Fiddlehead Ferns, The Soothsayer's Son, and The 40 Year Drought!

Entry posted by Annie Haas · April 13, 2019

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Our first lesson this week was Ferns, and I'm going to do a little Flashback Friday to exactly a year ago when we foraged ferns as a family in the mountains. . . we were able to reference this trip a lot this week and it was close to our hearts 💛

We had a sudden unexpected trip due to my daughter needing a tooth extraction and we have been seeing a very gentle biologic dentist in the mountains for years (no mercury or fluoride used. If you would like to find a holistic dentist, search the IOAMT website). We decided that if the trip needed to be part no fun, it also should be fun! So we planned a hike to waterfalls. . . everything with her appointment went amazing and no tears! Really incredible dentist. The hike was also absolutely stunning. The woods were so quiet way out in the Appalachians and we even saw a bear den (but made lots of noise so they would be too scared to come out).

I used to forage fiddleheads as a teenager in the mountains of Vermont to sell to restaurants and it brought back great memories. This was my girls first time foraging for fiddlehead ferns. . . it was really a great experience for them to see Spring awakening, just the perfect time of unfolding magic! ✨

We foraged enough fiddleheads to cook at home, and we brought it home to sautee in butter. . . so delicious!! It was really nice to draw on this memory, and we also at least got to see a few locally this year as well. We talked about how they unfurl, the little brown fern spots, and I used the Kovacs book to bring my 5th Grader a wonderful way to think about ferns. . . as like a child's first awakening to "I AM" and she was rather awe struck when realizing that though she is more awake than a smaller child, she still has more awakening to do! Botany being taught through consciousness parables is so amazing ✨

For our fern artistic work, we did dry paper watercolor painting together, and made another video tutorial! The video will be available in the video section of our website for subscribers, and I go over several ways to use nice watercolor brushes and make several shades of green (using a little fractions review for 5th Grade) with Stockmar paints. We were working on light/dark shading and really getting the feeling of unfurling. Definitely check it out!

For Ancient India we heard the story Indra the Warrior God, an amazing tale of a god who rescued all the people and plants from a 40 year drought due to a dragon (relating things back to Michaelmas time) who stole the "cows" or clouds as revenge for killing a giant. I prepared a summary for her from the story and she chose to draw a woman with a water jug looking relaxed and relieved after a long drought! She included ferns in her drawing showing the plants coming back to life again after no rain for so long. . . the weaving together of Botany and Ancient Civilizations. . .

Also still working on cursive, I am having her write quite a bit. We used to do it on the chalkboard, but I have found that having it right in front of her and where she could put a check mark as she was done with each line was more effective.

To bring my 1st Grader into Botany and Ancient India at her level, we read the tale "The Soothsayer's Son" and she was quite amazed that there were and are people who could see into the future! This is a great story about son whose father told him what would happen to him right before he passed away. . . and the rest of the story unfolds into this prediction. Only when we reach the end do we know exactly how and why the predictions would become reality! It including trekking through forest, so I wove in some ferns unfurling sentences.