A is for...

Do you remember me mentioning the Woodland Alphabet that my mum had helped create for Little Man's nursery? 

No?

Well, actually I don't blame you for that as I have been remarkably slow at writing about it. 

So let's get started...

This is the letter A. That's a good place to begin, right?

I asked my mum to paint 26 pictures, each one depicting a letter of the alphabet. I wanted them to show parts of nature that we could look for with Little Man when out and about on our many walks in the woods.

TJ and I love being out in nature and hope that by introducing Little Man to all these things from a very young age he will learn to appreciate them and maybe even love them too one day.

I'm hoping to create little "worksheets" for Little Man as he grows older, giving him snippets of information about all the things he sees in each picture. And my mum has had the idea to create him little "nature-spotting books" which he can take out and tick off the things he sees when we're out and about. It truly is an interactive plan.

So what do we have to look for in the letter A picture...

First there is the Ash tree. 

TJ and I love trees, to the point where our wedding theme was "trees". Hence the Woodland Alphabet idea. So it's no surprise that many of the pictures have a tree in them.

I hope to teach Little Man to recognise as many different trees as possible just by looking at the leaves and the trunks and then learning different properties they have. I'll come back to the Ash tree another time to share some little trinkets of knowledge with you.

Then there is the Adder.

I have to admit that I have never seen a snake in the wild. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't teach Little Man that Adders are a native snake to Britain. You never know, one day he may be lucky enough to spot one.

I'm sure he'll see plenty of these though.

We have lots of Ants in our garden right now. Unfortunately they are the red ones that really hurt if they get you, so we have yet to let Little Man roam free on the grass in our garden. I'm sure he'll be fascinated by insects as he grows older though, and as long as I don't have to actually hold a spider for him, I'm sure we'll both be okay!

And, of course, no woodland alphabet would be complete with some Acorns. 

I do realise that this could be confusing for Little Man if I don't make it clear to him that acorns come from Oak trees and not the Ash tree pictured here. But how could we leave them out?

So there you have it. The first letter in our Woodland Alphabet. I hope you enjoyed it, I'll share more with you another day.