December 2019 round up

and

First Date: a St Andrews Story

It is likely that the Nature Charts for January will show snowy, frosty days, for as the proverb says, stronger cold comes with the longer days. Keep a list of the sunset times for this month, so that the children may see with interest how each day is a little longer than the one before. They will soon remark, too, how much longer light is there when the sky is clear and how quickly it gets dark when the sky is cloudy.

Enid’s first nature notes in her Book of the Year. I always console myself that, the shortest day of the year falls between the 20th and 23rd of December, and so once Christmas and New Year is over the days are already a bit longer and will just keep on getting longer. I’m already anticipating the days that it’s not dark before 5pm!

For a winter-themed book you can’t beat Round the Year with Enid Blyton – Winter Book. I have it as part of a combined volume titled Round the Year with Enid Blyton which has all four season’s books in it.

It is a guide to all things winter in nature; the whereabouts of all the creatures that are so plentiful in other seasons (and how we can help them), the formation of frost crystals, identifying footprints in the snow, feeding the birds, evergreen trees, and even a bit about astronomy and other things.