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Check out these articles for info on celebrating this fresh, life-giving season in an eco-conscious way:

Natural Easter Basket Stuffers             Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs              Healthy Easter Paska

Gardening with kids comes with many benefits – connecting with the land and their food, connecting with each other in a fun way, academic learning, and the end result – eating the food they have planted, cared for and harvested. If you’re jumping into this A Garden of Learning series now, head back to the first post for tips on planning the coming season’s garden with your children.

This is a great time of year to grab any seeds you have on hand and check to see how viable they are.

Head over to EcoParent Magazine none to get the full how-to article!

If you’ve ever thought farming is a summer-only job, think again – our farmer friends are cozied up indoors during these months carrying out the important task of planning for the season ahead. You don’t have to let them have all of the fun; next time there’s a cold day keeping you indoors, gather your gaggle of kiddos and get started on your own garden plan! Gardening offers myriad learning opportunities in the areas of science, social studies, math, and art. If you’re homeschooling, you may like to connect this activity to your provincial curriculum.

Head over to EcoParent Magazine online to get the full article with tips on how to plan your garden with kids, including how to plot your space, choose your plants, make your plan, and print out a fun square-foot gardening activity.

If anyone else is stuck in the same boat I’m about to describe and has some tips, or even some snacks, please share! So, the solid side of the boat, the strong side, the side we really prefer to be on is made up of a super strong bond of brotherly love. On that side of the boat, we find two brothers cuddled up, and the eldest is reading to the youngest. We find them playing board games, lego, and spies. We find the older teaching the younger how to play solitaire, and the younger eagerly giving half of his birthday money unprovoked to his older best pal. And oh my, we see moments of clasped hands – at the dinner table, in the car, at the mall – in this thing together. But over there under the bench of the boat, there are some holes. Over there we see the battle of the temperaments between the sanguine, phlegmatic boy who believes anything is possible and is quite insistent on it and the choleric (maybe also sanguine and a bit melancholic?) who demands that things be fair and true to real life. The difference of three years is becoming more apparent as these two strong personalities strive to hold fast within the context of their bond.

Since we learn at home, these boys spend their days together. We can see the older desires more time on his own to work on his pursuits – reading, drawing, game design. Yet the younger can think of nothing better than playing with his bro. Finding ways to honour both needs is proving to be a challenge, not to mention there are several other temperaments in our crew as well! When they do play together, the battle of temperaments is popping up more and more frequently. These two definitely have some non-violent communication skills and I’m often in awe at how they can talk through problems with one another… and there are some serious emotions at play. Hurt feelings, anger, sadness. Yet those communication skills often take a back seat to raised voices and yelling matches. Or we get a somewhat endearing combination of non-violent communication sentiments being yelled between the two of them. But I’m feeling frustrated because… !!! 

I know we need to get back to an old tradition of one-on-one dates with each of the four kids to give them breaks from each other. To carve out individual time for the older, and ways to fill up the younger’s desire for play and connection. To find time for connection in the hectic schedule of a highschooler playing sports, and for the only other chica in the house.

I know that as hard as it is to admit to myself,  I am the boat and they are just reflecting back my own holes of stress, impatience and busyness that are taking me away from real presence in our days. It’s my work to hold the space, to provide rhythm, and I feel that we’ve strayed, I’ve strayed, and that rhythm has unraveled. Time for a hearty push back in that direction.

How do you balance the different temperaments of your children? Share in the comments!

P.S. apologies for the award boat analogies… not a lot of time for reworking my writing these days… : )

Most kids love the sticky, sweet Canadian goodness that is maple syrup. My kiddos certainly do. I always feel a little bad limiting their use of such a down to earth, delicious and nourishing natural food – and for some reason they never quite understood what all the fuss was about when we would say that it is pricey and to be used in moderation. Until they made their own; until they did the work of tapping trees, trekking out to do the daily bucket check and hauling the loot home, patiently boiling it down… to find that their several 4L milk jugs produced about 100ml of syrup! Ouch.

Are you ready to tackle some tree-tapping with your crew? Follow along with this tutorial by local tree expert Ken Fostyof Forestry Training Services in Manitoba. You can check out his website for more info on tapping, trees, and even growing your own mushrooms at home! Then check out our maple-themed children’s book list for some cozy post-tree-checking story cuddles.

Get the whole tutorial and book list over at EcoParent Magazine…

With this little guy being our baby, we’re feeling those sentiments of childhood going just too fast… we’ll miss those cute chubby cheeks and that sweet sanguine nature. He is our dreamer, climber, imagination rich, generous and sweet soul. For this birthday the thing he wanted most was a nurse outfit with a babe to care for. He is a healer and caregiver at heart. He lives for play and and isn’t bound one bit by our silly adult boxes and logic.

The other day he very earnestly asked me:

Mommy, can you take me to the universe tomorrow? Like, to where nobody has discovered yet? I want to build a playground there, cause there would be lots of space. And maybe a little house.

If you’ve read any of my other articles over at EcoParent you’ll know that I am a huge proponent of kids spending time outdoors. Whether that means time in the backyard, the park down the street, a farm, or wildnerness area, I’m a true believer in the benefits – to kids and to our planet – of connecting with nature. That said, there are days here in frosty Winnipeg, Manitoba where the gauge dips down below -30 C (which can mean -40 C with the windchill!). There are very few days when we don’t send our littles outside – even if for only 15 minutes at a time – yet on those -40 days it is always nice to have some ideas in mind for how to bring the outdoors in. A mini snow person station is one of those ideas!

Read the full article over at EcoParent.

We love our annual tradition of going to the family fest out at the lake and participating in the curling bonspiel. This year our team won (Mike, our 8 and 15 year olds and grandpa)! A very excited 8 year old put many of the adults to shame with his several on the button shots. The sense of family, community, and teamwork that is growing is so amazing to witness. And then there’s the beauty of the lake, the time spent outside. Time spent visiting new friends. So lovely.

Other days have seen… snowboarding and sledding in the city, a visit to the electrical museum, a compass rose project, visits with friends (who have resurrected some old toys)… and loads of cuddles & stories – and dishes & dust bunnies (ahem).

We often think that the birds have wisely journeyed to fairer weather during the cold of winter. You might be surprised to find, upon looking more closely, how many birds actually stick around. One of the simplest and most rewarding ways to learn about animals in winter is bird-watching. It can be done indoors or out, and is a great activity to engage little ones. Try creating your own bird-watching basket or station and creating an inviting backyard for your neighbourhood birds. You’ll be set up for hours of educational bird-watching fun, including an upcoming citizen science project you can participate in!

Read the full post over at EcoParent Magazine…

We’ve been thinking a lot about home lately as we learn about types of shelters and create models of those dwellings. And as we search for our future farm and grapple with the idea of leaving our home – the only place our littles have known. The other night I listened in as the younger boys brushed their teeth together after a day of being out and about. I smiled at our five year old’s comment on how good it felt to be home, and his brother’s words of agreement.

Our three kiddos who learn at home ooh and ahh in amazement as they watch videos of people crafting dwellings out of natural materials from the forest and earth, of tires and straw. These days, the municipal authorities struggle to find a place for these homes within their codes, but these kids see the wisdom and practicality of it. The cleverness of a home that will return to the earth or that can be carried on your back like some of our smaller friends from nature. My heart is warmed that even if they never have to or desire to, these kiddos will grow up knowing they can build an emergency shelter, a temporary dwelling, or a long-term home that suits their spirit without incurring loads of debt. We don’t talk about the trappings of adult life like mortgages and debt, but they’ve perceived that these methods can be low impact on the earth and the wallet.

In Waldorf education, learning about shelter is said to feed the spirit of the child in grade three – at age nine. It fills them up with the surety that they know how things are made, grown, built – and that they can provide for themselves in this world one day, all while resting in the comfort of being carried and held. Not in our literal arms, but in the warmth and comfort of home, family, and community.