Category Archives: Family Life

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

 

“Sitting Is The Smoking Of Our Generation”

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This is a brilliant saying from Nilofer Merchant’s Huffington Post article Huffington Post article  and corresponding  TED talk .  As a pediatric physical therapist and movement advocate, I fully agree.

What can we do as parents?

  • Limit your screens!  Turn those things off and get moving instead!  National Screen Free Week is May 4th – May 10th!  I urge you to participate in this starting on Monday  if your family is not already screen free.  Here is their Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/screenfreeweek  Go and check it out!

Here are the tips for screen free week.

Here is a list of 101 Screen Free Activities  Activity is the font of life!

Keep moving!  Here are a few more ideas:

  • Stop sitting so much ourselves.  Cooking, cleaning, gardening, active pursuits all count. Choose walks in the morning and afternoon, less time in a car overall.   Show our children we can DO.  Be the role model!
  • Plan time to get outside every day.  Look for playing and meeting other parents in streams, creeks, large expansive meadows, hiking trails and beaches.  Get children on their bikes (many children CAN learn to ride a bike with no training wheels by 3 and a half if they practice and use a balance bike first!).  Swim, pick berries, walk.
  • If you live in a neighborhood, let your children play outside with other children.  Talk to the other parents in your neighborhood!  Yes, even if you have to put dinner in a crock pot and stand there outside with them all and yes, even if you have to show grades-aged children how to play kickball or freeze tag.  Don’t laugh; I have met children that had no idea how to play either or these games.  Pull out jump ropes and help them draw hopscotch. 
  • If you are homeschooling, schedule in ACTIVE time.  Not just active movement in the “warm-up” part of the day, but during the main lesson itself.  Can you also plan a very active outing each week in addition to being outside each day as well?  Can you kayak, canoe, snowshoe, ski, hike, snorkel one full morning or afternoon a week?

Share your ideas for cutting out or down media and staying active with children in the comment box or on The Parenting Passageway Facebook page!

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

Talking to Children About Healthy Sexuality and Sex

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One often hears the horror stories about parents trying to give “the talk” to their children, complete with mumbling, inaccurate terminology and a look of relief when their child has no questions for them and both parties can flee from the room.

In the United States, 13 percent of teens have had sexual intercourse before the age of 15.  Seventy percent have had sexual intercourse by age 19.  We live in a country founded by people who thought sex was rather evil, and we as a nation are obsessed with sexuality and sex in our media.   It is an odd paradox to say the least.  Our children are bombarded with messages about body image daily.  The freedom of the Internet and media in many families has led the average age of children to see their first pornographic act on the Internet at age 11.

These are serious facts, and the discussions about healthy sexuality and healthy relationships to counteract the messages our children receive every day can only begin with YOU by layering in talks about these subjects from an early age in a healthy, developmentally appropriate way.

First of all, like all things in parenting. these discussion have to start with YOU.  How do you feel about Continue reading →

Finding Peace in the Resentment

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Oh, February, you got me again, I think.  I went into winter thinking all would be fine and all I know is for about three weeks I have felt….

Resentful.

Tired.

Without reserves.

Irritated.

A little lost with how to continue to juggle all of it in homeschooling and my own need for self-care and self-nourishment….Even frustrated….

Juggling children of three wildly different ages within the Waldorf curriculum is often difficult.  Going from nursery rhymes and baking and fingerplays  to geometry and algebra  and historical events back to drawings and working on basic early grades skills through mythology to fielding housework, outside activities, the unexpected is a tall order……Oh, February, really, it is too much for one mother at times.

And for everyone, the things that will drive one to darkness will be different.  For me, it is not the cooking or cleaning on top of homeschooling that trips me up.  Those things are fine.  The harder part is the mental exhaustion from the juggling of three very different ages, stages and attitudes.   I am so very tired by the end of teaching time for three separate people that I really can’t combine due to large age gaps…   The harder  and darker part for me is often juggling the “should” for each age and how the “should” would look if  the entire school day was devoted to each child’s  grade or developmental level…. and maybe there would be some hours for me…instead of an all day, all hours being “on” from 5:30 in the morning until 8 at night….Have you ever felt that way? Continue reading →

Finding Peace in Lent

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“Several years ago I heard the bishop of Massachusetts, M. Thomas Shaw, speak at the cathedral in Boston of his experience of being in the Holy Land for Lent that year.  There it is summertime during the weeks before Easter, with the desert in full bloom, the trees laden with olives and figs, the hazy smell of ripe fruit and sound of buzzing insects filling the air.  As he moved through the days of prayer and reflection before Easter in the midst of such abundance and beauty he came to understand Lent as a time of being refreshed by a loving God instead of a time of arduous effort to improve.”  – page 52 from “Welcome to the Church Year:  An Introduction to the Seasons of the Episcopal Church” by Vicki K. Black

I think of Lent as both a time to be restored and renewed, and also a time of taking stock.  It is a time to strengthen the spiritual life.  It is a spiritual “check-in” and can be a time of healing in the most profound of ways.  It is time for a re-awakening of our spiritual life,  and for Christians this leads up to the renewal of our own baptismal vows on Easter as catechumens are baptized into Christianity.

These weeks of Lent are simpler, quieter and more harmonious than other weeks of the year if we let them be.   Continue reading →

Monthly Anchor Points: February

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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 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.

February and I have a love-hate relationship.  On the one hand, this is the month of LOVE and LIGHT.  It is a month about thinking about our own inner light and how do we let this light shine in service to others; how do we show our love for others?  We have no greater calling than to love our fellow human beings, beginning with those we live with right in our own homes.  On the other hand, February seems to be the month I least want to serve anyone.  It seems to be a rather cranky month for me at times, much like my July Doldrums….Many homeschooling mothers I speak with seem to feel the same way.

This month really does have an often quiet beauty about it. Continue reading →

Peace In An Ordered Home

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There are many sayings to the effect of you can have happy children or a clean home but not both.  I think there is some truth in that in a small way.  Right now, I have gymnastics mats that have been made into a large track circling my kitchen counter and the children run “P.E classes” all day on and off complete with laps and push ups and sit ups.  Eventually the mats will have to be cleaned up so I can mop my floor, but I can live with it for a few days.  There is a 2000 piece puzzle on my dining room table that most likely will sit there for some days.  However, the rest of the house is clean and tidy.  The laundry is done and folded and put away.  We have food in the refrigerator and I know what we are going to make for our meals.

This is for me.  An ordered home that reflects beauty and peace mirrors how I feel inside.  I am a very visual person, and therefore I find that for me, it is easier on me to keep my home clean and orderly for my own mental health.  When everything is strewn everywhere and dirty, I cannot focus on anything else.  I live here all day, and it has to reflect a certain something of myself and what we value as a family.  We value love, and one way we love and nourish each other is to have a home that is livable, where food and clean clothes and cleanliness is apparent.

There has been some studies that suggest cluttered homes actually equate with depression and that clutter in and of itself can make us feel more anxious.

I have come to the conclusion after many years of homemaking, that the foundation of parenting (and homeschooling) is homemaking.  It may be tiresome to Continue reading →

How To Have The Most Peaceful Family in January

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Here is how:  turn off the screens.  Get rid of TV, computer screens, videos, video games…all the screens.  Have a screen-free  two weeks, cold turkey – just like that!  And then see how much better everyone does playing and getting along as siblings and decide to extend it further.

Here are some wonderful things to do in January without any screens:

Cut out paper snowflakes, including really cool 3-D snowflakes

Dip candles

Roll candles

Play board games or card games with your children

Draw, paint, model

Whittle wood

Make popcorn together

Bake together

Play in the snow – build snow forts, have snowball fights, snowshoe, downhill or cross country ski, ice skate on a pond

Read and tell stories

Build forts inside

Take a walk outside in the cold – look for animal tracks or berries or birds or all of the above

Knit, crochet, cross stitch, finger knit, spin, sew

Sing and make music together – learn some new songs!

Clean, scrub, dust, work around the house – rearrange furniture

Go bowling or find an indoor swimming pool to swim in

Write letters to family and friends; write stories together

Snuggle on the coach with hot chocolate and marshmellows

Cook for a neighbor

Find a place of worship to attend and get involved

Throw a party

Clicker train your dog, cat, or other animal

Take care of plants; start seeds indoors when it it is time

Add your own ideas here!

Many blessings, enjoy January!

Carrie