When you live in an arid place where summers are always dry and brown, rain is a gift from the gods. This morning, picking beans in the wet garden, the bean plants taught me about sharing your gifts, the dead sunflowers about honoring elders, and a hummingbird about why we should never prune away what looks done.

We watched hundreds of Fairy Penguins walk slowly from the sea onto Australian sand at sunset. The wonder of it inspired weeks of reading, watercolor paintings, and finally — a five-minute film, conceived and made by the children in a week.

I am often asked what curriculum we follow. The honest answer is: mostly picture books. Last week, one of them sent us down a rabbit trail that ended in a phases-of-the-moon projector built from a paper towel roll.

We celebrated the Lunar New Year by learning how four Asian cultures mark the day, and making little Korean bokjumoni — luck envelopes — filled with the Indian cookies our children had baked. A day full of beautiful rabbit trails.

My kids and I went raspberry picking last week — and came home with seven pounds of berries and five life lessons. About empty buckets and the value of persistence. About bending low to find what others miss. About why nature, somehow, always has enough for everyone.