Botany Cabinet: Focus on the Essentials

An excerpt from the elementary biology album that reminds us why we use generic shapes in the botany cabinet, as opposed to leaf names specific to a particular region:

Once the child gathers a large body of knowledge from sensorial exploration, she can then begin to order and classify it.

An example of how this happens is by giving the child the name of the new shape rather than just giving the name of the plant from which the leaf comes. For example, the child can see that this plant has obovate leaves and so does this plant. That plant over there has sagittate leaves. When you give the name of the leaf shape, you give the children a tool to classify leaves and plants alike. Just giving the names of the plants, does not provide a basis for ordering and classification. This base of information is also built up through the use of nomenclature material in the primary. The nomenclature material is used by children who are reading and also those children who are not yet reading. Through the use of the nomenclature material, children learn the names of plants, parts of plants, names of animals and names of parts of animals. Eventually, all of this information can be ordered and classified. Another source for building up the child’s store of information comes from the stories, the poems and the songs that the teacher introduces about plants and animals.

All of this work becomes a foundation from which the children will launch with her work in the elementary.

Family Gardening in Our Home

Time to move these plants outside! 

My children and I need to get cracking on planning our gardens. It is March already and we should have seedlings going already! OOPS! Flu and public school issues will do that to a family, I suppose.


This year, with 5 children instead of 1, we are going for a modification of square foot gardening. Each child will have their own space to plan within.
(Technically we had 5 children last summer too - but we started the growing season with 1 child and 1 adult and added from there - and our garden FAILED last year. Utter Failure.)


Mama:

• Pumpkins
• Tomatoes
• Rhubarb
• In the yard: add more lilac bushes, landscaping refreshed, plant some berry bushes for the future

Miss 14:

• Watermelons
• Strawberries
• Purple Trailing Petunias

Mister 13:

• Pumpkins (more)
• Cucumbers
• Watermelon
• Cantalope

Miss 12:

• Corn
• Strawberries
• Coleus

Miss 4:

• Carrots
• Sunflowers

Mister 3:

• Flower mix
• Sunflowers

Not as much variety as I would like to see, but we've had a late start in planning. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks!

The children will be responsible for their own area. With the particular needs we have in our mix of children, it is best for them not to share duties with the others, although Legoboy (Mr 13) and I will provide reminders and guidance for the others when needed. Miss 14 has never grown anything, ever. 12, 4 and 3 had a garden in their previous home but didn't get to see everything grow - they were provided some of their vegetable produced as it was harvested, but didn't get to pick it themselves.

This should be an interesting year to say the least ;)



Previous gardening related posts:
Lazy Gardening
Pollinator Week - Planning for our new home and garden
Nature in Montessori Education
Almost on the Farm
Vermi-Composting: WORMS! 
Gardening in an Apartment
KidzHerbs Garden Kit: Review Post
Musings on the Elementary Scientific Classification Material
Herb Love - Review Post of Herb Fairies

Other Posts in the Series: 

I Believe in Montessori - Montessori Practical Life in the Garden in Spring

Welcome to Mommyhood - Growing Beans

Uno Zwei Tutu - 10 Reasons Why Gardening With Kids is Awesome

Montesori en Casa - 9 Plants for Urban Gardening with Kids

Work & Play, Day by Day - Gardening as Advanced Practical Life

Teaching from a TackleBox - Gardening the Montessori Way

Lazy Gardening ;)

We really didn't spend as much time in our garden this summer as we wanted to, we had far too many weeds for my liking - and we had a few comments from people about not getting much stuff. Things along the lines of "Hmph - you always wanted a garden and you don't even time for it" and "I passed by it the other day - had a lot of tomatoes going to waste out there!" and other such not-intended-to-be-rude-but-please-consider-what-you-are-saying-before-it-pops-from-your-mouth silly statements. 

This black thumb woman has tomatoes to harvest INSIDE in the middle of the cold winter - I don't need to be THAT picky about the weeds in a clay soil that desperately needed the ground cover, thank you very much! 

In the end... 

Well, the only thing we didn't get much of.... is photographs! 

We had a few watermelons - *those* we didn't pick in time. Several were ripe in July, but July turned out to be one of those "let's a take a non-chosen trip to a 'warm place' and see if we make it back alive" kind of months. ;) Yeah, we survived! The watermelons didn't. 

The asparagus, other squashes and cucumbers didn't make it in the clay soil. At least two of the people with the gardening comments are the one who did not help when they could have, when it came to keeping bare clay-filled soil moist; then made the most comments about the weeds (the weeds actually helped! They kept the ground moist by providing ground cover and kept the seeds/soil in place with their roots.). Next spring, we direct sow the seeds (these ones grew the best, over the plants we put in after sprouting) - and we cover with straw. 

Pumpkins: 

• We've not cut up all the pumpkins yet, but so far have now frozen enough puree to make 12 more pies; we've made 4 so far. 
• We had enough pumpkins for 2 12 ounce jam jars of seeds for next year (pulled from pumpkins we weren't going to eat, those rinds chopped up and fed to the worm bin). 
• We also roasted a LOT of seeds! 

Tomatoes:

• We grew tomatoes we didn't plant! Turns out the tomatoes I had fed to the worms? The seeds hadn't digested, decomposed or sprouted before the worm castings were added to the garden. On top of the 25+ plants we planted from a friend's leftover farmer's market (they'd lost the labels and nobody but us wanted mystery tomatoes!), we had several more sprouting where they landed! 
• A total of 17 2.5 quart buckets - plus many partial buckets. 
• We have canned tomato sauces, had tons of treats with fresh tomato slices - and gifted many. And between our travels and other issues, we fed some old ones to the worms too. 
• We have reds, yellows, oranges and greens. We even have tiger stripes! Awesome!

In that patch of weeds?

• Without trying, we harvested 10 more pumpkins and 3 more full buckets of tomatoes. 

The messiest image of our back porch! We had old boxes we were composting some and burning others ---- but we also had plants on the back porch: carrots, elderberry, basil, cilantro, motherwort (that one wasn't supposed to be there) and a few others I can't recall off the top of my head.

One evening we collected the above (2 pumpkins in his hands) and below (4 pumpkins in the one bucket, 3 more carried in my arms, and half a bucket of tomatoes). We didn't even try.

Hmmmmmm...... PUMPKIN SEEDS!!!!!!

Botany Studies: Herbal Remedy Kit

Just a quick post to show how much we LOVE our Herbal Remedy Kit from LearningHerbs.com.

LearningHerbs.com - Browse their website - they offer SO much more! (and so much is FREE!)

I think this was actually making elderberry gummies
(not included in the kit,
but the elderberries are!
And the recipe is easy-easy-easy -
we added some extras for specific ailments)

The Herbal Kit - price ranges from $67-97 with various promotions. WORTH - EVERY - PENNY.
In fact, after you have the kit and you get started - just getting your hands into it, you'll find that you can buy replacements or change things up through purchasing items from Mountain Rose Herbs (or elsewhere, but we love Mountain Rose Herbs too!).... and we do that! BUT we decided to buy a second kit too!

The kit includes step by step EASY instructions. Nothing fancy; nothing complicated. So don't let my out of order photos here scare you! Legoboy could do all of these himself - in fact, he does done much of it all by himself, when modifying or re-making some items later. He has been doing so since he was 9 years old. :)



We have now made everything in the kit - including the elderberry syrup which works SO great for the flu virus! (the FDA does not approve of that statement, just as a disclaimer - even though there are scientific studies done that strongly show the affect of eldererry syrup on flu strains)

By the by - when it comes to flu.... I had those dried elderberries for almost 2 years. Every time I'd open that cupboard, I'd think, "What is that smell?" It wasn't *bad*, it just wasn't a yummy kind of berry smell either. Well, the day after we fully moved into our house (the apartment was empty but still needed a final cleaning), I opened the new cupboard that housed the elderberries, and thought, "Oh, THAT smells SO GOOD!" When I realized what it was, I realized, "I am sick." Our bodies do tend to crave what they need, until we train them otherwise. And I'd been ignoring all the signs of being sick (blaming it on the stress of moving, the all-day training I'd done that Friday, then doing the final moving of stuff in the rain at the end of a long day, coming into the house (where carpet people were supposed to be GONE already) to find broken dishes in the sink and broken glass all over the floor --- apparently the pounding from above had shaken loose a light fixture, hitting the sink and shattering everywhere, I blamed my feelings on "that time of the month", and my son's own moodiness (oh wait - he was sick too!!!). Talk about ignoring all the signs!!!!

Elderberry syrup though. YUM. And when my body didn't need it anymore, it didn't taste so good anymore. Still good, but not something that I was craving. Same with Legoboy. He really noticed the change in desire for it as he got better.

The best part of doing all this learning together? He could take care of me when I was sick and I could take care of him - no worries!

The pictures below start with the second kit; then move to the first kit. In no particular order. I will try to identify what is going on in each picture, but this is not a narrative so much as a demonstration of what could be done with an herbal remedy kit!

Full contents before unpacking anything.
That white spot is a wrapped up bottle of Lavendar essential oil.
Chunks of beeswax
All the jars, bottles eyedroppers, and tins needed for this particular kit.
Dried herbs (see below)
DVD instructions (with online access and some printed instructions)

First Kit:

stinging nettle sitting in place to make an infusion (all the goodness goes into the water,
then you strain out the physical herbs and drink the infusion - highly nutritious - and EASY)

strained herbs - these can go into the compost or be used other ways, depending on the herb mixture

This is maybe the stinging nettle infusion - the top part looks right,
but the liquid looks the wrong color.
So it might still be the herbal healving salve
herbs when being strained. 

the completed herbal healing salve
once you know how to make one kind, you can make ANY

getting supplies ready for making the salve

further straining the herbs that had been extracted into warm olive oil
just the liquid/oil is then added back to the pan with the beeswax
The bag helps to squeeze all the rest of the goodies out of the herbs. 

the herbal healing salve setting up - just poured into the jars
warm is darker and more liquidy yet
the solid parts are cooler and lighter in color

just a pretty picture of the lavendar essential oil, the olive oil and the tin tops

the salve while setting up - some was still warm (darker)

the pretty box the herbal remedy kit comes in ;) 

overview of the kit contents

closer look at the kit contents

melting the beeswax

Botany Illustrations

Neat side exhibit at our local museum recently:

Zoom in on this one! Look at the letter s in sassafras! It looks like "saffafras"!
This led to more conversations about the change in handwriting over the years.
And how necessary it is to maintain cursive writing - personalized writing - so that
we can continue to communicate with your ancestors.  

Such beautiful illustrations!

Even as recently as the last century, we were publishing books
in both Latin and English.
And I thought Latin was a dead language !?

We bought this one.
LOVE it! 

Botany Product Review: Kidzerbs Garden Kit

Growing an Herb Garden
Here is the webpage from Learning Herbs about growing an herb garden (we found the Kidzerbs kit when we were at Mountain Rose Herbs looking to purchase individual seeds from A Kids Herb Book for children of all ages. That's when we also found Wildcraft, which led me on a price comparison which led to the discovery of the Learning Herbs site (where the game is slightly more expensive, but comes with TONS of free stuff!). (whew - deep breath ;) )

Description from Mountain Rose Herbs:

Kidzherbs Gift Seed Pack

A Kid's Guide to Growing Medicinal Plants includes:
Kidzherbs written and illustrated by Sena Cech. In this booklet, Sena and her mouse, Cheesie, give you a tour of her garden of medicinal herbs. Full of cartoon and botanical illustrations, stories and recipes.
Each kit also includes 12 packets of seeds from Sena's garden (organically grown of course). Basil, Borage, Calendula, California Poppy, Catnip, Chamomile, Fennel, Feverfew, Flax, Johnny Jump-Up, Lemon Balm and Love-in-a-Mist.
A wonderful gift idea at a great price.

From there, things have blossomed - almost literally (we took a long time to get things planted, then we needed to replace, but our learning has certainly blossomed!).

Here is Legoboy's review of the Kidzerbs Garden Kit for Growing Medicinal Plants.

The Contents - or What is Included in the Kit:

• This kit also included craft sticks. 

Is it what you were expecting?      
Yes.

What wasn't as expected?
Nothing.

Any surprises? What were they?
Yes. The craft sticks.

How have you used this kit thus far?
All I have done with the kit is planting the herbs. We have not used them yet because we didn't have enough sunlight. We are replanting during the winter.

Are there any components you've not used? Why not?
I have not used the craft sticks. I taped the name of the herb to the side of each box.

Would you recommend this kit to a friend interested in growing or learning about herbs? Why or why not?
Yes. I think that this kit is a good starter kit.

Is the price a fair price? Too low? Too high?
Yes. It is cheaper than buying them individually.


Anything you'd like to say about customer service from the company where you purchased this kit? 
(note from Mama: we bought it from Mountain Rose Herbs, but it is actually created by Horizon Herbs)
No.


Anything else you'd like to share with people who might possibly purchase this kit? 
I like it and would buy it again.

Herb Love

Here's a post that has been a while in the making - for something so simple! 

We started various herb studies around this time last year. 

Our indoor garden went downhill fast after some dear friends over-watered; and we had a pest issue with the mulch used - our treatments were too-little-too-late :( 

But the marshmallow lives on! Can't beat that!

We started Herb Fairies when they opened up this past spring. We're not exactly "fairy" people in our home, but it is a neat concept and storyline to teach the various properties and uses for a wide variety of herbs. 

Each month, a new story is released. Legoboy reads the book via the computer and takes a look at some of the other information. He's more on top of things than I am ;) 

Eventually (generally long after that month has passed), I will sit down and print out selected pages for our binder. 

We then listen to the audio-book together while we each color our own coloring page. Again - we're not exactly coloring page people here, but it is nice to color in the flowers and leaves of the plant at hand while listening to a story about it. 

It is really much better to do the stories in the month they are received, because that is the when the plant is already in bloom and going to be in bloom out in nature already. We attempted to grow things inside, but we had a series of unfortunate events - now that winter is soon upon us again (we have a south-facing window and grow tomatoes inside during the winter - they don't grow as much in the summer for us), I think we'll start again with fresh seeds.

I try to print on the lowest ink setting possible - and use up low ink cartridges - so our pages turn out light. It just means we can fill in the details we like (and get the information through our hands again!).


The great thing about our binder is that, even if we did the work in the actual month provided, there is SO much there - that you can easily pick and choose a few things this year; and cycle back around to it next year. We also have a beautiful binder full of recipes, crafts, additional activities, uses, journal pages and background information (like scientific classification information). One would have to cut back on other studies in order to do everything provided in one month. It has really been worth every penny spent.

I myself am really learning a lot and enjoying every minute of it!

Coconut Oil and Chocolate

Legoboy wanted me to add this to our list of uses for Coconut Oil - while he had baking noted, this isn't baking really... it is SO simple, it could be a perfect primary level cooking activity, following a simply-created recipe booklet! And OH my! The variations a child could come up with!

Glorious chocolate ;)

http://healthimpactnews.com/2012/how-to-make-irresistible-coconut-oil-chocolates/

Add 3-4 tbsp of honey or maple syrup instead; and at least make sure you have a full tsp of vanilla.

Our final version: 

Simple Coconut Oil Chocolate Candies

• 1/2 cup Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (raw cocoa powder is preferred)
• 3-4 Tbsp raw (preferred), local (if at all possible) honey or maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Melt the coconut oil and add the honey. Whisk and add the cocoa powder. Whisk occasionally while pouring into a silicone ice cube tray or silicone mini muffin tray. Makes 12. Cool for 30 minutes in the fridge or freezer.

Note: Time varies depending on how hot the coconut oil was when you started. If the oil is only just reached its melting stage, these will set in as little as 15 minutes.

These were just the perfect first use of our silicone shaped-trays - perfect for candies, soaps and ice cubes! A young child could melt these over a hot cooking pad, or in a pan of warm water - the coconut oil liquefies at room temperature, so you just need to get it slightly warmer than that (so the other ingredients don't harden it up while stirring and pouring). The quantity is perfect for a child's first recipe!

Delicious! Perfect for Once Upon a Time withdrawal symptoms.... ;)

Legoboy spilled some; I spilled some more. No problem!
Still delicious!

Popped out of the tray - I love these silicone trays!

Botany: Herb Growing

We have decided this year to forego vegetables and fruits (except for our refuse-to-die tomato plants) and see what we can do with an indoor herb garden. We are combining our herb studies with Herb Fairies (opens up once a year in the early spring - sign up for their newsletter to get an announcement next April), other courses from LearningHerbs.com, my previous health-related studies and the book that started it all: A Kids Herb Book for children of all ages.

Our other Herb posts:
Biology Studies for 2013
Initial post that started the herb studies
Healing Herbs - using grocery store items
A review of Kidzerbs: A Kid's Garden Kit for Growing Medicinal Plants (coming soon)

Other posts labeled as Botany on Montessori Trails


Legoboy takes over the post from here:
(he needed some prompts, so I typed in the questions for him)


What is growing: 

• Calendula
• Flax
• Borage
• Johnny jump-up
• Yarrow 
• Fennel
• Marshmallow
• Poppy
• Basil
• Love-in-the-mist
• Dandelion and
• Chamleomile

What is not yet growing:

• Plaintain
• Mullein
• Licorice
• Lemon Balm
• Catnip

Why did you start this garden? 

Because I thought it would be fun to grow herbs ourselves (note from Mama: fresh herbs have different uses from dried herbs; and store-bought can be SO expensive). Because I can do with my Mama. 

Why is it indoors? Why not on the balcony? 

Because of snow and hail in the winter. Because we have neighbors who smoke and we don't want that yuckiness in our food and medicine plants. And because I spill water and the neighbors below don't like it. 

What is your favorite herb right now? 

Plaintain and Lemon Balm

What are you going to do with these herbs to keep them growing? 

Water them and add more soil when needed. We are buying some flower pots and some clear small storage tubs for transferring next week. 

What are you going to DO with ALL these herbs? 

Plaintain for if I got devil’s club thorns (note from Mom - it's in Herb Fairies but I don't know if we have that here??), or make syrup for coughs and sore throats and when I'm hungry. 

Marshmallow for coughs and sore throats.

Chamomile for bedtime tea.

Why did you choose these herbs? 

Because these are the herbs in the Kids Herb book and some came in the Kidzherb kit which we bought because it had many of the herbs we wanted. When we ordered seeds, we didn't know what would be included in the Herb Fairies series. Now we have more than we wanted, but not all that we would like. 

Our indoor garden:

seeds won't grow without soil.
we added soil.