Teaching Our Children Old Skills - Foraging

Chris and I recently started teaching our children an old skill, something that really isn't taught anymore, foraging. We already have been teaching the kids how important healthy food is, organic gardening skills, and why what we put into our body has a life long influence, so foraging seemed like a natural step to take in their education.

It has been a really great experience so far. I myself have learned a lot, we have been able to connect with nature as a family, and made some really interesting things.

We started doing this in spring, our very first foraging experience was learning what all we could eat from a very common spring flower, the dandelion. We tried it raw first, the kids really were not a fan of them at that. Next we gathered as many as we could find and we made dandelion jelly. They were skeptical at first, once they tasted it ( think of jelly that tastes like honey ) however, they were hooked.

Next on our list of things to try was dandelion bread. Word of warning, this bread is very dense. We tried it fresh from the oven, I did not care for it at all. The next morning though, it made the perfect breakfast

After learning about some other yummy things we could make from dandelion, we moved on to other edibles we had growing  in our yard. Violet syrup was the next adventure! Which we added to sparkling water and made our own sodas, so tasty! We also made violet lemonade.






We made two other flower jellies as well. Lilac jelly and red clover jelly.




Next up in our new learning adventure was plantain. Wild plantain is an amazing plant, and it grows all over our yard. We made some into a medicinal salve and the other we ate in a soup ( it was a lot like eating spinach ).




I really enjoyed doing this class with my kids. We didn't get as much done as I wanted this year but I already have plans in the works for new things next year! Be watching for more posts.