Over the Summer we had an on-going herbal study. I love the Bearth program for the inclusion of this component in their curriculum. It was one of the influential factors in us choosing the Earthschooling program for our home school. This project flowed through the Summer with various activities that all complimented each other beautifully for a really holistic, gentle learning experience. It included;
- A sensory tea experience – smelling, talking about and tasting flower teas. Calendula was amongst the several teas we explored that day.
- Picking and hanging to dry, bunches of the golden sun flowers through the Summer. (Chilli didn’t know what the flowers were being dried for – she just knew there was a special ‘surprise project’ she would find out about one day)
- Seed saving from the calendulas. We call the calendula’s ‘fairy seeds’. They are perfect seeds for children to plant; easy germination, quick growing, gorgeous foliage structure and pretty ‘sun’ flowers. Great for a fairy or children’s garden.
- Watercolour pencil drawing of the calendulas form a few stems picked and arranged in a vase (or recycled organic apple juice bottle as the case may be!) on the drawing table. Experimenting with this medium was a lot of fun (This part of the project was inspired by the Little Acorn Learning Curriculums)
- Then for the ‘special surprise project’; We took an old calendula ointment jar that we had finished and washed up – Filled the jar with the dried petals – Then poured into the jar organic almond oil (this was a really nice natural learning experience as well “But the jar’s already filled with petals Mumma”… “Hmmm, let’s pour in the oil and see what happens, I think it might just work” … “Oh WOW! The oil does fit, it goes down into all the little gaps between the petals!”- We secured the lid and placed the jar on the windowsill of our learning space where the sun streams in through the window, for the oil to infuse (This was inspired by Delphine of Prairie Flower Children’s Centre in the Early Childhood video from the Lifetime Membership files – found under :Extra Video’s:) – Within just a few days the oil had infused into a gorgeous golden colour – We left the oil there for about a few weeks to really infuse well, it was lovely to check the progress of the infusion every so often – Now the oil lives in our healing basket and is used anytime there’s a bump, bruise or scrape.
I loved the way this project theme wove itself beautifully into so many aspects of our Summer program. It was achieved little-by-little over the Summer and we had a really nice completed project at the end of the Season.
What’s in your healing basket? Do you have any favourite healing verses or songs you sing as you soothe a bump or scrape? I’ll be posting our healing basket contents soon.