being a CM mom, I was particulary receptive to Louv's chapter "Don't Know Much About Natural History: Education as a Barrier to Nature" This quote led off the chapter: "To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk thorugh a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall." Thomas Huxley
An educator quoted in the book said this: "The society we are molding these kids toward is one that values consumer viability. The works of John Muir, Rachel Carson, or Aldo Leopold are seldom if ever taught to children . . . Even in the sciences, where nature could play such an important role, the students study nature in a dry, mechanized way. How does the bat sonar work, how does a tree grow, how do soil amenities help crops grow? Kids see nature as a lab experiment."
I must admit, I see this in my current town of residence. The local elementary school has an award-winning wetgrass prairie restoration project on its ample grounds. The children get to see it, look at it, study it---but, during recess, it is "no-touchy" Someone could get hurt in there, or muddy, or something. We recently built a five-figure-price-tag wooden play area for the children to play on, instead. Our message to the children is loud and clear: Play on the constructed structure, clinically study the sedges and frogs. Don't play with them. Don't form a relationship. "Nature" is something we study with a grant, or doctor up when it is ruined--not our natural environment, a place to play and dream and live. No wonder the children are growing up detached.
Why else don't our kids have the same opportunities to form relationships with nature as those in past generations? Louv cites many: our view of time. Playing at a soccer game is a good use of time; meandering through a woodsy area, wading in the stream, or looking up at the trees, is wasting time. Our fears--our kids, roaming at large far from home with no adults, could be abducted. Mugged. Fall out of a kid-constructed tree house and break an arm. Fall in the stream and drown. Or get dirty. Or something else awful.
I still remember the reaction of the mothers in my hometown when I was eight, and a boy in my class in grade school simply disappeared on his way home from the public pool, never to be seen again. Our tiny town was in an uproar. Mothers who previously only cared that you came home for lunch and dinner, suddenly wanted to know where we were every minute, wanted us in sight at all times. It disgusted me then, but now, as a mom, I so understand!
Or back to the educational issue--Louv quotes a biologist as saying "Humans seldom value what they cannot name." I suspect Charlotte Mason would have nodded her head vigorously at that.
Then Louv takes on environmentalists themselves! Perhaps, he posits, in our haste to protect everything, environmentalists have managed to abstract nature to a distance too far for the children to connect easily. No touching, camping, fire building, tree houses, forts, fishing, hunting--but care about it anyway. No relationships allowed! He cites community rules that attempt to keep children out of nature areas, homeowners associations that ban treehouses, the left's war on Scouting, the "scare tactics" used by some environmental educators. What is the possible future, then, of enviromental activism? Louv reminds us: "Passion does not arrive on videotape or on a CD; passion is personal. Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature."
What is the fix for all this? I haven't finished that part of the book yet. Stay tuned. :-)

We are knee-deep in our new school year. Things are going relatively smoothly, although we are running into our perpetual problems with the "extra" stuff--much of it is getting pushed to the sides and rarely done. And Tallman, who, now being in 7th grade, has much more expected of him, is taking some time to, um, enjoy the transition. Hopefully it'll iron out.
But unfortunately, nature study has suffered for us in the first weeks of the year. That, and finding a place for swimming practice during the day I'm reading a book right now, though, that is really pushing me to reconsider nature study and its place in our lives. It is Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv. I first heard of this book last year from another CM mom, and instantly put it on my list, tracked down a copy this spring, and it has finally worked its way to the top of the towering to-be-read stacks. :-)
Louv asserts that a sea change has taken place in the way we raise children--children are spending much, much less time in the outdoors. Oh, they might be playing soccer or skateboarding around a park, but much of the outdoor time of our children is programmed-taken up by organized sports, or experienced with an Ipod on, or something like that. Children have had little time to form relationships with the world around them--build a tree house, throw pebbles in a stream, watch the clouds, see the stars, put obstacles in the way of crawling ants, meander through the woods listening for one's friends. This matters, he says, because the consequences of this nature-deficit are showing up in surprising ways--time spent in natural settings is beginning to be correlated to childhood obesity, ADD, depression, lack of creativity and imagination, truly CARING about nature and the environment.
Well. I must admit that my family stands guilty as charged, despite our attempts at nature study. As a child, I was hardly an outdoorsy girl---but sense of place, of the world around me, was nonetheless an important part of my life--bike riding through the tall grass, sitting under the perfect oak tree, the woodsy area at the end of the trailer park that perpetually seized my imagination, and to which I would walk, drawn as if by hypnosis, despite my mother's forbidding my ever setting foot there--she believed there to be a homeless man with a knife back there, I never knew why she thought that---the dips and swales in the road around our house in the country (how could anyone ever think Kansas was flat? Try riding a bike up and down those dips and hills), the evergreen tree that made a perfect shady "room" underneath, where I could even escape the notice of my mother, the deep crusted drifts of snow along the side of the plowed road in the winter. My children simply do not have access to places like that. The sky--always in Kansas the sky--deep blue, or the brassy, vibrating heat of a summer afternoon, the puffy clouds--or the ominous, mile-high black ones, and the stars. Oh, the stars. I think half the stars in the sky I saw as a kid have been erased. The schoolyard--we had the typical blacktop, it is true, and I did play on that some--but we were on a quadruple-block lot, and a good half of it was just open grass. Nothing in particular, no playing fields, just grass. But enough of it for the imaginative child to stage wars, jousting tournaments, pioneer wagon trains (yes, I was that imaginative child roping all my friends into my fantasy world, lol) And one special tree--a pecan tree. It was pure gold--nuts, shells, shade, leaves, sticks--and a V in the trunk low enough to climb on!!!! True, the teachers immediately called us down if they caught us up there. But as soon as their backs turned, we scampered right up anyway--Kansas, being short on trees, is especially short on good climbing trees. Our trees tended to be enormous lone oaks with no low branches, or tall cottonwoods--not much to climb on.
But my kids? They play in the back yard, sure, and we go on hikes. But I don't think they've formed the relationships that Louv is talking about, that even I, a bookworm afraid of spiders, managed to develop as a child.
OK, this has gotten long. I'll post it, and follow up soon with some quotes.

Well, we just returned from a brief "back to school vacation" in Nauvoo. We had a MARVELOUS time! It just so worked out that we got a room (a beautiful one at Nauvoo Family Inns and Suites) the very last week of the scheduled summer performances, so we could see the regular summer shows like Sunset By the Mississippi. We also really lucked out, and were there the last week of performances by the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble. These young people were absolutely amazing! We went one night, with the boys sort of thinking "what a sissie thing to go do", and we were ALL so impressed, we had to go back the very next night to see the other part of the program! We were thrilled both times. We got a photo of a few of the performers in their Ukranian costumes. I'm so grateful that this great program exists to preserve this beautiful part of the heritage of many people, and bring it to average American midwesterners and others.
And even better--a folk music ensemble called Mountain Strings opened and filled in during costume changes of the performance--they are every bit as amazing!!! We loved them so much we bought their CD. LOL
We saw many sights, had a lot of fun, got some work done at the temple, saw many shows, and PMM had quite a week. He was an "apprentice" at the Browning Gun Shop, and a "dauber" at the Print Shop, and was pulled up on stage during the performance of a children's show called Just Plain Anna Amanda! Cheery and Tallman were "pressed" into service as pressmen during a demonstration at the print shop, too. We couldn't have asked for a better family time. Our only complaint--the mayflies were absolutely thick! This was the third mayfly outbreak in Nauvoo this summer, some of the missionaries told us. We walked down Parley Street to the river early one morning, and they were just in curtains. It was sort of icky. We almost skipped going down to Sunset by the Mississippi that night, as we were sure they would be terrible. They were, but fortunately mostly stayed above us, in the lights, so we could enjoy the hilarious performances. The young performance missionaries that are there this summer have some real personality! Two of them, including a young Sister Osmond, do a fantastic Devil Went Down to Georgia, and several of the young men do a skit called "The Audition" that is the funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time!
I'm so grateful to have a place like Nauvoo so nearby, I wish I could "can" some of the entertainment and the wonderful testimonies borne to us so I could pull it out in those difficult moments!

This weekend we took a hurried trip down to Kansas to go to a family reunion at my aunt's house. My last remaining grandmother was there, the one I always think of as "Little Grandma" She was never very big to begin with, but now at age 89 she's really tiny. She's been ill several times this year, and I guess I am feeling like each time I see her might be my last, especially after losing my other grandma in February. Grandma's memory has suffered, and she may not remember by now that I was there, but at least I knew I was there. Grandma is quite a lady--I was really blessed in the two women who were my grandmothers. She was a domestic woman's woman--talented seamstress, great cook, gardener, canner. Since I planned as a girl on being the ambassador to France or some such thing, and having a staff, LOL, I was too busy and too shortsighted to learn much from her. I've been kicking myself ever since starting my family.
There were cousins and second cousins, all also gathered to see Grandma and visit and catch up. To my great delight, I discovered that my father's cousin has an oral history and digitized photos of my great-grandmother and her family. It was a lot of fun! I was struck by how GOOD these people are to whom I am related-- different from me, perhaps, in lifestyle and religious belief, but they are the good, solid people of this earth who would stick together and do anything to help family. I'm glad to have them!

Well, here is our First Day of School 2006/07 picture! Tallman is in 7th grade this year, Cheery in 5th, and PMM in 1st. We began on Monday 08/07, so we have an entire week under our belts as I write this, and it went fairly well. The new books are being enjoyed, we got done most days in pretty good time. We have a few bugs to work out with PMM's work, as there were a few days his work wasn't done until evening time, when I could spare some more time for him. Tallman reports that he likes all his science books and programs the best, Cheery asserts that Shakespeare and his Leonardo da Vinci biography are his favorites so far, and PMM loves his MathUSee and The Great Eight Spanish. My, I'm starting to look SHORT when standing next to my kids!

Wow, where on earth does my blogging time go? If I get any slower at updating the blog, it'll be Christmas before I finish my we-just-started-school posts. Argh!
This is Tallman at Scout camp. He had a terrific time; it was a fabulous experience for him. He loved camping, he talked and played and made friends, he got three merit badges, including archery, which I understand is difficult to qualify for in one day--there are proficiency requirements. But Tallman did it! He must have some of my mother's archery genes, and they obviously skipped me. :-) But it was a great week for him, and I am glad he had a good time---and even more glad he is home!!!

Well, almost there! Yesterday I got Cheery's and much of PMM's things all lined up. Whew! Then we went last night to Tallman's Scout camp Parents Night. That was fun, but very hot and sticky. It rained last night, not enough, but a little anyway, and is supposed to be some cooler today. Tallman is headed to the archery range today, I hear. :-)
Anyway, Cheery is doing many of the same things as Tallman for school. They are doing the same Latin and physical science programs. Cheery is doing MathUSee Epsilon this year, and doing most of Ambleside Online Year 3. We didn't do as much fiddling as we did with Tallman's Ambleside schedule; Cheery will pretty much be doing it as written. He is VERY enthusiastic about Shakespeare this year. For a "back to school" treat, we got him a Shakespeare Treasure Chest with activities and stuff in it, and he carried it around all day yesterday! LOL He was recently in an Activity Days play, and loved it. He might have the boards in his blood, lol. I'll be checking into some local outlets for that if he remains interested.
And now for the PMM. I know what we're PLANNING on for him, what I don't yet know is how much he's going to sit still for. He is officially "first grade" this year. He will be beginning MathUSee Alpha, and continuing with Teaching Your Children to Read Using the Book of Mormon. He has really thrived on this. He'll be doing Ambleside Online year 1, but at only half-speed--I really want to take the time to see that he picks up narrating, and copywork, and all that, and I know I won't do a good job of that if we are rushed. He is excited to begin regular copywork this year.
Today I need to finish setting up things to start PMM's new Spanish program, The Great Eight Mealtime Kit. The goal is to have the entire family speaking largely in Spanish at dinner time. We'll see how it goes-it is a very new program that we found at our local convention this summer. Also, I will be going over a late addition to the older boys' schedules--a communications program called Say What You Mean. I'll be going over it--I think it is possible to integrate this into the boys' narrations so they'll be getting the benefit of the course, while not doing much "extra" work, using as fodder for their communications and speech assignments, the books they would be doing written or oral narrations on. Those are my jobs for the day! Then tomorrow the schedules can be printed, the assignments sent off to the boys' Palm devices, and we'll be ready to go on Monday.
We are also planning something new for us this year--following the Ambleside schedules, plus an exam week each term, will make for 39 weeks of school. We've never done that before, lol. So the last two weeks of each term are going to be "crazy weeks" We'll be setting aside all of our normal schedules except for the Ambleside reading. The boys will have the terrific Business Math program from simplycharlottemason.com to help keep their math skills sharp, they'll read, and then we'll do those "other projects" that sound like fun that we never find time to do. A play based on one of our readings, perhaps, or extra field trips, art projects, whatever we can come up with. This will also be a great time to get videos of the Shakespeare play for the term and all that. I think it'll help keep things fresh and hopefully avoid burnout.
Well, I'm off to convince myself that I can teach PMM to set the table using only Spanish!

School planning update:
I got the music for Term 1 selected and made up song booklets for the children. Dh will burn a CD for me later. Our devotions are all set--"music mornings" twice a week, readings from The Book of Virtues for Young People and A Story to Tell once a week, a conference address once a week, and reading from Church History for Latter-Day Saint Families once week.
I set up our new Latin program for the first week. We'll be using Volume 1 of Latin in the Christian Trivium and I'm just delighted with the professional materials and the free support. :-) We're going to be happy Latin campers this year.
I also got Tallman's materials planned out. Some of these we'll be using with the other children, too.
He'll be in MathUSee, finishing Zeta and later, beginning Pre-Algebra.
We'll be using the terrific Spelling Wisdom materials for dictation--Tallman is in Book 3.
He'll be reading most of the selections in Ambleside Online Year 5 for history and literature and nature study, although we've tweaked a few things, changing some biographies around to make room for George Q. Cannon's Life of Nephi, and the Leaders in Action bio of Stonewall Jackson, of interest to us after visiting his home in Virginia.
We're adding for his devotional reading, Righteous Warriors by John Bytheway, Youth and the Temple--by the temple-drawing guy whose name I just forgot, and I have a migraine and don't want to get up, lol, and To Grow in Spirit by Joe J. Christensen. Practical skills will be addressed by reading Created for Work--OK, I forgot that guy's name too, and The Young Man's Handybook: Preparing Your Son on the Homefront by Martha Greene at Marmee's Kitchen.
The two older boys will do God's Design for the Physical World for science, we are going to read Much Ado About Nothing (also a high-interest thing at the moment, as we saw a superb performance of it in May), reading Plutarch's life of Tiberius Gracchus, and studying Mozart for music and Meindert Hobbema for art. Tallman will top things off with a technical-drawing program, as he has expressed intense interest in NOT having to do frou-frou drawing this year. LOL
Whew. Not bad for a lady with a migraine. On to Cheery's schedule tomorrow.