The world is our classroom and field trips are a core part of homeschooling & daily lives. As a Waldorf inspired family, I try to engage my son with the natural world whenever possible and give him real life experiences of things rather than just reading books or watching videos. At least for the things that are available to us city dwellers. We visit cowshed often, check out what we see & do there.
With my son’s never ending question list, we have discussed how we use milk, it’s products, what cows & horses eat, why do they put horse shoe on horses’ feet, how cow dung is used, why do we worship cows in India, what do they eat, etc etc. We understood what is waste for we human beings (like stalks of grains like wheat, jowar, sugarcane, corn etc) become food for cows & horses. And how the waste material of cows like urine & cowdung is so beneficial for human beings.
All this helps toddlers to know more about animals, develop love for them, understand life on a farm, about food etc by experiencing it, rather than just learning from the books.
A beautiful way to connect with mother nature on an everyday basis!
We have also made cowdung cakes & dhoop batti (incense sticks) using cow dung & other natural ingredients & these days we are using them at home to purify air. I will share its tutorial soon!
