Nature Study at the Beach

As you might know, if you're a regular reader of my blog, we're working our way through the nature study challenges over at the Handbook of Nature Study Blog. Back in April, we were having a very wet and windy time here in England. It turned out to be the wettest April ever, in fact, since records began in 1910! After one particularly stormy Friday night, our family decided to head down to the beach. We were amazed at what we found! There were so many interesting things that had been washed up onto the beach by the storm!

I couldn't find an Outdoor Challenge that related to beach study, but I thought I'd include the photos we took of our findings.

Firstly, Sophie and I counted 15 different types of seaweed!

                             

We also found several crabs and hermit crabs, as well as cuttle fish:

There were many different kinds of shells:

Other finds were the wing of a poor seagull, and some dead fish.

We took a lot of our treasures home, laid them out on kitchen towel to have a better look, and then Sophie, Charis and I sketched one of the crabs for our nature diary. We then had to throw all our treasures out pronto since the smell in the house was becoming rather unpleasant!

Abide in Him!

Linking up here:

My Homeschooling Pilgrimage

I apologise for my absence, but we were away in the Lake District at a family conference. It was a great time of meeting up with other families who also live and work cross-culturally, and several of the mums were also homeschooling. It was so refreshing to be in a group of people who really 'get' you - do you know what that's like? Suddenly you don't feel so weird after all :-)

Anyway, some of you hard-core Charlotte Mason followers out there may have felt your heart flutter slightly at the mention of 'the Lake District'. For those of you who are going "Charlotte who?", let me explain..

CM (as I shall affectionately call her from now on) was a British educator who was born in 1841 and died in 1923. She developed a particular philosophy of education which centred around the premise that all children are born persons in their own right, and not blank slates upon which the adult is free to write as they choose. She also taught that 'Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life', and many modern day homeschooling curricula and homeschooling parents base their approaches on her methods. You can find out more about her here, or download her six volume Home Education series to your kindle here.

The town of Ambleside

It was in Ambleside, in the Lake District in England, that CM set up a training school for governesses, and you can understand her desire that children should spend as much time as possible outdoors when you see how beautiful the Lake District is! 

So, of course, I couldn't miss the opportunity to go and pay a visit to Ambleside while I was there. I found my way to the Armitt Museum, which houses all of CM's books as well as a little 'plaque' dedicated to her (see above). There was also a lovely display about Beatrix Potter, another famous resident of the Lake District. Unfortunately, CM's school, which later became part of the University of Cumbria, was closed a couple of years ago, much to the sadness of the librarian I talked to at the museum.

The Beatrix Potter display at the museum

A collection of Charlotte Mason's books

Well, I now feel suitably re-inspired to continue working my way through CM's Home Education series. It can be a bit hard going, but it's well worth it!

How many of you have heard of Charlotte Mason, or perhaps are even using her methods in your homeschool?

Abide in Him!

How to be Perfect!

OK, a quick disclaimer before you think I have an ego the size of South America - yes, I know I'm not perfect in the ordinary sense of the word. But it struck me the other day that when God sees me, he sees me as perfect. What do I mean? Let me try to explain...

Falling Short

Inspired by constant, repeat viewings of 'Narnia', my eldest daughter has been bugging me to buy her an archery set for quite a while. I finally came across one here in England, and she's been enjoying pretending to be Queen Susan in our back garden.

It was then that I had one of those sudden 'light bulb' moments. You know the ones... something finally clicks in your mind and you wonder why on earth you'd never thought of that before, it seems so obvious. In fact, probably the majority of you reading this post will no doubt in a moment be rolling your eyes and sighing 'Of course, Catherine, didn't you know that?'. But bear with me please....

In Romans 3 v 23 Paul says that we all "fall short" of God's standards. I don't know why, but for some reason I always pictured a ladder, with me on the ladder and not quite making it to the top...yet. In my mind, therefore, I just had to keep trying... keep climbing...try not to slip down too many rungs.... and perhaps one day, yes one day, I would finally climb to that top rung and get a big pat on the back from God. 

But that's not the picture at all!

There is no way that any of us will ever get to the top of that ladder. The Bible says that "None is righteous, no, not one.." (Romans 3v10)

Instead, God helped me to see the picture of the archery target. Now, there is some debate whether this is what St Paul had in mind when he wrote that we have all 'fallen short', but it seems to me to be a much better illustration. We're all shooting arrows. Sometimes the arrows fall quite near the target. Sometimes the arrows fall a long way away. But the point is that they always miss, they always fall short. And there is nothing we can do, no amount of target practice, to get our arrows to hit the bulls eye.

The most common word in the New Testament for sin is 'hamartia', which literally means 'to miss the mark', and therefore to lose and not win the prize in the archery competetion.

However, there is one person who did hit the target....and no it wasn't Robin Hood! It was Jesus, God in human form. Jesus never sinned. His life was complete, beautiful obedience to God the Father.

The Amazing, Humbling Beauty of God's Grace

Now, here's the amazing bit. Jesus came to die so that we could claim that we had shot that arrow that hit the target and not him! And he would take responsibility for all of those arrows that had fallen short and missed the mark.

Yes, if we have put our faith in Jesus, then when God sees us He doesn't see our sins and shortcomings but instead the perfect righteousness of Christ (Hebrews 10v14, 2 Corinthians 5v21). We've won the archery competition! There is a crown waiting for us in Heaven!

Being Released from Perfectionism

In my 'light bulb' moment I suddenly realised that God already sees me as perfect. Of course He knows how I regularly fail and mess up this side of heaven, but my eternal destiny is sealed - I have already won the prize. And knowing that God already sees me as perfect meant that a huge burden suddenly slipped off my shoulders. I don't have to keep trying to be perfect! I don't have to strive towards perfection! All God is asking of me is to love and obey Him. He doesn't mind if my kitchen floor is a mess, or if I haven't ticked all the homeschooling boxes today. 

How to be Perfect

Have you spent the day loving God and loving other people to your best ability today? Well, then, it's been a great day and God is smiling at you! In fact He is singing over you (Zephaniah 3v17). In His eyes, you're perfect!

Abide in Him!

Linking up at: Beholding Glory, Time-Warp Wife and Women Living Well

Thoughts About Home Leave So Far....

I'm sorry I've been quiet on the blog for a while. Life has just been so busy recently, and I just haven't seemed to find the time to sit down and write a blog post....until now :-)

We're officially halfway through our 6-month home leave - gulp!

Highlights:

* Reconnecting with family and friends

* Everybody here speaks English - I don't have to worry about not being understood

* The huge (if not rather overwhelming at first) choice of food at the supermarket

* Being by the sea - yay!

* The chance to get a few health questions investigated by doctors

* Charis getting to take swimming lessons at the local sports centre

* Nathaniel's English is really taking off now that he's surrounded by people speaking it

* Sophie's reading is also really improving now that English signs and notices are all around us

* Having willing babysitters (a.k.a The Grandparents) just 15 mins away

* Getting away for 2 nights just the 2 of us - the first time we've been away from the kids from sunrise to sunset since Sophie was born 7 years ago

* Our trips to London, where we've seen

           * the dinosaur bones in the National History museum

           * the Wizard of Oz performed at the West End

           * the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace

           * lots of double decker buses (or ducker decker buses as Nathaniel says)

           * the Queen. Ahem... yes.....we saw the Queen!!

Lowlights:

* We've done SO much travelling as family, visiting various friends and supporters, that we actually feel EVEN MORE tired than when we first arrived, if that's at all possible!

* The children are missing their Russian friends (and our dogs).

* The rain. We forgot how much it rained in England. To be fair, it was the wettest April in the UK since records began over 100 years ago. Trust us to be here for that :-)

* Yes, we did see the Queen, but we stood in the freezing cold for 2 hours and endured 2 hail storms (in May!!) only to see her decide not to walk past us but to get into her car instead. Well, I can't blame her.

Qu: Are any of you on home leave at the moment? Or if you travel a lot, what are your impressions when you come 'home'? As always I love to read your comments.

Abide in Him!

Linking up here: