This week we launched our newest Martin & Sylvia Audio Book:
“Nature School”!
It’s the beginning of a whole new Series of Martin & Sylvia stories,
that will feature projects from different Nature Schools around the country!
The Audio Book has four stories, and so for the next four weeks we will feature,
here on the blog, a nature based activity to go along.
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Today’s post is in collaboration with the wilderness school Kroka Expeditions.
It’s all about making evergreen tea
just like Martin makes in the fourth story of the audio book “The Great Gift”.
(Find the Martin & Sylvia Nature School Audio Book here!)
(This project accompanies the fourth story in the
Martin & Sylvia: Nature School Audio Book – “The Great Gift.”)
There are many reasons to make a steaming cup of evergreen tea. The warmth alone can be the reason on a rainy day to give comfort to cold fingers and chilly bodies. The taste, especially with honey and spruce needles, is like drinking a delicious, sweet Christmas tree. As the pioneers taught us, the vitamin c is great for health and a good way to ward off scurvy! My personal favorite is spiky spruce tea but you can use pine or fir needles as well. Making this tea is really simple even little ones can help make it.
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Ingredients
- 1/2 cup of spruce tip
- 3-4 cups of water
- honey to taste
How to Make Evergreen Tea
Find the bushy branched, spiky needles of a spruce tree that can be easily reached by the harvester. The tree will likely be 10-30 years old.
Tear the green tips from each sprig and collect into a birch bark basket or other carrying tool.
Boil 3-4 cups of water in a pot on an open fire (or on your kitchen stove). When the water is boiling remove from the heat and add all collected sprigs.
Steep for 10 minutes off the fire in a pot or in your cup until it reaches your desired taste.
Add some honey for an extra soothing taste and serve after tea has cooled enough for drinking. This drink has a pleasant pine/lemony taste.
**(Do not consume if you are pregnant or breastfeeding.)
Images for this post were provided by KC Pagano.
Info about Kroka:
Kroka Expeditions is a wilderness school in Marlow, NH committed to awakening in young people a connection to nature and the spirit within, and a capacity for conscious living and compassionate service. We strive to achieve this through wilderness adventure, community living, farming, and the practice of traditional and indigenous skills in Waldorf-inspired semester, summer, and school programs for ages 9-18.
About the Martin & Sylvia: Nature School
Audio Book
As the summer comes to an end, Momma, Martin and Sylvia reflect on all the things they loved about the summer season: hikes, walks along the beach, blueberry picking, climbing trees and collecting bird feathers.
Then Momma suggests that they keep the summer outdoor fun alive all year long:
“Every Thursday, lets have Nature School!”
And so Martin joins the Goose-eye Wilderness School,
and Sylvia and her friend Sophia create a Nature home-school.
From wild craft cooking to outdoor games to building projects to tree identification, Nature School will be a year of unfolding learning and fun.
Better yet, there’s a nature project with each story!
In this Audio Book, the children learn about rock stacking, a game called “Squirrels Uprising”, making evergreen tea and wild-crafted salad!
Four stories.
One and 3/4 hours.
Perfect for ages 4+.
Find the Martin & Sylvia:
Nature School Audio Book
HERE.
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This Audio Book is the introduction to our newest year-long
Martin & Sylvia Series that starts this November!