30/04/2026
One of my favourite parts of pagan parenting is teaching the children nature connection.
Nowadays, forest schools are all over, but when I had Neptune (12), school meant being mostly indoors or outside for playing sport. I began teaching in a Steiner school, and found the time outside was a remedy to many issues we face in childhood. I embraced this closely; after all I was also a massive flower child, learning names and uses of herbs, crystals, mushrooms, memorising Cicely Mary Barker’s poetry, and making nature shrines.
Time in nature for us means presence, noticing the colours and smells of flowers, observing animals in nature, cooking with foraged and grown foods, an avid garden, with a greenhouse, plant beds to grow flowers for the bees, soup and tea and incense.
My oldest can survey wildlife, keeps insects, and is doing a GCSE in conservation, and has a special interest in water pollution. The youngest is excited to be rescuing a pigeon, has her own pond dipping nets, and tastes marigold and wild mustard on our walks.
When people think of paganism, they often think of stuff to buy or have. I find this anathema to paganism, and think the most magical and precious tools and experiences are found around us, within us, or in the knowledge and wisdom of others.
If you want to bring this spirit into your home here are some ideas:
🍃Set up a nature table with seasonal colours and found objects
🔪 Practice whittling. You can make altar tools etc, or children can use simple potato peelers. You can make beads with elder wood.
🌸 Find uses for flowers and plants in nature or in the garden. Bouquets, incense, pressed flowers or prints, teas, or soups.
🌊 Children love water, whether at home or out and about. Pond dipping, a water table, or making paint with river water and mud are lovely ideas. You can also soak paper with river water, place on a board, then use wet watercolours on the page to make flowy art.
🔮 I often joke I can divine anything. Try it with your kids! Cast sticks, make pebbles into runes or witch runes, read clouds or flocks of birds, or fire smoke, or tea leaves from your foraged tea. Absent mindedly draw images in mud or sand
