Borage & Berries

A nature-based, plant-centered educational resource for children, rooted in ethnobotany, seasonal cycles, and the rhythms of life.

What if learning began with a handful of berries, a flower growing along the garden path, or the quiet wonder of watching the seasons change?

Borage & Berries is a nature-based, plant-centered educational resource for children, rooted in ethnobotany, seasonal cycles, traditional plant knowledge, and the rhythms of life.

I believe childhood is a time for wonder: for muddy hands, curious questions, gathering leaves, noticing tiny things, and learning to see the extraordinary in the everyday. The natural world offers children an endless invitation to explore, create, observe, and grow.

Through plants, gardens, stories, seasonal traditions, and hands-on discovery, Borage & Berries encourages children to build a meaningful relationship with the world around them, and also within them.

My love for my children and connecting them to the elements around us in each season, as well as how they approach each season of life within themselves, growing, I want to share little bits of wisdom from over the year.

We explore not only what plants are and how they grow, but also the stories they carry, the people who have relied on them, and the many ways plants connect us to food, culture, medicine, and place.

Here, learning follows the seasons. Curiosity leads the way. And there is always something new to discover.

A childhood rooted in nature.

Rooted in experience, grown through curiosity.

The story of Borage & Berries began in a garden more than fifteen years ago.

I planted borage at one end and strawberries at the other. Borage was a new herb to me then, and I was captivated by its delicate blue, star-shaped flowers and its fresh, cucumber-like flavor. I began using it to make refreshing teas for women visiting me during their perimenopausal and menopausal years, drawn to its cooling qualities and the simple pleasure of sharing something grown with my own hands.

The following spring, something unexpected happened. Without any help from me, the borage appeared to migrate across the garden, growing alongside the strawberries. And that year, the strawberries were extraordinary; delicious, abundant, and nearly double the yield I had experienced before.

I don't know whether the borage was responsible for the harvest, but the garden left an impression on me. What had begun as two separate plantings became an unexpected pairing, a little lesson in observation, and a reminder that the natural world often has surprises of its own. And the memory of chubby little hands reaching amongst the leaves and grabbing ruby gems and plunging them into their mouth, a little soil definitley making its way in with the fruit, is one I will treasure forever.

In the seasons that followed, neighbors began stopping by for a pint of strawberries. I gathered borage flowers to decorate desserts and float in tea, sharing the garden's small delights with the people around me. Those simple exchanges, fresh berries, edible flowers, a cup of tea, a conversation at the garden's edge, became some of my favorite memories.

More than fifteen years later, that garden remains at the heart of this project.

Borage & Berries is named for that meeting of plants, people, and possibility. It represents the curiosity that comes from growing something unfamiliar, the wonder of watching nature unfold, and the joy of sharing what the earth provides.

It also reflects what I hope to cultivate through this work: an education rooted in experience, where children are encouraged to notice, wonder, experiment, and build their own relationships with the living world.

Because sometimes the most meaningful lessons begin with a seed, a strawberry, and a little patch of garden.

What grows here?

Plant & Herbal Discovery

Meet the plants growing in gardens, fields, forests, and along familiar paths. Explore their botanical features, life cycles, traditional uses, and place in the natural world through age-appropriate activities and guided discovery.

Seasonal Living

Follow the turning of the year through blossoms, berries, seeds, harvests, changing weather, and seasonal traditions. Discover how plants, people, and landscapes change together throughout the seasons.

Nature-Based Learning

Bring learning to life through nature journals, observation, storytelling, crafts, garden projects, sensory exploration, and simple hands-on activities that invite children to engage with the world around them.

Ethnobotany & Living Traditions

Explore the relationships between people and plants across time and place, including food, fiber, shelter, folklore, and traditional medicine. We approach cultural plant knowledge with curiosity, context, and respect for the communities who have carried these traditions forward.

We don't believe every lesson needs to begin at a desk or end with a worksheet.

Sometimes learning looks like planting a seed and waiting. Sometimes it means noticing the shape of a leaf, discovering why a berry ripens when it does, reading a story about a plant, or asking a question that leads somewhere unexpected.

Our approach draws inspiration from nature-based education, child-led exploration, and the gentle rhythms of seasonal living. It makes room for different ages, different learning styles, and the understanding that children often learn deeply when they can touch, observe, imagine, make, and participate.

Borage & Berries is designed to help families and educators bring more of the natural world into children's everyday learning, whether in a backyard garden, on a woodland walk, around a kitchen table, or through a simple seasonal activity at home.

A different kind of education.

growing a deeper connection

At its heart, Borage & Berries is about helping children grow into attentive, curious, and thoughtful observers of the world.

It is about recognizing that a plant can be a science lesson, a story, a food, a cultural treasure, and an invitation to ask better questions. It is about honoring the knowledge passed between generations while encouraging children to observe, investigate, and develop their own understanding.

Above all, it is about making room for wonder.

A little borage. A handful of berries. A changing garden. A curious child.

There is a whole world waiting to be discovered.

Welcome To Borage & Berries

Rooted in nature. Inspired by tradition. Grown through wonder.

Meet LoLo Schaffer

LoLo is a lifelong learner, mother of five, community herbalist, and doctoral candidate in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. With more than twenty years of experience in herbalism and nearly two decades of homeschooling, her work lives in the blending of nature-based education, ethnobotany, traditional medicine, and the enduring wisdom of the natural world.

Her approach to education draws inspiration from Waldorf and Montessori philosophies, woven together with a nature-centered understanding of childhood. Through seasons of homeschooling, working on organic and flower farms, and supporting the promotion of a nature-based school, she has cultivated a deep appreciation for hands-on learning, meaningful work, creative exploration, and the ways children come to understand the world by participating in it.

Now homeschooling her two youngest children while completing her doctoral studies, LoLo brings both lived experience and academic inquiry to Borage & Berries. Her background in herbal medicine, Chinese medicine, and ethnobotany informs an approach to learning that explores plants not simply as botanical subjects, but as living connections between people, place, culture, food, and medicine.

Through her work with Amel, Borage & Berries, and The Herbal Lens Podcast, she is devoted to preserving traditional plant knowledge, particularly the often-overlooked wisdom carried by rural women, mothers, and generations of community herbalists. She seeks to bring ancestral folk traditions into thoughtful conversation with contemporary science while creating opportunities for children and families to rediscover their own relationships with the natural world.

At the heart of her work is a simple belief: that learning, like a garden, grows best when it is rooted in curiosity, nurtured through experience, and given room to flourish.