Create a Living Calendar

With New Year fast approaching, many of us are rushing out to buy calendars. Many of us also reflect on the changes of the year, and look forward to the coming of warm weather and all the enjoyable warm weather activities it brings.

This year why not combine the two activities? Talk to your child about the change of seasons, and make a list of what grows in your area when it is cold, and what grows when it is warm. Make a list of these things, and select a few that are easy to grow. If you need help with this, look at seed catalogues and visit your local library for books. These things in hand, plan a small circular area that is to be planted with your selected cold and warm weather plants. I suggest a circular area as many pagans perceive the year as a wheel, and hence the symbolic representation. Have your child draw a picture of how he/she thinks his garden might look during the the different seasons.

Next, when the ground is not to cold, and the last frost has come, go out and begin the first planting. As each season comes to pass, it will be marked by the apearance of the different flowers. The garden thus makes a type of perpetual calendar. It also is a great learning tool as your child will not only come to realize how to mark the season changes in the natural world, but how plants grow and develop. Keeping the flowers watered and weeded also gives a sense of accomplishment.

If you do not have garden space available, this can also be done on a smaller scale by planting in a garden tub. Easier still for either type of garden is to choose tubers and bulbs for planting, as these are available for both winter and summer. Spring and autumn flowering plants can either be purchased as young plants or from seed to fill in the seasonal gaps. If this is your child's first garden, I recommend seed rather than plants.

Older children may wish to expand the idea of this garden plot by selecting plants that are sacred to their particular deity or to the various sabbats of the year, making it a religious calendar. However you choose to do it, don't forget to go back and compare it with the drawings, discussing the various similiarities and differences. Above all, have fun!

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