Eva over at Untrodden Paths, one of my favorite blogs, has tagged The Parenting Passageway in the homeschooling game here: http://untroddenpaths.blogspot.com/2011/10/homeschool-questionnairehausunterrichts.html
So, without further ado, here are some of the answers for the homeschooling game from my perspective!
One homeschooling book you have enjoyed: Continue reading
Yay! I finally have gotten a chance to sit down with the notes I took at a sensory modulation course I recently attended. It was a lot of fun to have my thinking cap on for awhile, and I have some interesting things I want to share with you all.
A sensory diet just refers to the optimum sensory input a person needs to perform at his or her peak. So, as you can imagine, this is of vast importance to educators at school and home alike (or it should be!)
A person who is good at modulating sensory input can take what is going on, filter out what is not important and focus on the things that are relevant.
Sometimes this can be a challenge for children (and adults alike). If your child’s behavior is reflecting something in the environment and they are spending all their energy on figuring out and reacting to the environment, then there may not be a lot of attention left over for schoolwork! Continue reading
As promised, I am sharing what we are doing in our family to gather everyone up and start our homeschooling adventure for the day. I have a wide variety of ages – age 2, age 6 and a half, age 10 – just to make it all interesting! Continue reading
Space is the final frontier in parenting the six/seven year old as the child goes through a developmental leap during this time.
Many attached and connected parents do so well in providing their children the gift of time: time to have an unhurried, unrushed childhood. Time to just be: in nature, in the home. Time to rest. Time to grow and time to mature. No hurrying.
But I feel where many attached and connected parents fail is in giving their children the gift of space, especially during this six/seven year change. Space, along with time, are essential gifts to provide to our children to help them grow and become healthy adults. Continue reading
I think this is something we should strive for in all age groups of children, don’t you agree? Cultivating stillness and silence is a way for all of humanity to hear the voices of the Heavens speak to us; it is the basis for most spiritual and religious practices throughout the world, and I think for small children it is the basis for reverence, awe and wonder in those early years of birth through age seven.
For myself as a Christian, my commitment is to show my children moments of this utter stillness and silence, this time of not “emptying myself” but of filling myself up with the Triune God. This will plant the seeds of cultivating silence for my children as they will undoubtedly enter a life full of even more busyness, sound and bustle. You may have your own spiritual or religious traditions that help you cultivate this unhurried attitude and ability to hear from the Heavens.
Many parents tell me that their small children are most quiet when they are outside. Of course! How can we, even as adults, not be silenced and awed as we see this beautiful world? Helping children find quiet outdoors is a wonderful thing; can we look at the clouds, we can listen attentively to the sounds of nature. Continue reading
“From Cradle to Coordination: Reflexes and the Developing Mind” is the full title of this chapter, and it is an interesting look at how reflexes help the body do things and therefore free up other areas of the brain for thought and action on a more complex level.
This chapter goes through eight different reflexes, what they are, and perhaps more importantly to those whose children have challenges, what these reflexes look like when they are retained and not integrated well: how this affects motor and emotional development. This post will cover the first part of this chapter, and tomorrow’s post will cover the second part.
This is a brief listing of some things I thought were really pertinent or thought-provoking about this chapter; for more you will really need to get the book and read it as this chapter was fairly lengthy!
The first four reflexes: Continue reading
I still love Waldorf homeschooling; it is the method that speaks to me as a lover of stories and literature and history; it speaks to me as an artist; it speaks to me as a physical therapist; it speaks to me as a spiritual person (which is different than being religious, and I add a lot, a lot, a lot of theology in as well!); it speaks to my love of nature and how to approach science….
But, most of all, it speaks to me from a place of love and compassion for children and for what will help them. That, to me, is the bottom line.
I don’t have to agree with all of Steiner’s philosophies in life, but the nuts and the bolts and the practicalities of education I like and I have worked with to teach reading, writing, math, handwriting, handwork and other subjects. This method stresses observation, love and respect for the child, and developmental timing.
If you are getting bogged down, may I humbly suggest to just remember homeschooling is different than a Waldorf school. Do keep it simple. You don’t have to draw a chalkboard drawing the night before; draw with your child. Maybe your homeschool is stronger in gardening than playing the pentatonic flute. Maybe you go to the park instead of having a circle time.
It is okay to be different than a school, in fact, it is going to be different. That is the beauty of homeschooling over any school, including a Waldorf school. The most important part of this is to be together, to love each other, to give your children a sense of the beauty and awe and interconnectedness of this world the Creator gave us, to respect that time and space that children need to unfold, to be able to really “get” the development of your individual child and the development of your family, to show your children the beauty of community.
Years later, I am still grateful I found Waldorf Education. In an educational land gone crazy with fact shoving, testing, memorizing, teaching to the test, and dedicated and wonderful teachers who now cannot teach the way they truly want to, I am grateful I can home educate.
On the days when it is hard, on the days when I question why this insanity and chaos, on the days when I want to throw in the towel, I see my daughters “get” something, I see the children playing all together and laughing, we see the beauty of a bird or flower or chipmunk and breathe in the fresh air, and I remember.
This is why I am doing this. For love.
And love to you today, and many blessings,
Carrie
I hope everyone is celebrating a wonderful Michaelmas today! May all of our dragons be slayed, may our courage and clarity carry us forth!
There are so many of you whom I turn to for inspiration and with such gratitude, and today I wanted to mention a few posts that really give me courage. These posts are authentic and real! I love that!
Homeschooling and parenting is NOT for the faint of heart, not if you are involved and immersed in it. Sometimes mothers will tell me they feel so much better knowing I have my days where I cry or get angry or have a rotten day. Not because they want that for me, but because I think we all feel better knowing we are not alone and that we are all striving! Me too!
So here are some inspiring reads for you! Continue reading
I have written many,many back posts on warmth. A child deserves not only emotional warmth, warm feelings of love and joy that emanate from the parent to the child, but a child needs physical warmth.
Children have a metabolic rate that runs faster than an adult’s. Therefore, under the age of nine especially, they are unlikely to know whether they are truly cold or not. I am sure we have all experienced the child that is swimming in cold water and is literally blue, but doesn’t realize they are cold. This is common amongst children who really cannot tell their own temperature very well.
As parents, I think it is important for us to keep our children warm. We see this in many cultures all around the world – dressing babies warmly, even in subtropical and tropical climates. When our children are warm enough, then energy will not be diverted from the growth and maturity of the nervous system just in order to keep warm. Warmth allows our children to settle in, to not be restless, to rest and sleep and grow better, and to reach their fullest potential as human beings.
As a rule, we recommend three layers on the top with one layer tucked in, and two layers on the bottom. Continue reading
Yay, we are up to Chapter Three! I hope you all are enjoying this book as much as I am.
This chapter points out that the brain of a new-born baby incredibly contains nearly all the brain cells it will need throughout the rest of life even though the newborn baby’s brain is only about a third of the size of the adult brain. The main period of brain growth occurs in the first year of life, although between age 15 months and age 6 the cerebral cortex appears to double in size. (The cerebral cortex play a role in memory, attention, language and other areas; you can see more about it here on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_cortex). Continue reading
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