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Lemon Balm Tea

5/31/2015

We have just began reading the Herb Fairies series to learn all about the magical world of medicinal herbs. We started this month with Lemon Balm and made some delightful treats!

To learn more about Herb Fairies check out http://learningherbs.com/. The creators also make a cooperative board game called 'Wildcraft' that is really beautiful and fun to play.

Lemon Balm has been used for hundreds of years for it's calming, soothing, and healing properties. We made some lemon balm tea by picking some fresh leaves in the garden...

we crushed the leaves with our hands to release the uplifting lemony aroma and counted out 20 leaves into a quart sized jar...

we poured 2 cups of water over the lemon balm...

then we placed the jar in the sunshine for 8 hours, after that we refrigerated our herbal sun tea.

We made candied lemon balm by dipping fresh leaves into whisked egg whites and coconut sugar...

and then baking them in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes.

We made little poppy seed open faced sandwiches with our candied leaves...

and served them with our sun tea for a fairy tea party! Lemon balm is especially useful for helping children feel calm and peaceful.

We had a lovely, relaxing tea party and all took turns telling our own tales of our adventures in fairyland.

“We must take our children into the wild, introduce them to the plants, and teach them of their connection to the earth. In instilling in our children a respect for plant medicine, we not only care for their tender bodies but help pass along the seeds of a tradition that is as old as human life itself.” – Rosemary Gladstar

We explored some other herbs in the garden too; spearmint and lavender. We made crowns by weaving together long springs of mint.

And we made lavender blossom sugar paintings!

We loved reading these fairy books...

and painting our own fairy wings.

We also made fairy dolls with wooden beads, pipe cleaners, and spearmint leaves.

The kids had a great response to a guided visualization. As they lay down they heard a story that guided them onto a magic carpet and helped them learn some deep breathing and relaxation techniques.

Mr Ben did a simple but elegant science experiment with the kids. The kids practiced testing a hypothesis. They guessed how many drops of water they thought would fit on a penny, then they used the eye droppers to see how many would really fit. Then we discussed their results. Most kids got way more drops on the penny than they thought would fit due to the water tension bubble that gets formed:) One kid got 28 drops without spilling any!