herb girl
10-28-2008, 11:22 PM
One of my passions as a mom is to educate my children to be self sufficient as much as possible.
One of the most important ways in which I accomplish this is to practice what I preach, of course, and to be passionate about continuing to educate myself.
Below are some of the ways I teach my kids (and others) about the homesteading urban/rural life.
I buy BOOKS, and lots of 'em! I use them as reference and we also take out a lot at the library.
We watch videos (Patti :) ) and others and do research about all manner of topics on the net.
We garden as a family and cook as a family as much as possible. I start them as early as two years old helping as they can.
I give them their own garden responsibilities.
We follow current events related to homesteading/gardening. For example: the evils of monsanto, NAIS and they do reports on these subjects.
I encourage my children in developing areas of expertise. My oldest daughter is the compost queen of the family and loves to start all the new gardens and anything to do with flowers, my 14 yr. old loves anything mechanical (tractors and the like) and horses, my little guy(5) loves to plant and harvest and is WILD about the chickens and taking care of the chicks.
We visit living history museums to really see first hand how they did it in the olden days.
My husband teaches all of them building skills and DIY projects.
We preach resourcefulness in all areas and FRUGAL living.
We try to add one new animal a year to our homestead (we added too many at first and nearly killed ourselves).
I try to get my kids involved with like-minded mentors. Right now my oldest daughter is studying bee keeping with a friend who is a master at it.
We do fun craft projects in the winter with materials we've dried/saved
on the homestead throughout the year. Nature crafts and such. This helps them be enthusiastic for "next year" and thinking about what they can grow.
In the winter we make list after list of what we want to grow from the myriad of catalogs we get in the mail.
So.....just curious, what do you do with your kids to get them excited about this homesteading/gardening life?
I'd love some more ideas!
One of the most important ways in which I accomplish this is to practice what I preach, of course, and to be passionate about continuing to educate myself.
Below are some of the ways I teach my kids (and others) about the homesteading urban/rural life.
I buy BOOKS, and lots of 'em! I use them as reference and we also take out a lot at the library.
We watch videos (Patti :) ) and others and do research about all manner of topics on the net.
We garden as a family and cook as a family as much as possible. I start them as early as two years old helping as they can.
I give them their own garden responsibilities.
We follow current events related to homesteading/gardening. For example: the evils of monsanto, NAIS and they do reports on these subjects.
I encourage my children in developing areas of expertise. My oldest daughter is the compost queen of the family and loves to start all the new gardens and anything to do with flowers, my 14 yr. old loves anything mechanical (tractors and the like) and horses, my little guy(5) loves to plant and harvest and is WILD about the chickens and taking care of the chicks.
We visit living history museums to really see first hand how they did it in the olden days.
My husband teaches all of them building skills and DIY projects.
We preach resourcefulness in all areas and FRUGAL living.
We try to add one new animal a year to our homestead (we added too many at first and nearly killed ourselves).
I try to get my kids involved with like-minded mentors. Right now my oldest daughter is studying bee keeping with a friend who is a master at it.
We do fun craft projects in the winter with materials we've dried/saved
on the homestead throughout the year. Nature crafts and such. This helps them be enthusiastic for "next year" and thinking about what they can grow.
In the winter we make list after list of what we want to grow from the myriad of catalogs we get in the mail.
So.....just curious, what do you do with your kids to get them excited about this homesteading/gardening life?
I'd love some more ideas!