Scripture:
Even in winter, God has filled the earth with gifts that bring warmth, comfort, and hope! Throughout history, evergreen trees have reminded people of life continuing on even through the darkest months. Evergreens are a beautiful symbol of life and hope.
Read D&C 59: 18-19, and Ecclesiastes 3:1
God designed seasons with purpose. Consider the following questions, and come ready to share your ideas. You can write your responses in your herbalist journal/commonplace book:
- How can an evergreen tree “gladden the heart” in the middle of winter?
- How does God take care of the earth during the winter?
- Why do evergreen trees stay green?
- Why do you think that certain spices make us warm inside?
- Why do we gather around fires and tables in the winter?
Warming Herbs
Have you ever heard of warming herbs and spices? What do you think “warming herbs” means? This blog post is geared towards adults, but has a lot of great information on warming herbs and spices! Read through it with your mom or dad, and share something that a warming herb does for our bodies. You can start where the post asks: What are warming herbs?
Herbal Spotlight: Ginger
- Do you have ginger in your fridge? If so, pull it out and look at it! Feel it’s texture. Smell it. If you don’t, look up ginger root. What does it look like?
- Draw ginger in your herbal journal/commonplace book.
- Discover ginger! Read about it’s warming and healing properties. Write a few of them under your drawing.
What will we do at Vanguard this week?
This week we will be heading outside for a winter nature walk. We’ll be looking for and collecting winter botanicals that we’ll use to make beautiful nature fire starters.
While the fire starters set up, we’ll explore some of the warming properties of ginger, then we’ll make gingerbread cookies!
Notes for moms:
Infused honeys are a wonderful way to use herbs in cooking! If you’d like to do more with ginger at home, try making this infused herbal honey with ginger! After the herbs have infused into the honey (it takes about 1 week), you can mix the honey with butter to create honey butter. It’s very tasty on freshly baked rolls.
Additionally, the linked post on warming herbs has a lot of yummy recipes you could make together! Here’s the link again!
