Category Archives: Homeschooling

Form Drawing for First Grade

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Note:  If you have a Kindergartner, a child under the age of 7, form drawing is too awakening for your child.  They do not need to start form drawing until first grade when they are seven years old.  This post is for those parents who have children ages 7 and older, or for those parents who have a six-year-old and are trying to understand form drawing for the following year.

Form drawing is one of the those subjects that is very special to the Waldorf school and Waldorf homeschool environment and completely foreign to the public school environment.  I have had many Waldorf homeschooling mothers tell me they do not like form drawing and this is unfortunate because it is such an important subject.  In fact, I would like to convince you today that form drawing is so important there should be at least 2, but preferably 3 blocks of form drawing throughout your school year in grades one through four, and also continue form drawing once a week throughout some of your other blocks.  Form drawing and numeral literacy should be a large backbone of the early years.

From the book “Form Drawing: Grades One Through Four” by Laura Embrey-Stine and Ernst Schuberth: 

There are many sound reasons which support the feeling that form drawing is good for children.  The simplest and perhaps most straight-forward reason is that it develops the fine motor skills as a preparation, and later a support, for writing.  It strengthens eye-hand coordination, giving the eye practice at being a coachmen for the horses, the hands.  Form drawing also works in the other direction:  the movement of the hand also educates the brain.  Furthermore, it is part of the evolution of art and, as such, develops the aesthetic sense and a feeling for form.  It also teaches thinking but in a non-intellectual way; it trains the intelligence to be flexible, able to follow and understand a complicated line of thought.  The more human beings are trained to think flexibly, the greater the world is strengthened in intelligence.  Finally, form drawing really supports the development of the whole being of the child, guiding it in a healthy way with certain types of  forms brought to the child which are appropriate for his age in the various grades.

Form drawing should be very active – it is not about putting the form on paper at first, not until the very end; it is about getting the form into the child’s BODY.  The form should be expressed in an imaginative way through a small and simple story and then you do everything possible to get it into the child’s body – draw it in chalk on your driveway and walk it, hop it, skip it, walk it backwards, draw it on each other’s skin and guess which form it was, draw it in sand and in rice, draw it with both hands onto two sheets of paper taped down, draw it with a crayon between the big toes on a large piece of paper, shape it with beanbags and walk it on the floor, model it  in salt dough or sand or  beeswax, draw it in the air with your nose, toes, elbow or chin, build the form out of sticks if it is a form conducive to that.  Then, at the very end, have the child stand and draw the form.

We followed this progression of forms so far this year:

  • We started with a line and a curve the very first day of school as per Steiner’s indications and went throughout the entire month of September with forms made up of simple  lines and curves.
  • We did free hand drawing of geometric shapes within our math block as we learned about the qualities of numbers.  For example, for the number one we practiced drawing freehand circles.  For number two we practiced making a yin-yang symbol.  For number three we drew triangles within circles.  For number four we drew squares and rectangles.  For number five we drew pentagons inside circles and for number six hexagons inside circle.  For number five we also drew five –pointed stars and for number six we drew six-pointed stars.
  • We then moved on to more of the simple curved lines and into spirals.  I highly recommend the progression in the book I mentioned above.  I made a series of very short (one to two paragraph stories involving either a little girl walking a very large dog and their adventures or the animal characters and the Merry Little Breezes from Thornton Burgess’s work).  After the simple curves and three types of spirals, we moved on to more complex lines and curves and the lemniscate.
  • Our last bit of form drawing is going to include closed figures/shaded figures and how a figure undergoes transformation to become a different kind of figure altogether. 
  • We will then end first grade with a series of running forms.  I think one mistake people seem to  make includes jumping to running forms too soon without doing all of these other forms.  In my very humble opinion, the other forms really lay the foundation for the running forms.  We will start mirrored forms in grade two in the fall.

Form drawing is a great therapeutic activity and an important component of Waldorf education. Please consider bringing it to your homeschool.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

When A Child Balks At Rhythm

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Some mothers have asked me what to do when my child balks at our rhythm or a particular activity within our rhythm?  I have several thoughts about this subject,

First of all, in general, if rhythm is new to you, start small around mealtimes and sleeping times and build up from there.  It may be that your child is balking at the rhythm because there is just too much going on that is new and it is all taking place too fast.  It may take several months or longer to really get in a full rhythm of the day and the week.  Your seasonal rhythm may take even longer than that as you start small with festivals and then add things to each individual festival each year or even add festivals each year that you have never celebrated before.

As I mentioned above, some of this depends on age.  If your child is under the age of seven, I would respectfully ask that you look to yourself first.  Are you being rather ADHD about your rhythm and starting things and not finishing them before you are moving on to something else?  Is there one particular activity that is problematic and is this activity one you yourself enjoys or one that you secretly dread?  Your child can pick up on this feeling even if you do not verbalize it!  Is it the right season to be doing whatever activity you have planned – for example, many mothers have told me they do not like to knit in summer.  If this is you, it may be hard for you to teach knitting to your first grader in July!   Is the rhythm so complex that you can’t even carry it?   A rhythm is a gentle flow to the day of in-breath and out-breath activities.  This should include more of an order, blocks of time than a minute-by-minute, play-by-play kind of schedule.  So, the first place to start with a balking child is with yourself.

If your child is under the age of 7 and your child is balking about the rhythm, here are some ideas.  Parents have asked me, “ What do I do when it is gardening time, and my child just won’t get their shoes on to go outside?  They don’t want to garden then.” 

There are no blanket answers for this per say, but here are some ideas:

  • With a small child, the rhythm and the outcomes of things that happen within the rhythm are mainly carried by YOU.  So, if your child doesn’t want to garden, and he or she has gone to the bathroom and had a snack and is generally okay, perhaps YOU garden and they join in, or they just play while you garden.  You may only get a small amount of practical work in.  Rudolf Steiner said somewhere in his lectures that a child seeing even 15 minutes of quality work was worth this effort and time. 
  • The other question to this is:  have you built in time for preparing for the activity and cleaning up from the activity?  If we always put our gardening pants and shoes on while we sing a song about gardening, then it is habit to wear shoes.  Building up anticipation through preparation for a task, singing about the task, and  having an allotment of time to clean-up from a task  is just as important to the child as the task itself.
  • Also, try to look at your task from the child’s point of view.  Yes, the task is for you and being carried by you, but it should also include child-friendly elements.  For gardening, this might include watering, planting large seeds a child can handle, digging for worms.  There should be songs and stories!  The practical work of life should be fun!
  • A child under the age of 7 is at the height of imitation.  Imitate with happiness the task at hand, use songs and wonder, and the activity will be fun. If you start the activity by saying, “Now we will go garden,” and the child envisions hours of you pulling weeds, they may very well not want  to do it!
  • The other question that always begs to be asked is:  Does your rhythm need to be changed?  Maybe your child really wants a story before you go outside.  Can you make up a story about a worm, or a butterfly, or gnomes helping to put the seed babies to bed?  Maybe your child needs a game before they go outside or maybe a game once they are outside before they can settle down enough to do a small task at hand.  Go back again and think your in-breath and out-breath of activities.

For a child over the age of 7, I would think not only of these things, but also the worthiness of authority for this age group, as according to Steiner himself.  Your very gesture and mood permeate the task and the rhythm and sometimes the answer to this is just working with the child’s will to complete something.  This does not have to be as harsh as it sounds, but many seven and ten year olds will grumble at the prospect of doing work, but then are very proud of their accomplishments indeed if you can just help them persevere through it!

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Verses and Songs Throughout the Day

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Many Waldorf mothers lament that while they know they should not use head-oriented commands with small children under the age of seven, they just are not sure how to get through the day without doing this.  One way to think about this is how you could use songs and verses throughout your day for transition points.  For example, instead of announcing all day long, “Now, little Jimmy, we are going to do XYZ”, you have a wonderful song or melody to do this that accompanies YOU starting to DO the physical activity.  (Having small children is not to be directed from the sofa!!)  Once you use the same song or verse for the same activity over and over, the child recognizes what goes with what melody. 

I kept track the other day, and here are some of the ones I use with my family that we enjoy, and maybe this will give you some ideas for your own family!  You will find the songs and verses that work for you!

For waking up in the morning, while I go around and open all the window shades:  The song “Good morning, good morning and how do you do?”  and also the song “Buenos Dias, Buenos Dias, como estas, como estas?”  (sung to the tune of “Where is Thumpkin?”)

For making beds:   The song “This is the way we make the beds, make the beds, make the beds, this is way we make the beds on a “XXXXXX” morning.”

For calling to breakfast and lunch – We sing the prayer “Thou Art Great and Thou Art Good”  from Shea Darien’s book Seven Times the Sun.

For washing dishes:  The song “This the way we wash the dishes, wash the dishes, wash the dishes” as above

For getting dressed:  The nursery rhyme Diddle Diddle Dumpling, My Son John

(I also make up songs sometimes for going potty, brushing teeth or brushing hair).

For being called to start homeschool:  I always call children with a made- up tune on the pennywhistle and then play whatever song is the song of the month.  For example, in November I played “The Pumpkin Pie” song and my kids learned it and sung it for everyone after Thanksgiving dinner while I played.  For this month we are learning the song from the play “The Snowmaiden” from “Little Plays for Puppets” book and also a song about dwarves.  After singing we have a candle-lighting verse and we also use the well-known  Waldorf verse that begins, “Good Morning Dear Earth, Good Morning Dear Sun.”

For quiet time:  We sing one of the quiet songs out of Shea Darien’s book Seven Times the Sun

For ending quiet time:  We use that wonderful folk song that begins, “Bluebird, bluebird (or whatever bird you want!)  fly through my window, bluebird, bluebird, fly through my window.”  It is on Pete Seeger’s CD of folk songs

Favorite verse for going outside:  The nursery rhyme that begins, “The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up a hill and then he marched him down again.”

For practical work, I do have verses for wet on wet watercolor painting, baking, handwork, gardening and housekeeping that can be found in A Child’s Seasonal Treasury,

For dinner we rotate between these two prayers: 

Father, we thank thee for this food before us

Give us strength to do Thy Will

Guide and Protect Us in Your Heavenly Path

For Christ’s Sake, Amen.

or this one:

Bless this food to our use

And us to thy (continued) service

And make us ever mindful of thy blessings

Amen.

For Bathtime- Rub a Dub Dub, Three Men in a Tub

For Bedtime- Prayers (we say four prayers at night)

First we say “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep”

Then we say this one:

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

Bless this bed that we lie on,

Two at our head, two at our feet,

Protect us (bless us) while we are fast asleep.

Then we say a quick prayer to the archangels of St. Raphael, St. Gabriel, St. Michael and St. Uriel, (and we list what we are thankful for from the day)

And then at last we say “Our Father Who Art in Heaven”.

This is just a small sampling, and you can come up with traditional verses, songs and prayers that speak to your own spiritual/religious life.   I also make up many songs on the spot and sing.  My oldest thinks my voice is beautiful, which I assure you it is not, but the point is you do not have to be a great singer to do this!!  It is great fun, the kids learn all of this by heart easily, and it is so much better than walking around like a play-by-play football announcer each day.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Waldorf Consultants

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It is that time of the year!  Whether you have questions about finishing up this school year, or questions in regarding planning for your upcoming school year, my dear friend over at Loveyland  (http://lovey-land.blogspot.com/) put together this great list of Waldorf consultants and gave me permission to share it with you all!

David Darcy – David Darcy Consulting:

http://ddarcy.com/

Consulting – contact for fee

Workshops, Speaking Engagements –   *Contact for fee

Resources – Subject guides from $12

Blog – http://DDarcysView.blogstream.com/

Siegline de Francesca – Teach Wonderment:

http://teachwonderment.com/

Consulting –   *Contact for fees

Workshops – See website

Resources – Subject guides from $25

Additional Resources – http://www.kitntales.com/kitntales.html  Stories, Kits, Guides from $4

Barbara Dewey – Waldorf Without Walls:

http://waldorfwithoutwalls.com/

Consulting – *Contact for fee

Workshops, Speaking Engagements   *Contact for fee

Resources – Booklets for K-8 range from $4

Marsha Johnson – Waldorf Home Educators/Shining Star School:

http://shiningstarschool.com/

Workshops –   *Held at Shining Star School in Portland, Oregon

Resources –   *See Files section of forum, Curriculum overview $30

Forum – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorfhomeeducators/

Melisa Nielsen – A Little Garden Flower:

http://alittlegardenflower.com/

Consulting – *Contact for fee

Workshops, Speaking Engagements – *Contact for fee

Resources – Curriculum guides K-5 from $15, DVD, Audio, Handcrafts

Forum – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homeschoolingwaldorf/

Blog – http://www.waldorfjourney.typepad.com/

Blog – http://www.alittlegardenflower.blogspot.com/

Podcasts – http://www.thegnomeshome.com/

Donna Simmons – Christopherus Homeschool:

http://christopherushomeschool.org/

Consulting – *Contact for fee, do be aware she has several experienced Waldorf homeschooling mothers also working with her on consultations.

Workshops, Speaking Engagements    *Contact for fee

Resources – Curriculum guides from $125, Subject guides from $10, Audio from $14

Forum – http://www.waldorf-at-home.com/forums/    *Cost $15/three months

Blog – http://christopherushomeschool.typepad.com/blog/

Blog – http://christopherushomeschool.typepad.com/highschool/

Eugene Schwartz – Millennial Child:

http://millennialchild.com

Consulting   *Contact for fee

Workshops, Speaking Engagements – Summer Intensives and other workshops  *Contact for fees

Resources – CD-Rom guides from $17.50, Audio lectures from $17.50

Rainbow Rosenbloom/Bruce Bischof – Live Education:

http://live-education.com/

Consulting: Basic included with curriculum, $90/three hours

Workshops, Speaking Engagements   *Contact for fee

Resources – Curriculum guides K-8 from $360

Forum – Clients only

Hope this helps you as you organize and plan your Waldorf homeschooling experience. 

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world, with thanks to my friend!

Wet- on -Wet Watercolor Painting

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My local Waldorf homeschooling group recently had its first class with a wonderful trained Waldorf teacher who provided us with an introductory class to wet –on -wet watercolor painting.    It was a peaceful, meditative discovery of the medium of wet- on -wet painting, and I learned more in this class by doing than in all the things I have read regarding wet on wet painting. 

We started at the beginning by learning to tear large sheets of Arches watercolor paper into halves, quarters and eighths and then  we rounded off the corners with scissors to provide a pleasing shape of open possibilities for the young child.  Paint was mixed from a tube into a baby food jar with a very small amount of water while the 90 pound watercolor paper soaked for about 15 minutes.  We then were called to our task by a wooden pentatonic flute,  and a  beautiful song to sing together as a group. 

We all listened raptly to a story about a young child who came upon some gnomes in the wood who were using sticks and three colors to make all the colors of the world.  We received our own paintbrushes to make our own colors of the world and said this verse together, written by Regina Reiter in 1997:

All the colors of the world

Are gifts of love to me,

With skill and trust

I take my brush

And place it carefully

So that my work a gift will be.

Once the paper was on our board, we took sponges and smoothed from the center of the paper out to the corners until there were no bubbles under the paper. We all felt like children again with the excitement of holding our brushes and the prospect of creating something beautiful!

Next, we listened to  three separate stories and  painted three separate paintings with each of  our three color friends:  blue, red and yellow.  As we painted, we were searching for answers to questions about the qualities of the colors.  What is yellow like?  Does yellow explode onto the middle of the page or creep from the outside in?  What is blue like? Does blue shy around the edges or start in the middle?  Does red lend itself to a form as it comes up from the bottom of the page or should it go from the top of the page down or radiate from the middle of the page?  At the end of class we did a painting of the color wheel through a story of a party of our three color friends.  The paintings we did can be viewed at Loveyland’s blog through this link:  http://lovey-land.blogspot.com/2008/12/paintings.html

Being able to live in and feel the colors is the basis for all the wonderful art students create throughout the Waldorf curriculum.

There are several excellent Waldorf  books I have read in the past  regarding the subject of wet- on- wet watercolor painting.  These include the little “Painting with Children” book by Brunhild Muller, “Painting in Waldorf Education” by Dick Bruin and Attie Lichthart, Waldorf Without Walls’ little booklet, “Waldorf-inspired Watercolor Painting with Children” by Anita Briggs and Nadia Tan  and the painting sections in Donna Simmons’ kindergarten and first grade syllabi.   I also have the little booklet  “How to Do Wet-on-Wet Watercolor Painting and Teach It To Children” by  Rauld Russell being sold by Oregon Waldorf Teacher Marsha Johnson through her Yahoo!Group waldorfhomeeducators.  Marsha Johnson also has few FILES on her Yahoo!Group of color stories to help get you started.  You can also explore A Little Flower Garden to see what painting resources Melisa Nielsen has available (www.alittleflowergarden.com).   For younger children, there is also a small section with a verse in the book “A Child’s Seasonal Treasury”.     I will provide a review of some of these resources within my next post.

Remember, you are not painting shapes or forms at this point (and neither is a kindergartener, first grader and even a second grader is painting more out of moods, feelings and gesture than distinct forms and representations).  You are painting feelings and you are painting with the qualities the colors themselves dictate.

If your child is age 4 or 5, it would be a great thing to start painting with them.  You can never tell too many stories, you can never sing too many songs and you can’t do too many paintings! It would be wonderful if you could paint three times a week with your small child if that is possible (and yes, this can be challenging with the younger than kindergarten set around!  Wet –on- wet has a beautiful, peaceful, meditative quality. That mood can be readily destroyed by the lack of reverence of toddlers – see if you can arrange some time to paint with your kindergartner, first grader or second grader during naptime!)

Work on it yourself after the children go to bed for several weeks and you will be able to bring this wonderful gift to your child!

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

New Math Book for Grades Kindergarten-5

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Have you all heard that Melisa Nielsen of A Little Garden Flower (http://www.alittlegardenflower.com/) has come out with a brand-new math book called “A Journey Through Waldorf Math” and it actually covers Kindergarten through Grade 5.  The price for math for all this is only $38.50 for the hard printed copy and $25 for the ebook version.  This is a steal!!  To order, see her store at http://www.alittlegardenflower.com/ and to see a review please the blog LoveyLand.  There is a detailed review you can access at this link: http://lovey-land.blogspot.com/2008/12/journey-through-waldorf-math.html.  Be forewarned, though, you will be completely intrigued by the Waldorf approach to math, you will want to look at the samples on Melisa’s site and you will want to watch the math video she has up on her site and then  you will want this book!

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!!

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Why Waldorf Makes Sense – In Kids’ Own Words

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On m daughter’s birthday,  I opened up the newspaper and there was an editorial entitled, “Why teens don’t read:  English teachers ruin it”  ( I think it was a little gift to me, little signs along the path that confirm things for me, LOL).

And part of this article really caught my eye and I want to share it with you all.

(The fast background to the writing below is the statement in the editorial that says,  “The percentage of 17 year olds who read nothing at all for pleasure has doubled in the past 20 years).  So glad our educational system is encouraging strong readers who love to read. 

This editorial, written by a high school AP English teacher, states:

“Every June, when I asked my students at a previous school to write about a favorite book of the year, they mostly gushed over two: J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” For years, “Catcher” was my successful icebreaker for my juniors. 

      So imagine my dismay when “Catcher” was demoted to the eighth or ninth grade.  Apparently it wasn’t sophisticated enough for 11th-graders.  That many 17-year-olds identify powerfully with Salinger’s 17-year-old protagonist was a fact cast by the wayside.

      But here’s what a former student wrote about this book, “To my 12-year-old self, the book didn’t seem to move anywhere.  I didn’t understand why Holden couldn’t just try a little harder at school.  By tenth grade, I had been drunk for the first time.  I knew rebellion against my parents, the fakeness of social interaction.  As a reader in the eleventh grade, I grew close to Holden; he was a friend who understood me.”

       In adults’ determination to create sophisticated teen readers, we sever them from potential fictional soul mates.”

While I don’t necessarily agree with the adult experiences this tenth grader was having (!), I do understand the thought that books that come along after you have experienced life can make more sense.  Why we are trying to shove sophisticated literature down a child’s throat when they have had no experiences to even relate to it, they are not close to the age of the protagonist, is just beyond me and I feel is a symptom of our education process in which doing everything early is better.

To me, this was really a supportive editorial for Waldorf education, as Waldorf  looks at everything in relation to soul development of the child and what the child will be like as an adult.  A six year old is still a kindergartener.  A third grader going through the nine year change needs to build houses, a home for himself on Earth, and learn about the Old Testament laws as an example of authority relationships.  A fifth grader in symmetry needs to look at the symmetry in nature of plants and the Greeks…..It goes on and on.

I don’t understand why Waldorf education is not much more prevalent when it makes so much sense.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

The Healing Art of Puppetry

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Puppetry is one of the things that Steiner felt was so healing for children (and I think it is healing for  adults as well, look how entranced we all become when we go to the Waldorf holiday faires and see those beautiful archetypal images in the puppet shows?).  Puppetry, to me,  is something that is so over-looked most of the time, and can have such a dramatic impact on your storytelling for your children.

The first resource I think of regarding Waldorf puppetry is the wonderful Suzanne Down’s website at www.junipertreepuppets.com.  She has a wonderful newsletter that comes out with a seasonal story and a puppetry idea.  She has three books out: Autumn Tales, Spring Tales and a puppetry around the world kind of book.  I have all of them and love them.  These gentle seasonal tales are just right for children under the age of 7, especially for the children who love nature.    You can get these books through Suzanne, and also  through the Rudolf Steiner College Bookstore.  Suzanne also has wonderful wool roving and puppetry kits that are worth ordering from her and waiting for!  It is my dream to do some longer puppetry workshops with her.  I did take a workshop with her the last time she was here in town and it was so wonderful!

There are two other resources I really like for puppetry – one is the little booklet “Plays for Puppets” , which is a little book of typical Waldorf puppet plays and the other is  Christel Dhom’s “Making Magical Fairy-Tale Puppets.”  Also, the book “Toymaking with Children” has extensive instructions for making simple silk marionettes and simple marionettes for children to use.

You can use a silk on your lap for a  simple puppetry stage like Suzanne Down and many Waldorf Kindergarten teachers do, but honestly I would eventually like to have a small platform stage built with some mountains cut out of plywood attached to the back (that way I could throw silks over them or they could be mountains) for my own home puppet shows.   ( Uh, doesn’t every Waldorf household want one of these? LOL).

I also think a very indispensible part of puppetry is music, and I love the little book “Plays for Puppets” because most of those plays do feature music that comes into the story.  The music, along with the veils of color  the silks provide, is very important in its work for the child’s soul.

As you head into the contemplation that The Holy Nights gives us all as a gift, consider how you might bring more puppetry into your circle times, your verses and songs and your stories.  The feeding of your child’s soul is well worth this effort.

Perhaps you can come along with me and what I am doing in the New Year.  I am going to work toward making the puppets for “The Snow Maiden” from “Plays for Puppets” to put on at  the end of January.  Many of you probably know this Russian tale of the older childless couple who receives a snow daughter for a bit of time, a wonderful tale perfect for these long days of winter.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Planning For Your Waldorf Homeschooling Adventure

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This post is for people who are planning for adventures in Waldorf Grades One through Eight with their children, children who are aged seven and older. If your child is under the age of seven, please do hit “rhythm” and those sorts of tags in the tag box on the right hand side of this page and start there.  There are also some separate posts on Waldorf Kindergarten on this blog that may be of interest to you.

Onward to the parents of grade-school children… Mel  over at http://lovey-land.blogspot.com/  and I were talking about the necessity of planning when you are a Waldorf homeschooling mother.  The Waldorf curriculum is very multi-layered, and very hands-on with skills that you will need to master ahead of time so you can show your child.  It seems that many people within the Waldorf community these days want a pre-planned, pre-done curriculum – you know, the open and go kind of thing.   I too, adore an open and go kind of thing!  The only thing I can share, however, is that my open and go curriculum is created by myself.  I believe this is a great privilege of homeschooling that I can create and use stories that will speak specifically to my child’s strengths and weaknesses and to our family’s values.   I do have many  different books, websites and Steiner’s lectures to draw on, and I start planning early so I have time to read everything I want and digest it and meditate on it and then create my own product.  In order to do this, I have to start early…I am reading second grade material now in order to be ready with a finished second grade curriculum by September 2009.

I first take a calendar and look at the 180 days we need in our state to fulfill homeschooling law.  I mark in when our vacations may be if I know that, and I also take note of each festival and count back anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks in order to start mapping out festival preparations.  I have a separate binder for festivals that has many recipes, plays, verses and craft ideas I have collected and have ordered by festival and date of the year.  This gives me a good jumping off point so I can plan what we will do each day leading up to a festival day.

Then I take a moment to dream, to really look at the big picture for the grade and what that grade means to me.  I go back to Steiner’s lectures and read about what he says for each grade and some of the indications he gives for teaching different subjects and try to get to the heart of the matter.  This is very important as many mothers who would like to homeschool using Waldorf methods have never actually read a lecture by Steiner. Please do, it will add such dimension and clarity to your understanding of the grades and your teaching.    I think about and create goals for my children based not only on all academic areas, but also in areas such as social, character development, religious/spiritual goals, practical life, music, handwork, art,  and foreign languages.  I write those down, and  I also create goals for myself of things I want to learn and work on, and write those down.

Then  I plan out the sequence of blocks and how that might flow best throughout the year – for example, I like to start with a month of form drawing so I usually start there but then I need to map out how many math blocks, how many language arts blocks, how many science blocks.  I decide on the blocks and on what main things I would like to bring to my child.  Remember, Steiner said in one of his lectures in the book “Soul Economy”, that “The aim of Waldorf education is to arrange all of the teaching so that within the shortest possible time the maximum amount of material can be presented to students by the simplest means possible.”  This means that you are choosing things for each block to light your child’s imagination and interest, you are choosing the events that best represent a historical time period, you are choosing the most important and wonderful things your child needs to know about this subject and presenting them in an active, no textbook kind of manner.

Then I take each individual block and start writing lesson plans for each day around our daily rhythm and the notion of Head, Heart, and Hands.  Head is  Circle and Main Lesson Work.  Heart is typically outside time, hiking, wet on wet watercolor painting, music, drawing, or when our tutors come for foreign language teaching.  Hands is typically our practical everyday work (baking, gardening, etc) and handwork.  I especially look for what is the ACTIVE part of each lesson, what is the piece I can pull out to really inspire my child and make her just be enthralled with this subject? 

I also look at the three day rhythm where Waldorf education uses the aid of sleep to really learn.  For example, if I tell a story in Grade One about one of the math gnomes, then we may sleep on it after the introduction.  The next day we will re-visit the story and then  paint, draw or model something from the story and play math games in a physical manner about whatever math process the story was about.  The third day we re-visit the same story again, and provide more practice with math and then draw problems in our main lesson book and a picture of the math sign (plus,  minus, times, division sign) – this is the academic piece that is always brought in on the third day.  You can fit in another three day rhythm for the week if you introduce a story after this work is done on the third day.

So I keep all that in mind and just write day by day until the month is done.

Once the yearly plan is in my computer by month, it is easy enough to adjust it if something comes up and we need to miss a day.  I try to schedule a reasonable amount of work for each day so there is plenty of time for play, dreaming and so if we do miss a day we can easily make it up.  I am still in the early grades and consider this to be very important that these early grades are the bridge to greater academic work and excellence later on..  I know this will shift about third grade or so.

At the start of every block during the school year, I review the plans and make sure I have all the materials I need and make sure it all still will speak to my child.  I have time to be able to tweak it as needed because I did it ahead of time.

I would love to hear how other folks plan, how far ahead you plan, what works best for you.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

The Value of Being A Stay At Home Mother

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I started a few thoughts on this subject at Donna Simmons’ paid subscription discussion forum,  the Waldorf At Home forum.  Donna posed the question of what the true, real or hidden value of being a mother is and it really got me thinking. (To join in on the discussion please see  http://www.waldorf-at-home.com/forums/ ).

To me,  the utmost value that a stay at home mother can provide is first of all the ability to create peace within herself, her spouse and her children and then to bring that peace into all the areas in which the mother and family  impacts society.  Stay at home mothers provide a bulk of the volunteer force for schools, religious organizations, and other service organizations, so hopefully we become a model for peace within our own homes and within our own communities.  So many people live their lives and in their homes without ever thinking about the soul of that home – how does your home feel when you are in it?  How does your family feel? Is it a warm, relaxed, pleasant place where the respect and the dignity of all are honored or is it a place of strife, tension, and yelling?

Mothers ask me all the time how they can attain this invisible positive aura within their homes, and I always say the same thing:  It starts within you.  You cannot change your children or your spouse.  All you can do is be consistent and go inward and start with yourself.  (Assuming your spouse is not  physically or verbally abusive; in these cases I cannot presume to say that only modeling will help!)……..However, if your spouse  is unsure of how to  become a de-escalator of situations and attain peace, it may take time to see changes, but the home will become a more peaceful place as you model and create this magic within your own space.  The other two things I can highly suggest is to work on everyone in the family finding a sense of humor about things and I can advocate you contact the local NonViolent Communication Group in your area – see www.cnvc.org for further details regarding better communication skills between you and your partner.

I think the second thing that we show society, hopefully, is how to live in harmony with daily, weekly and yearly rhythms; how to really have a rhythmical manner within the flow of time.  The art of daily work, of being able to be productive with our hands, for really having and showing gratitude, for being able to live simply, for being able to slow down to really prepare for holidays and festivals in a meaningful way is becoming a lost art in our society.  Hopefully we can be a model for demonstrating ways to celebrate the beauty and reverence in daily life, in ordinary tasks,  besides the more celebratory occasions.

The third important thing I think we do is to show mothers that childhood can have a slower pace than what our society is currently making it and pushing it to be and that this is of benefit to the child and to society.  Many mothers I speak to today lament the early push on academics, they lament the lack of outside time their children are participating in due to their children getting home from school and having to do homework, they lament the lack of imaginative play within their children, but yet they shrug their shoulders and continue on.  “What are you going to do?” they say, as if this progress toward the rapidity of childhood and the speeding up of childhood is something that is normal and cannot be avoided.  Perhaps we can be the light that shows others how a slower childhood has benefits for the health of our children for the long run.

To all my stay at home mothers out there, I applaud the light you are shining into the darkness of the world in this season and in this time.  Blessings to you all for  your work.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.