Category Archives: Festivals

Michaelmas Celebration For All Ages

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Michaelmas is such a wonderful festival!  The inner strength and courage that Michaelmas represents is so fortifying as we look ahead to the winter months.  My family celebrates The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels in church; and we also celebrate this event at home.

I think one of the interesting things in the home environment is that if you have both teens in the family and small children, you may have been coming up with Michaelmas celebrations for fifteen or more years, and you may be  trying to find ways to appeal to both teens and tiny children.  This requires strength and constancy in festival making!

We have done all sort of things over years past:

  • Made felted shooting star balls
  • Made dragon bread
  • Dyed capes and sashes either golden yellow with natural dyes or red
  • Had obstacle courses
  • Hunted for “dragon tears”
  • Made dragons out of felt
  • Made dragons out of thin modeling material and put it on candles
  • Made blackberry crisp
  • Had puppet shows with older children presenting for younger children
  • Had music and verses specific to Michaelmas
  • We have made Calendula Courage Salve.
  • In accordance with our religious tradition, we have shared stories of angels and verses and prayers about angels from The Bible and other sources of tradition within our church.
  • We have told many stories of St. Michael and the Star Children, Little Boy Knight, St. George and the Dragon.  There are so many wonderful stories and legends!

It takes time to try things and build up traditions.  You can certainly build up slowly over the years, and also build up a community with which to celebrate.  This year, I missed getting together with folks on this special day – celebrating in community is so wonderful!  I asked my teen earlier in the month what she would find interesting for a  Michaelmas celebration and she mentioned putting on a well-crafted puppet show for younger children; an obstacle course (“the harder the better” she said!) and, of course, food.   I find something like a bonfire with food and other activities works well for teens.   If you have teens, what sorts of things are you doing for Michaelmas?  Please share in the comment box below.

Here are some links to some of our more treasured ideas  in this back post.

Here is a link to my Michaelmas Pinterest board with links for verses, songs, food, crafts, and ideas.

I hope you have a wonderful Michaelmas – may your courage be strong, your words so true and your deeds so brave!

Blessings,

Carrie

Monthly Anchor Points: September

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Anchor:  a person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security; mainstay: Hope was his only anchor.

When we work to become the author of own family life, we take on the authority to provide our spouse and children and ourselves stability.  An effective way to do this is through the use of rhythm.  If you have small children, it takes time to build a family rhythm that encompasses the year.  If you are homeschooling older children and also have younger children not yet ready for formal learning, the cycle of the year through the seasons and through your religious year becomes the number one tool you have for family unity, for family identity, for stability.

Welcome, September! One of my favorite months because it is a month of new beginnings, which I love.   I wrote a  post regarding September and some of the wonderful things in this month here. 

Here are the things that we are celebrating this month:

  • September 1 – Labor Day
  • September 8 – The Nativity of St. Mary, the Theotokos
  • September 14 – Holy Cross Day
  • September 29 – The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels

Ideas for Celebration:

For Labor Day, we enjoyed a camping weekend this year that was a lot of fun.  Last year it was boating on the lake.  I would especially love to find a parade, but these seem to be most common in the northeastern part of the United States and not particularly where I live.  If you look at last year’s post I linked to above, I talked about finding things that were built in your community and sharing that with your children for Labor Day.

The Nativity of St. Mary and for Holy Cross Day, for us, are days primarily for celebrating in church and through prayer and  literature.  There are some lovely books about St. Mary and St. Helena for Holy Cross Day as well. 

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels is of course a big feast day in the church and also in Michaelmas in Waldorf Education.  You can see my Michaelmas Pinterest board for some ideas I collected.

The Domestic Life:

September is the month in which I like to de-clutter and make room for fall things.  It can also be the time of fall garden clean-up and time to make lists of needed winter clothing.

Homeschooling:

Kindergarten:  We are mainly going through our six year old kindergarten year working through the feast days.  Last month we focused on St. Herman of Alaska, The Dormition of St. Mary, and St. Aidan, along with the life of monks.  This month, we are focused on stories of St. Michael, stories of angels and St. Helena.  It is so rewarding to see the excitement on my little one’s face about the liturgical year!

In our circle we are focused on songs and verses regarding Michaelmas, and our fall friends the apple tree and the squirrel.  Our circle is lovely with rich Michaelmas and Autumn songs.  Our stories this month were Suzanne Down’s “There is a Bear in Our Plum Tree!” (I hope that is the actual title!) and “The Princess In The Flaming Castle”, which can be found in the back of the red book, “Let Us Form A Ring”.   We have been baking cookies and baked apples, drawing apple trees and telling stories and songs about the star inside the apple and the five little rooms inside the apple, playing with modeling materials and watercolor painting, and planning a field trip to go apple picking!

Fifth Grade: We are still working with math concepts, spelling and handwriting.  Our Botany block is coming along– we have mainly covered roots, stems and leaves; fungi, algae and lichens, mosses and ferns with hopes to finish up with conifers, trees and flowering plants.  I have had some particular epiphanies about ways to approach this block and hope to share that at some point.  Our reading has been focused on the work of Holling C. Holling (two books), “Girls Who Looked Under Rocks” as an independent reader, and “A Day in the Alpine Tundra”, “A Day in the Woods” by Jean Craighead George.

Other than that, life has been busy with choir, horses and swimming for our fifth grader.

Eighth Grade:  We finished our math block focusing on stereometry and loci and have moved into an American history block.  We are reviewing a lot of math and working out some formulas for area and volume, which we also did last year but this year is more in depth and practice. We also are doing some separate work putting together a main lesson book on World Geography.   Our eighth grader is busy with a typing program on-line and is submitting work to an Oak Meadow teacher for high school Spanish I.    Other than that, much fun and busy life times with 4-H, horses, choir.

In the meantime, I have started naming and writing a description of our high school for future high school transcripts.  I think we have decided what to tackle in ninth grade and how “grading” for those courses will occur, since that is something that some colleges want spelled out on paper when looking at a homeschooler’s admission paperwork.  Much more to think about there!

Self-Care:  I wish I had more to say about this, but it is still a struggle.  I find time for myself early in the morning or late at night and have had very little success in doing anything during the day or later afternoon or early evening hours just for me.  I don’t see that changing in the forseeable future!

Please share your successes, ideas and plans for September!  I would love to hear from you!

Blessings,
Carrie

A Rogation Heart

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I have been thinking a lot about “Rogation Days” lately.   Rogation Days in the Anglican Communion is celebrated on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before The Feast of Ascension and then the Sixth Sunday in Eastertide is Rogation Sunday.   These are the days in the Anglican Communion in which we pray for the blessing of  bountiful harvests of those who work with the land, for the earth and the seas and for our place as good stewards.  There are prayers offered for seeds, for animals, for tools, for water and for rain. As time has gone on, I think perhaps the strict agricultural blessing has widened in some areas and even includes an idea of praying and being grateful for all the fruits of labor within humanity.

This custom began in about the fifth century England (most sources put this tradition coming from France originally).  From my understanding, this often involved “beating the bounds”:   walking the boundary of parish lands.  This procession often included figures of Pontius Pilate in the form of a dragon, Christ in the form of a lion, and varying  images of Saints.

Some in the Episcopal Church have pointed out that “beating the bounds” points to boundaries in general for life, even in our modern times….I have pondered this.  Does having a rogation heart mean I am to ask myself if I am using boundaries in order to have a healthy life?  Am I using boundaries in order to expend my energy on what is closest to my heart in caring for my family and neighbors?  Am I being called to reconciliation as part of setting boundaries? 

Another source I read about Rogation Days pointed out that there is something in Rogation Days that reminds us of the Creator and that even Job needed reminding of who created the Cosmos when God finally spoke to Job out of the whirlwind (Interesting commentary on this particular passage here).  So, I find myself praying for humility; for the ability to never lose a sense of wonder and awe regarding this wonderful planet and yes, its people too.  To have a heart of gratitude.   Sometimes we all need reminding of that.

And for some reason, the image that pops into my head when thinking of a rogation heart is that of the sunflower.  My favorite flower for summer is the beautiful sunflower.  There is nothing like standing in fields of sunflowers in the Deep South of the summer, the sun and humidity beating down on your back with yellow smiling faces as far as the eye can see.  Smiling in the sun and the rain and happy to be part of Creation and to be loved by the humans in the fields.    May we all have grateful hearts of wonder and find the sunshine in each other.

Blessings,
Carrie

Monthly Anchor Points: June

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Anchor:  a person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security; mainstay: Hope was his only anchor.

When we work to become the author of own family life, we take on the authority to provide our spouse and children and ourselves stability.  An effective way to do this is through the use of rhythm.  If you have small children, it takes time to build a family rhythm that encompasses the year.  If you are homeschooling older children and also have younger children not yet ready for formal learning, the cycle of the year through the seasons and through your religious year becomes the number one tool you have for family unity, for family identity, for stability.

June is the month with the longest amount of daylight hours for the Northern Hemisphere (and the shortest days for the Southern Hemisphere – how are all my Down Under readers faring?)

These are the festivals that will anchor my month:

21 – Father’s Day

24 – The Nativity of St. John the Baptist

29-  The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul

Famous Saints I will be taking to my inner work this month –

9- St. Columba

10- St. Ephrem of Syria (lots of great reading to do here)

14 – St. Basil the Great

22 – St. Alban of Britian

Aside Note – I have had a few folks ask me about the Calendar of Saints in the Episcopal Church…The Episcopal Church USA is part of the Anglican Communion, which is an international association of churches composed of the Church of England and national (such as Canada, Japan, Uganda, for example) and regional (collections of nations) Anglican churches.  Each province, as it is called, is autonomous and independent with its own primate and governing structure.  So, different feast calendars within the Anglican Communion share the Feast Days and Fast Days listed in the Book of Common Prayer, but there may be “lesser feasts and fasts” as well.  The Archbishop of Canterbury is our “primus inter parus” (first among equals) but holds no direct authority outside of the England, but is instead a force of unity, vision, persuasion,  for the entire Communion.  We don’t really govern off of creeds, for example such as the Westminster Catechism in Presbyterianism, but find “the law of praying is the law of believing and therefore The Book of Common Prayer is our way.  The Anglican Communion has in it elements of the Reformation and Anglo-Catholicism, depending upon the individual parish, but it is not “Catholic Lite”.  We pray for the unity of the Church (the whole of Christendom) and therefore “Anglicans have preferred to look for guidance to the undivided church, the church before it was divided by the Reformation and especially to the first centuries of the church’s life….to “tradition”, the worship, teaching and life of the church in its early days.” (page 65, Welcome to the Episcopal Church by Christopher Webber))

Ideas for Celebrating June:

  • Here we are tubing down rivers, camping, going to water and splash parks
  • Blueberry Picking – Strawberries are about done, but blueberries are coming soon
  • Try out different popsicle and cold drink recipes
  • Gardening – especially with an eye to our friend the bee
  • Hunt fireflies at night
  • Stay up and gaze at the stars
  • Have bonfires and camp fires and make s’mores
  • Summer theater outside!

The Domestic Life:  I love June for going through and re-organizing the school room, throwing out papers that have accumulated, going through closets and drawers, re-vamping meal plans with cooling foods in mind.

Homeschooling:  We ended this week, (week thirty-five), as everyone’s concentration was down (rightfully so for our geographic region and climate).  The children are outgrowing clothing at a rapid pace, and I could tell their forces needed to be directed to growth and rest.  I will be writing a post soon detailing a binder I put together for seventh grade to wrap up the year from a teacher  perspective, and what I am doing differently in planning fifth and eighth grades than I have in previous years.

I would love to hear what you are up to this ending of May and looking ahead to June!

Blessings,

Carrie

Monthly Anchor Points: May

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Anchor:  a person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security; mainstay: Hope was his only anchor.

When we work to become the author of own family life, we take on the authority to provide our spouse and children and ourselves stability.  An effective way to do this is through the use of rhythm.  If you have small children, it takes time to build a family rhythm that encompasses the year.  If you are homeschooling older children and also have younger children not yet ready for formal learning, the cycle of the year through the seasons and through your religious year becomes the number one tool you have for family unity, for family identity, for stability.

Beautiful May!  Here in the Deep South, the pools are open, people are holding barbeques at the pools and lakesides, everything is in bloom and we are enjoying the sun!

My month will be anchored by these festivals:

1 – May Day  – you can see this  back post  about May Day

10 – Mother’s Day

14- The Feast of Ascension  – please see my Pinterest board here

21 – Saint Helena

24- The Feast of Pentecost  – please see my Pinterest board here

25 – Memorial Day   – please see my Pinterest board here

31 –  Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 

Ideas for Celebration:

  • Strawberry Picking if ripe in your area
  • Lemonade and cookies
  • Make a rhubarb pie or strawberry-rhubarb pie or jam!
  • Watch birds nesting
  • Grilling, backyard barbeques
  • Planning summer vacations
  • Swinging in a hammock or on a porch swing
  • Swimming
  • Gardening, planting
  • Outdoor projects
  • Celebrate Memorial Day with a community event – some areas offer parades or other activities

The Domestic Life:  I think May (and over the summer months) can be a wonderful time to introduce new chores to children and to establish a chore routine in your household. 

Homeschooling:    I hope to have the vast majority of my planning for six year old kindergarten, grade five and grade eight done by the end of June so that  July and the beginning of August can be a true rest.  It is moving along!  Feel free to check out my Pinterest boards by grade for many ideas.  I hope you too are coming along in your planning!

Many blessings,
Carrie

May Day In The Waldorf Home

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Here’s a branch of snowy May,

A branch the fairies gave me.

Who would like to dance today,

With a branch the fairies gave me?

Dance away, dance away,

Holding high the branch of May.

–Traditional May Day Song

May Day is such a beautiful day full of cheer!  There are many beautiful cultural and folk traditions around this special day.  One often thinks of the image of dancers around a Maypole.  In the book “All Year Round”, the authors remark that originally the Maypole was a tree, sometimes up to sixty feet high, cut and stripped of all its branches except the top (which then symbolized new life).  It was decorated and set up in an open space.  Ribbons were often added, and then the dancers around the pole move in such a way as to plait the ribbons in patterns.

May Day brings promise:  to the farmer, the promise of kind weather; to the girl who washes her face in the May Day dew, the promise of a fine complexion; to the young people weaving the pattern of creation around the Maypole, the eternal promise of the future.  – From page 84,  “All Year Round”

Some beautiful ways to celebrate the promise of May Day:

  • Make a May Pole and invite children to dance!  Yes, there are May Pole dances on You Tube if you have never seen one in person!
  • Play games – “Celebrating Irish Festivals” recounts that sports at the May Day festival included smearing poles with grease and seeing who could climb to the top the fastest, races on foot, sack races, blindfolded races, wrestling, hopping and jumping contests
  • Make ankle bracelets with little bells that ring when you walk and braided wreaths of flowers for the heads of the children you love. 
  • Make a special May Day cake with a small maypole on the top!  Sponge cake is rather traditional.
  • Learn music for May Day. Here is a link with some song ideas, including one May Day song from the Appalachian region of the United States!
  • Get up early and wash your faces in the morning dew
  • Make beautiful May Day baskets or cones and fill them flowers – leave them on your neighbor’s doors
  • Decorate your own house with wreaths, garlands, ribbons
  • Pick herbs and dry them
  • Go on a picnic – “Celebrating Irish Festivals” has suggestions for food
  • Some parts of Europe hold bonfires – consider a bonfire!

For more ideas see the following books:

  • “Celebrating Irish Festivals”
  • “All Year Round”
  • “Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions”
  • “Festivals, Families and Food”
  • “Spring” – Wynstones
  • You Tube for videos of May Pole dances
  • I have a small “May” Pinterest board that has some ideas as well.

Festivals for small children are in the doing, so please do choose something and start your traditions!

Blessings,

Carrie

 

Ideas for Easter Baskets

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I know many parents who are starting to gather together some small treats for Easter baskets.  I wanted to share with you some ideas I have collected over the years for baskets, including ideas for older children.

First of all, if you are looking for organic, fair trade or allergen free candy, you can try some of the suggestions listed here: here

If you are looking for a healthy alternative to those marshmallow Peeps, try this recipe

Ideas for baskets:

  • Bubbles/cool bubble wands
  • Small balls with different textures
  • Seed packets/gardening tools
  • Jump ropes
  • Pool or sandbox toys
  • Wooden animals or gasp, plastic animals if they are going to go live in the sandbox or a pond of water
  • Sidewalk chalk
  • Kites (older children love these as well!)
  • Pinwheels
  • Supplies to build a fairy house
  • Accessories for bicycles  like a bell for the bike or a bike basket
  • Pool goggles, swim shoes, snorkles (older children as well!)
  • Play silks
  • Clothespins and braided yarn ropes –they can be so many things!
  • Stuffed animals – homemade felt or knitted animals – or Waldorf dolls
  • Clothing for dolls, yarn “leashes” for stuffed dogs
  • Playmats that roll up for small animals, figures or tiny cars.  Many of the playmats are easy to sew.

For older children:

  • Books
  • Craft kits
  • Paper dolls to cut out
  • Small model sets that will fit in basket
  • Woodworking or leather working tools
  • Yarn, knitting needles, crochet hooks or supplies for cross stitching
  • For older teen sewers, the book “Sew Fab” might be nice.  (My teen has been eyeing it.  It is geared towards teen girl clothing). 
  • Card games
  • Watches
  • Art supplies
  • Gift cards (sorry, but older teens love gift cards)

For religious items, you could think about icons (there are even small laminated print icons), Bibles or other religious books, necklaces or bracelets with crosses.

What are your favorite things to put in an Easter basket?  Please leave the age of your children with your item in the comment box! 

Blessings,
Carrie

Creating An Advent Spiral For The Waldorf Home

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I recently participated in my eighth year of preparing an Advent Spiral with community.  Walking an Advent Spiral is often traditional for children in the older kindergarten and  early grades within the Waldorf School.   The spiral is not a religious ritual  and it is also not explained to the children.  Instead, walking the spiral is an experiential spiritual act to commemorate the lighting of our own inner light to carry us through the dark months of winter, and letting this let shine out through the darkness of humanity as well.

Within the Waldorf School environment, the Advent Spiral is set up already and magically appears before the children. Sometimes there is an Angel Guide to guide the children through the spiral to the center candle.  The children usually hold an apple that has a beeswax candle in it, and then after their candle is lit they set it down on a spot within the spiral as they walk out.

In the home environment, there is a bit more to it since the spiral often needs to be assembled on the spot whilst families are present, especially because often families inspired by this type of festival are spread out throughout a geographic area and coming together from far distances. There are many ways to construct a festival for community; below follows just one way I have seen work well  in the past.

So, before the spiral: Continue reading →

A Waldorf View of Thanksgiving

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“For most American households the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of its original significance.  We can remediate the consumer holiday it has become by creating a Thanksgiving gathering and feast in kindergarten for the children and their families, where we give a living example of gratitude and joy for what we have and what we can share together.” – “Celebrating Festivals With Children” by Freya Jaffke

We begin sowing the seeds for Thanksgiving celebration by the observation of all the reverent moments that make up our very ordinary days throughout the entire year.  Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate the harvest being in, and this has been done in different varying festivals since ancient times.  The American Thanksgiving is just one festival of many that exemplifies the manifestation of the harvest as a culmination of the gratitude and reverence we share throughout the year with our children.

Thanksgiving is one of America’s oldest festivals, and one of ten federal holidays declared by the United States Congress.  Although schoolchildren often trace it back to the Pilgrims and a harvest gathering, the first national observation of Thanksgiving was actually proclaimed by President George Washington in 1789.  Thanksgiving was celebrated  erratically after this date by individual states and at different times, and Sarah Hale, editor of the Boston Ladies Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book, championed the idea of having a national day of Thanksgiving for nearly 15 years before Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving to be the last Thursday in the month of November in 1863.   You can read Lincoln’s proclamation here.   It actually took until 1941, when Thanksgiving was proclaimed a national holiday by the United States Congress, to arrive at its current date of the fourth Thursday of each November.

Simple tasks that we can undertake for this festival with small children  include Continue reading →

Time of Lanterns

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This time of Halloween/All Saints Day/All Souls Day and leading into Martinmas leads me to think about light and lanterns.  There is a passage from the book “Celebrating Festivals With Children” by Freya Jaffke that I like regarding “Lantern Time”:

“Two lantern festivals mark this time.  From the Celtic tradition there is Halloween on October 31, and from Continental Europe we have Martinmas on November 11.  Halloween is connected with the earth, and its turnip or pumpkin lanterns are made of fruits from the ground.  Martinmas commemorates a human deed of sharing, and its paper lanterns are entirely made by human hand.  As the outer light of day diminishes, there is first a kind of afterglow of e earth – the turnip or pumpkin lanterns.  Then there is the human spark of kindness we see in the paper lanterns of Martinmas.  The light is gradually transformed from the outer light of the sun in summer to the internal spirit light of Advent and Christmas.”

This is a wonderful time of year to think about any changes in rhythm that you want to make as the days grow shorter, the nights longer and colder.  It is also a wonderful time to think about bringing light into your home.  I know Waldorf teachers who light lanterns whilst the children play and keep lanterns up in the school room until the light of Advent comes. Continue reading →