Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

Tagged: Outdoor Secrets, Outdoor Secrets Companion

This topic has 12 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 14 years ago by Marcee.

Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

Author
Posts
May 24, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Marcee
Member
This program is awesome! I am doing it with my 1st and 3rd grader over the summer. The stories in Outdoor Secrets are wonderfully written and the Outdoor Secrets Companion is fabulous. Today we read How Do Apples Grow and all of us loved the book. I’ve never been a “nature” girl so there is a lot I don’t know about plants, trees etc. I was really excited about what I learned from this book
If you have been considering program, I highly recommendd making the purchase.
May 24, 2011 at 9:45 pm
my3boys
Participant
We love it too!!
May 24, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Sara B.
Participant
We never did the Companion, just the original book, and we all loved it here, as well! I’m still amazed at what the kids (and I!) remember, and it was one of our first books this school year. 🙂
May 24, 2011 at 10:25 pm
Ladyofthehouse
Member
Oh good, thanks for the recommendation! I actually had it on my do-do list for this week to order the companion (we already have the book). Glad to hear others are enjoying it!
May 24, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Lucien Van Huyssteen
Participant
So good to hear. I have ordered the book and hope to start as soon as I have everything, incl. the companion. Based on recommendations on this forum I will be using Outdoor Secrets to introduce Science the CM way to my 6yos who just loves nature and science. We will then go on to 106 Days of Creation. I can’t wait!
May 24, 2011 at 11:03 pm
Ladyofthehouse
Member
Oh also, for those of you using it, how often are you doing lessons? I don’t have access to a very good library so am trying to decide if to Amazon the supplemental books…..in your all’s opinion are they the type of books you’ll want to have on the bookshelf for future reference or sort of one time reads?
May 25, 2011 at 12:29 am
Wings2fly
Participant
Thank you for sharing. I would like to use it for a term; trying to figure out when. Do you think the book and projects could also be done in the fall and winter months? Or is it really best for spring and summer?
May 25, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Marcee
Member
@Ladyofthehouse-I’ve seen some CM schedules with science only scheduled one day a week. We are doing a lesson a day. 1)Because we love it. 2)Because the lessons are simple, short and fun. 3)Because we are going to finish it this summer. I don’t know what we will do in Fall. I LOVE the way this program has such a nature focus and I think it’s going to be hard to beat.
We are still at the beginning of the book and I plan to order is Favorite Poems Old and New: Selected For Boys and Girls. This book is filled with such beautiful poetry. There a few others I will purchase as well because my library does not have them:
Wasps (Blastoff! Readers: World of Insects)
Chippy Chipmunk Parties in the Garden
A Desert Scrapbook: Dawn to Dusk in the Sonoran Desert
You may want to try Paperback Swap to see if you can find some of the books there.
@SarahCPA-Since we are just starting, I’m afraid I can’t answer your question, but hopefully Sonya or someone else can chime in.
May 25, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Karen Smith
Moderator
Sarah, though you can read Outdoor Secrets and the recommended go-along books in the Outdoor Secrets Companion any time, many of the nature study ideas are best done spring through fall. Feel free to do the lessons out of order, too. The stories in Outdoor Secrets are separate stories so you do not have to read them in order.
May 26, 2011 at 12:33 am
Melissa Henson
Participant
We love it, too. The girls especially enjoyed “eating their lessons” twice lately (cut into apples). They really enjoyed comparing the different types of apples … and the especially enjoyed the Apple Pie Crumble I made out of the four apples we’d cut into. 🙂

I would HIGHLY recommend this! My girls are 6 and 8 and are enjoying it. They have narrated back to me the Apple Blossom story several times … with MANY details even I didn’t remember.

Blessings.
May 26, 2011 at 1:23 pm
martajoy
Participant
This is great! I have been looking at a few a nature studies. This is the one we will go with! 🙂
May 26, 2011 at 2:49 pm
my3boys
Participant
My Favorite Tree was a definite purchase for us. I would like to own A Desert Scrapbook (my 8yo l-o-v-e-d the pics) so I may purchase it in the future. I purchased Favorite Poems and An Earthworm’s Life since our library didn’t have either, but the poetry book would be hard to borrow anyway.
I also purchased Water Dance (which is very pretty), Are You a Dragonfly?, The Flower Garden, Bumblebee at Apple Tree Lane (my library didn’t have any of these). I’m glad I have all of them, especially My Favorite Tree/Bumblebee at Apple Tree Lane, but I’d like to just own them all 🙂
I think I found several on PBS or amazon, alibris, abebooks, etc. Enjoy!
May 26, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Marcee
Member
Our library doesn’t have my favorite tree:( But I was able to check out Crinkleroot’s Guide to Trees. I LOVE Favorite Poems and ordered it last night along with Desert Scrapbook.

@Iriemomma-we did the apple testing yesterday and my kids LOVED it! They had so much fun and tried to guess the apples by the peels after we had sliced them up.