Want Your Children to Be Geniuses? Take the Challenge!

I recently read an important article that I recommend to every parent who reads my blog. 

Charlotte Mason and John Senior Agree: Great Books Are Not Enough

Reading about life is absolutely not enough. Children first need to live life. St. Thomas Aquinas believed the Aristotelian principle that all knowledge starts with sensory experience. Books and reading are important, but they are meant to nurture the physical experiences. What will impress itself on the mind more -- reading about Bilbo's journey in the murky woods, or going into the woods and blazing a trail, pushing back the leaflitter to see the creepy crawlies underneath or finding a birds' nest with little heads peeping up with hungry mouths? 

I love Charlotte's Web. Think of introducing a child to a sparkling dew covered web with a spider at its center and imagining that it's Charlotte waiting to talk to you. What kind of advice would she give? Imagine reading Chicken Little after petting our chickens at Camp Kreitzer. What would the chicken do if you dropped an acorn on her head?

Imagination needs to be fed and, before books, it begins with experience. And I don't think experiences are just for children. I think I will try to join the army of participants in the 1000 hour outdoor challenge starting today. Going out to see the chickens, working with the honeybees, digging in the garden, taking a walk at the park. I will count all those minutes and hours and see if this old lady of 79 can get in 1000 hours before I turn 80 next March. I'm already three months behind the year long window, so I'll need to get busy starting now. First project, going out to pull a few weeds and imagine I'm pulling up faults by the roots. As the groundskeeper in The Secret Garden says, "Where you tend a rose, a thistle cannot grow."

May we all plant gardens full of roses for our children and grandchildren, sweet memories of happy days in the sun!