When we started homeschooling four years ago, I read Home Education by Charlotte Mason and felt hopelessly behind. She wrote about moms knowing all the names of all the trees so as to tell your children, casually, at the park, what type of leaf they had found.
At the time, I could only identify pecan trees because we had one in my yard when I was a kid.
Since then, we have been learning tree names, and for inktober I had plenty of chances to focus on leaves.
Here’s a frail pile of fall leaves from a maple, elm, and birch. Timing was perfect, too. Yesterday was our first day with a chill in the morning. My sister said, rightly, “The actual first day of fall is the first day direct sunlight feels good on your skin.”
Welcome, Fall!