This series takes you through an entire year of our nature walks and is part of our non-profit project #Earthschooling365 at www.Earthschooling.org. The photos and posts in this series are all copyrighted. Please do not share or re-print them. Instead, share the link to this blog with your friends.
Along the way I will be sharing our favorite photo of the day, an inner work meditation for the day, photography assignment/tip for the day, nature walk theme for the day and a short verse for circle time (children) or meditation (teens/adults). We invite you to “walk along with us” this year, take some time to use the inner work meditation, be inspired by the nature walk theme of the day and perhaps even start a photo series of your own. To join the community on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram please tag your photos #Earthschooling365. To receive these inspirations in your e-mail inbox daily please subscribe to our blog alerts HERE. Don’t worry about missing days – you can join us as many days as you want this year!
Every day we will post one day. We will leave up 2 weeks of nature walks at a time. At the end of two weeks each nature walk will be transferred to the Lifetime Member’s Only Blog and will be accessible only to Lifetime Earthschooling Members. If you want to own the entire series without enrolling a an Earthschooling Lifetime Package Member you can purchase the entire series for only $35.00 (for the entire year!)
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You can start your journey any day. You do not have to follow our schedule. However, we will leave up the first week of the project all year so you can follow the steps to get started.
#Earthschooling365: Day Sixteen
Inner Work Meditation (Heart): As humans we often put human characteristics on animals. It is called anthropomorphism. When we heard birds singing in the forest we often think to ourselves “what a beautiful sound” or “isn’t that a welcoming song”. However, if you do some research into the meaning of different bird calls you will actually find that many of those calls you hear on your walk are different versions of “this is my territory – go away”. Take ten minutes to reflect on how you might be misinterpreting the people in your life as well. Choose one incident from last week, or one phrase that bothers you (said by a student, spouse, co-worker, friend or family member) and try to imagine what it might have “really meant”. In the case of the birds something that we interpreted as beautiful became aggressive. In this meditation, however, we want to focus on turning something negative into a positive interpretation.
Nature Walk Idea (Head): As I mentioned above we often like to interpret the sounds we hear in nature using our imagination. Depending on your age (or the age of children you are with if you are doing this with children) your nature walk task for today is to interpret the sounds of a bird. For younger children simply have them imagine what the bird may be saying. For older children an adults record, write down or remember the sound and then return home to research the sound. Were you right or wrong about the sound and what it meant? In the case of these geese it was very interesting to hear how their sounds changed when they noticed me. When they didn’t know I was around they were “honking” in a joyful way. Once they noticed me their “honking” became more of a warning to me. They wanted me to leave.
Do you want to go beyond these daily nature lessons? Check out our Full Curriculum Packages from preschool to high school.
Photography Notes (Hands): Today’s assignment is to take a photo using the “rule of thirds”. How you frame a photo is very important. A properly framed photo can have a lot more impact than one that was taken with the subject in the middle. See for yourself by taking a couple versions of your photos today. In one of the photos frame it like I did with the photos of the geese. Imagine that your “frame” is divided into three parts horizontally and vertically. Put your subject or main focus in one of those imaginary squares. My geese are in the “second square from the top”. Remember to have your subject’s movement into the photo (as we learned in an earlier assignment). In this photo the geese are looking into the photo rather than out of it. For your second photo place your subject right in the middle or looking/moving out of the photo. Which photo do you like better? The “rule of thirds” is a good one to remember when taking photos of any kind.
Verse: The Goose
Copyright Kristie Burns
Honk Honk Hee!
Occupied with glee
Narry a care
Kite in the air
Honk Honk Ho!
Onward we go!
Nobody is allowed
Know you are loud
* Accrostic Poem: A poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word, name, or phrase when read vertically.
*These poems have been created for many purposes – from early childhood circle time verses to inspirational or expressive. They vary from day to day so you may find the way you use them or enjoy them also varies. If you would like to set these poems to music consider our tutorial: Creating Your Ow Waldorf Verses or Finding Your Inner Voice.
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