The table of the seasons, a beautiful family and pedagogical ritual

  • 2014
Do it yourself: A way to reproduce nature in our home and to help children understand the passage of time. By: Claudina Navarro

The table of the stations is a place where we reproduce with our children every season of the year and in this way we turn them into an intimate and vital experience.

It can be arranged on a small table, the shelf of a window, a dresser or something similar. The important thing is that there is a lot of family life around it.

Once the place has been decided, we set up a scene from the current station with the child. It can be done with things collected during a nature walk, with felt dolls, with colored fabrics, wooden figures, stones and flowers.

There are parents who after the assembly explain a story or a story related to the current season or sing along with the children some song that has some relation to the station. We must give free rein to the fantasy.

What idea is there behind?

Children absorb with all their senses many stimuli when playing outdoors and during nature walks: smells, sounds, sensations, the fruits of changing trees and shrubs, the passing of a sunny moment to another rainy one

The tables of the stations catch these impressions and gather them in an order understandable by the children. By decorating with their parents, thanks to stories, images or songs understand (in all the breadth of the word) the seasons and develop an understanding of the passage of meteorological time and of the nature.

The table grows with age and the understanding of the little ones. At the beginning he presents the seasons. Later, the understanding becomes deeper: from the seasons, knowledge is passed about the months, weeks and days. In this way children learn to relate to the passage of time.

The most important thing is that all the little rituals around the table of the seasons give rhythm to the year. Family decorations, stories, etc., make children feel the rhythm of outer nature as an inner rhythm, and that a basic confidence in the stability and meaning of the world emerges.

How do you ride?

The table of the seasons is something that should be fun for everyone. Everyone can freely contribute what is important to him at that time. It is good to think about the materials of the current season that family members like best. Once identified, nature can be searched with children as a kind of “treasure hunt”. In addition you have to be surprised by the things that are found.

The ideal base for the table are the scarves or large colored scarves. It would be nice to have a small bottom of cotton scarves, wool cloths and silk scarves to be able to combine different tissue effects. The most practical is to have the colors brown, blue, yellow, green, red and white to cover the whole year.

On that base are placed the "trophies" that are brought back from the nature walk like stones, flowers, pineapples, chestnuts ... Especially beautiful effects are achieved when semiprecious stones such as rose quartz or rock crystal are also used. If you want you can also enrich the table with paintings, drawings or postcards that represent details or landscapes of the different seasons.

It is also important that the table has human figures, whether gnomes or felt fairies, wooden pixies ... A final story will culminate all the work. No matter how it is told or read, children will love it and parents too.

Source: https://www.elcorreodelsol.com/articulo/la-mesa-de-las-estaciones-un-bonito-ritual-familiar-y-pedagojico

The table of the seasons, a beautiful family and pedagogical ritual

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