Here we are in weeks nine and ten of homeschooling already – the Autumn is flying by!  Our mornings are crisp and the afternoons vacillate between hot and warm, so there has been a lot of time to go out and play.  I am so grateful for this time of year.  If you want to see what we have been working on, you can see this back post.

This week we were fairly busy spending time with a family whom we wanted to help and be with during a difficult time, so not as much happened “book-wise”  the past few weeks, but we are always learning and growing in life. We also took a fabulous field trip to a regional museum and heritage center to learn about Appalachian life.

Six Year Old Kindergarten:  We transitioned to an Autumn Circle – you can find wonderful ideas in the book “Let Us Form A Ring” and in the Autumn Wynstones book.  Little verses about squirrels, chipmunks,  falling leaves, and pumpkins have been speaking to us! We have been working on gross and fine motor skills a lot – jumping rope with rhymes is just emerging and lots of fun to practice, we have been walking a lot to a park near us that we can get to out our door and running in the skate park up and down the ramps and circles, lots of roller blading and biking outside, some hiking and playing with friends!

Our story has been “The Naughty Little Hobgoblin”, which is a favorite every year.  We have been painting with red and yellow, working with pumpkin in cooking several times a week, modeling with salt dough, cleaning the house and taking care of our dog each day, and working on little rhymes and verses.

In the liturgical year, we are already getting ready for All Soul’s Day and All Saint’s Day.  This is such a wonderful time  to learn some of the hymns and music for All Saint’s Day, and making a collage of different saints.

Fifth Grade – We finished up botany with a look at monocotyledons and a main lesson book page on that and some painting.  We have plans to paint pumpkins, winter trees and and spring tulips throughout the rest of the year and add them to our botany book.   We also are finishing reading “Flower Watching with Alice Eastwood” by Michael Elsohn Ross.

We began Ancient India with the concept of time.  We read the book “And They Were Strong and Good” by Lawton (please preview it for yourself),  and wrote a giant family tree on our board and talked about all of our ancestors and what countries they came from and how different couples met and what all of their occupations were.  From this look at time in our own family we talked about time throughout history – what is ancient?  What does that mean?  When we look at stories of Ancient Civilizations in this year, how old are these stories?

Outside of discussing time, I based our beginnings upon painting a picture of the landscape of India and how the first people who lived there were influenced by this geography – not much different than what we did in third grade in our Native American block.  The people of the Indus River Valley, who later moved to around the Ganges River, were some of the earliest civilizations in India.  So what things did the people of Harappa do?  They irrigated lands, grew wheat and barley, and  had carts with wheels.  And when we think of the Indus, where did this river start but in the Himalayas!  Known as Giri-raj, the Himalayas are supremely sacred. What is it like there?    The other river that flows from  Giri-raj is the Ganges – the Harappan civilization moved there, and it is the most sacred river, seen as an earthly incarnation of the deity Ganga. We reviewed all the climates and biomes of India to tie in a bit with geography, our fourth grade Man and Animal block, and our fifth grade Botany block and then moved into the Hindu Creation Story with the creation of Manu.

After that, we read a story about Indra, but did not dwell there and instead dug into the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and how the multiplicity of deities represent facets of Braham.

Other than that, we have been busy with math and spelling.These subjects are harder for our fifth grader and they take quite a bit of care and time for us in the day.  We finished “Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter” and started the book “The Iron Ring”.   My daughter read a biography of “”George Washington Carver” on her own (a Scholastic version) and had great comprehension of the details.

Otherwise, our fifth grader has been busy preparing to sing on All Saint’s Day, and horseback riding.

Eighth Grade – We have thoroughly covered the causes of the Civil War, and it took us some time to get our artistic work and summary written for that.  We discussed the biography of Abraham Lincoln.  Life on the Home Front was discussed in regards to the Civil War, and really how beleaguered the South was in the midst of this war.    We made a map of the Confederate States of America and  discussed the Civil War from the Battle of Bull Run to Antietam and how Antietam was the turning point of the war psychologically and the Battle of Gettysburg was the military turning point.  We learned about the course of the war through the biographies of Lee and Grant.

We are reading “Elijah of Buxton” by Christopher Paul Curtis and our daughter finished “Riders of the Pony Express” by Ralph Moody independently and  is now reading  a biography of Harriet Tubman

For geography, we took a lot of time reviewing all the states and capitals and the regions of the United States.  We also talked about immigration and Ellis Island in the early 20th century and compared it to immigration today of our Latin American neighbors for high school Spanish and the migration of people after Hurricane Katrina.  We spent quite a bit of time looking at Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of Katrina at the ten year mark ecologically, economically and socially.  This coming week, we will move into Canada, some Canadian history and current events (hello, new Prime Minister of Canada!), and reviewing all the provinces and capitals.

We are still working on math daily, and also high school Spanish.  Church has been busy; our eighth grader walked in our church’s Ministry Fair representing the Youth Group Ministry and also has been busy with Youth Group and  preparing music for All Saint’s Day masses.  Horseback riding and Wildlife Judging in 4-H is also part of our week.

Would love to hear what you have been working on the last few weeks.

Blessings,
Carrie

We are finishing up the rest of Chapter Four of Stephen Spitalny’s wonderful book, “Connecting With Young Children:  Educating the Will”.  You can see my commentary and the comments of those who are reading along for the first part of Chapter Four here.

This part of the chapter begins with:

Physical and social boundaries are also important on the path of a healthy developing sense of self.  The self can only find itself when it meets boundaries. 

And later:

The way to develop sustainable living habits is by practicing them yourself at home and in kindergarten.  If we think that cleaning up after a meal is a worthy activity with social and hygienic value, then we do the cleaning with the children present and participating.

I want to interject here for the homeschooling family.  I have seen mothers who have driven themselves absolutely batty in the home environment because they tried to include their child in every single thing they did, even if the task was very long – like bulk cooking, deep cleaning room after room, etc.  I think in the home environment with very tiny children, you may have to divide things up a bit more and think about HOW you would involve your small child.  We don’t have  a group of twenty-five children with us at home with the enthusiastic children to help carry other children, and I think we can get very “project-oriented” and miss the point of having our children help but also weave in and out of the work.  And the tasks must be things that are REAL – children can tell from a mile away whether or not a task is “essential” or truly needed.  Stephen Spitalny mentions – and I think this is very true in the home environment –  that the task must be done in a loving, peaceful, purposeful way.  This is so HARD for modern parents!  However, this work becomes the basis of a child’s play so it is very important for a healthy play life!

Stephen Spitalny writes on page 79, “Caring for one’s surroundings is a social gesture.”  Isn’t that true?  The difference between cleaning and caring is illuminated in his pages as an example.  He also cites that he finds taking care of the body and the surroundings are more important than crafts (unless again, it is a truly NEEDED piece of crafting or handwork for a festival).  This is what many homeschoolers work with as well.   Giving projects so children have “something to do” is superficial, he writes on page 81. It is just filling time.   If a child cannot play constructively, the first remedy to try is work.

Socially, we must work to cultivate a “mixed-age span” (page 83) and “a culture of service” in order to help the child become receptive of their fellow human beings.  I feel in the home environment, we create this with siblings, and with an only child we would create this for parents-child and extend this to neighbors or other close friends for meals, empathy, service, social responsibility.   A Waldorf homeschooler should be working in community, I believe.   Stories are also an important way to learn and demonstrate these qualities for our children.  The author mentions “The Winning of Kwelanga”, “Nkosnati and the Dragon”, “The Queen Bee” and “Shingebiss.”  Just lovely!

The other piece of all of this is WARMTH. I  have many back posts on warmth, and by this we mean both a warm physical atmosphere (natural fibers, natural materials, warmth of the physical body) but also a “soul warmth” – kind, loving words, human interest and attention.  I feel it is most often the second part of this warmth where we fail.  I would like to take that up in another post. 

Lastly, the adult must be participating in the world.  When we are connected to what gives us joy, interest, wonder…we transmit these feelings to the small child.

I would love to hear your thoughts.
Blessings,
Carrie

I attended several pediatric conferences in the last few weeks, and brought you a post about the new public health campaign in my state to close a “language gap” affecting children in the public school environment (you can see the interesting discussion in that post when some folks asked my opinion about the intersection of this campaign and Waldorf parenting, where we often do not speak as much to the young child and tend to use our speech in verse, rhyme, and song..Great questions and observations by parents! ).  One of the other interesting sessions I attended was about the history of children’s sports in the United States, and current recommendations in a country where the children are being pushed into elite travel teams and many hours of practice a week..and ending up with many injuries, surgeries and rehabilitation programs as a result.  The pediatric sports medicine doctors at this conference had quite a bit to say.

First of all (much to my personal dismay), they truly felt that the country was not going to “go back” and leave competitive sports for the upper middle school and high school levels the way it used to be.  They cited the 60 million dollar contract ESPN made with Little League in order to televise the Little League World Championship games, and the websites that list the top 7 and 8 year olds in basketball in the nation.  Yes, it seems crazy to those of us who are older and remember how things used to be.   Just crazy.

They also pointed out that history is not really on the side of going back to not having competitive teams for children younger than high school  either.  Essentially, at one point in time, the United States did “go back” and limited interscholastic participation in sports to those 10th grade and above (around 1939, after there was a flourishing of sports under Theodore Roosevelt and others prior to this time).  There were  many playgrounds about  during this time, and without coaches and such involved,  parents just  took over in teaching their children and forming sports leagues themselves.   Of course, in this day and age, this has further morphed into elite travel teams and the like.

The other reason cited for not being able to “go back” is that this is seen as the most scheduled generation of all time.  Parents know where and what their children are doing practically every second of the day, so free play seems like a huge barrier to overcome.  Even if children go outside to “free play”, generally a parent is standing there.  Some children are afraid to play in their own neighborhoods. Safety and lack of greenspace and such are seen as barriers to free play.  Finally,  the last barrier  is an electronic one, where children will stay inside and play on a screen or watch a screen rather than being outside.

The sports medicine doctors recognized that by age 14, 73 percent of the children involved in competitive sports QUIT!  The differences between child and adult led games were discussed.  When children organize games, it is much different than when adults do!  When children organize games, the children organize it around ACTION.  There is not a lot of sitting on the sidelines usually, even if a game is stopped in the middle and players are traded to make teams more “equal”.   Children craft games hinging on challenging and exciting experiences, close scores because children don’t  usually want a blowout (sometimes there are “mercy endings” if scores are really disparate), the rules are bent or changed or added to make things more fun or more even (remember “do-overs”?) .  There are even things like “ghostmen”, or having the bigger children  “handicapped” (throw with your left, kick with your left)  to make the game and teams more even.  So much different than when adults get involved!  The pediatric doctor acknowledge this, and hope to do a few things so this spirit is not lost forever.

The wish of the sports medicine doctors and athletic trainers in the room seemed to be for  a focus on safe skill acquisition, and to encourage fun, peer support, enthusiastic and safe coaching (and they pointed out that most coaches do not learn anything about child development at all!) and most of all, rotation of sports throughout the year without a “specialization” in one sport until the upper middle school grades.  They also want to encourage free play.

There was a  big push discussed  for pediatric providers to provide realistic expectations for parents.  There was a study in 2006 by Rohloff out of Wisconsin where 22 percent of the parents interviewed EXPECTED their child athletes to become pro players!  That is a super high expectation considering that  less than 7 percent of high school athletes even play in college.  In American football,  less than 1 percent of high school football players make the pros.  Out of the four million babies born in the United States, 300 will earn a pro paycheck long enough to say they had a career in pro sports.  In the meantime, is this tiny possibility enough to ruin a child’s body for life?  When we are dissecting what to do after shoulder surgeries for fourteen year old pitchers, rehabilitation for gymnasts who have severe back pain and need hardware implanted, etc. and the best way to rehabilitate a child whose identity is their sport,   is this what should be encouraged?  Instead, nurses, pediatricians, sports physicians, physical therapists, athletic trainers, coachers are being asked to provide parents with realistic expectations, with the idea that early specialization is not helpful or necessary to sports success in the later years and that the focus should be on establishing health, not pro players.

There is a call and a push for better training for coaches in the area of child development, injury assessment and prevention of injury; to develop safety programs, products and rule modifications for safer play;  to encourage free play as much as possible and to discourage early competitive specialization, and to help parents and those working with student athletes to understand readiness cues for sports that are related to development.  It doesn’t seem as if any organization is taking this under their wing as a public health campaign at this point, however, and I am not certain the message is really getting out to the average American parent.  I wish there was.

Blessings,
Carrie

I have had the good fortune to attend several pediatric conferences in the past few weeks, and I hope to share over several posts some of the more interesting new research and advances in childhood development and public health campaigns  with you all.

I recently attended a session in a conference about my state’s efforts to improve public health outcomes through impacting disparities in school-aged children’s performance.  Essentially, there is data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, that has essentially said when we compare college graduates to individuals who have not finished high school (and no, I don’t know if or how homeschoolers were included in any of this data or student who have attended technical programs), this is what was found:

• college graduates live at least five years longer than those who have not finished high school (female college graduates 83.5 years versus females who have not finished high school 78.4 years; male college graduates 79.7 years versus males who have not finished high school 72.9).
• the infant mortality rate for infants who are born to women who never graduated high school is nearly double that of women who graduated from college
• college graduates have a 1.3 percent reduction in diabetes, a 2.2 percent decrease in heart disease, a 5 percent reduction in obesity, and a 12 percent reduction in smoking compared to individuals who have not finished high school.

The biggest predictor to academic success is the quality and quantity of words spoken to the baby in the first three years of life. (NOTE:  This is from research; for those of you who are concerned regarding this statement and Waldorf Early Years education please see my comments in the comment box below).  There has been research regarding “The 30 Million Word Gap” stretching back to a study published in 1995 by Hart and Risley and publicized since then in such places as The New York Times.  Essentially, it has been found that there could be a difference of 30 million words in the language environment over the period of the first three years  of a child’s life.   This means that children from vulnerable families enter kindergarten with half the vocabulary of their peers.  In the public school environment, there have been links between third grade proficiency as strong indicators of academic and economic success, a decreased risk of incarceration, pregnancy, violence and unemployment and the improvement of health and less risk of chronic disease, so this gap in language becomes more critical.  Public school third graders who cannot read at grade level are four times more likely to drop out of high school.  In my state, only 34 percent of the children are reading proficiently and on grade level in third grade (which also makes me wonder if it is only 34 percent, which means the majority of third graders are “at risk” , should we be measuring reading proficiency in third grade? However, I guess that is another topic!)

Early language exposure is critical for a baby’s healthy brain development and seen as part of increasing a small child’s vocabulary, school readiness and yes, success.  The most effective thing a parent can do is talk with their baby.  A screen will NOT take the place of talking with a baby or toddler or preschoolers. 

So, my state is rolling out the first state-wide public health campaign in the United States to increase adequate language for brain development, called “language nutrition”.  It will emphasize the power of interaction and that NO ELECTRONIC DEVICE can match  engaged human interaction.  The  partners collaborating on this are many, including Emory School of Nursing, the Marcus Autism Center, Department of Education, Bright Start, Georgia Tech, Talk With Me Baby, Get Georgia Reading, the Atlanta Speech School, Georgia Pathway to Language and Literacy, Emory University School of Medicine, The Georgia Coalition for English Learners, Georgia Department of Public Health, and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and will pattern off the model of the “Back to Sleep” campaign and other public health campaigns.   You can see more about the campaign at the Talk With Me Baby website.

Nurses are especially being targeted as changemakers for families in this campaign as 99 percent of expecting and new parents will see a nurse at some point between the 3rd trimester of pregnancy through the first year of life. The goal is to help parents see that they are their baby’s first and best teacher and to give parents strategies to overcome any barriers to language acquisition for their children.  In our state, 30 percent of children are in childcare but 70 percent are not in childcare or are in childcare in an informal setting, so parents have to believe that they can make an impact on their child’s language abilities (and turn off their phones! This was cited over and over by the health care providers in my course as a source of frustration in trying to connect with parents and in trying to get parents to connect with their babies and toddlers!)

There have been several projects similar to this in different areas of the United States, including The 30 Million Word Project, Providence Talks  (based in Providence, Rhode Island) and Too Small To Fail, but this is the first state-wide campaign.   My international readers may find it strange that issues such as these are often addressed at the state level and not the federal level as a result of our governmental structure.  Overall, it will be interesting to see what happens as a result of this campaign over the next few years.  I believe the entirety of the campaign will take complete effect by 2020.

Blessings,
Carrie

KASEY, as chosen by the random number generator.  Thank you all for participating.  Kasey, we will be contacting you about getting this book to you!

Blessings,
Carrie

So, we are at that summer between seventh and eighth grade with our oldest child and we need to start looking ahead and figuring out options regarding homeschooling high school (or maybe we don’t need options and that is an option!)…It has always been our plan to homeschool through high school, but sometimes it is hard to figure out how that will look, and I find there are not a lot of people to even talk with about the options as so many homeschooling parents in my area or whom I know personally plan to use a public or private high school.

Our family lives in a big metropolitan area that is in a relatively friendly-to-homeschooling state, so these are some of the options I have found so far:

• Some people do hybrid homeschool programs, where the student goes to class two or three days a week and the off-days the student works at home.  At the end, the student “graduates” high school  from the hybrid program.  However, we don’t feel as pulled to the hybrids, because unfortunately for us, almost all of them use very conservative Christian curriculums, including science. So for our family that is out.
• Some just use selected classes that they find locally, on-line, or distance,  to round out classes.
• Some find accelerated private programs that are labeled “homeschool” programs but run three days a week or so 8-noon and contain an entire high school program (usually geared toward athletes or musicians who need to do their thing and still finish high school). 
• Some homeschool at home with no outside classes or support.
• Some homeschool with help of outside classes or not until the child is age 16 and  then does dual enrollment, which is where a student enrolls at a local college and earns both high school and college credit.
• Some homeschool high school with an emphasis on real-life experiences, internships, etc and translate that into a transcript as needed – unschoolers do this all the time of course, but I find some families are drawn to this in the high school years – especially if their child has a certain passion!

So, for this eighth grade year we are homeschooling at home and using Oak Meadow distance learning for high school credit for Spanish I.  That is about as far as we have gotten, and I guess the rest will unfold over time.

I would love to hear your homeschooling high school experiences, thoughts and plans.

Many blessings,
Carrie

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.

I love August.  August reminds me of beaches, sunflowers, picnics, going back to school and therefore less crowds at all our  favorite outdoor spots.  August is beautiful sunsets and lapping waters.  And birthdays – there are two in our family this month!

This month we celebrate:

August  9^th  – The Feast of  St. Herman of Alaska  – for this feast, we plan on reading this lovely book.

August 10th – Our first day back at school (we have camping trips in September and October, plus a wedding in November, so might as well start when the counties around us are starting this year and get going!)

August 15th –  The Dormition of St. Mary –  August 15^th  – on this beautiful day, we tell the story of the Dormition of St. Mary and read this little book.

August 31^st  – The Feast of St. Aidan  — we plan to tell the story of St. Aidan and the horse he was given by King Oswim

Ideas for Celebration:

• Making beautiful triptych to celebrate the life of St. Mary.  There are many wonderful ideas regarding this on the Internet.
• We have about another month of tubing, swimming and water park availability to us, so we hope to take advantage!
• Camping
• Gazing at the stars
• Walking in the mornings
• Celebrating the back to school with little things to use during the school year

The Domestic Life:

I always find this a good time to take stock of needs for fall/winter in clothing, shoes, outside gear. 

I also think this a great time to go back to manners.  My older children seem to be in an expansive place and forgetting their manners with each other and me, and while that seems common for this time of year (but worse this year!), I think it is a good time for all of us to be kind to each other and sink into some structured rhythms

Rhythm is the key word for this month.  The structure does us all good!

Homeschooling:

Kindergarten:  We will be celebrating the festivals above.  Our circle will be centered around the garden and sunflowers and our story will be modified version of Hans and the Wonderful Flower (adjusted for the season and where we live).  I have plans for steps toward jumping rope, fingerplays and foot plays, baking bread and cookies,  creating a “painting” with sand and shells, modeling snails and dragonflies,  making walnut boats, make lavender sachets,drawing, painting, and more.

Fifth Grade:  This month will be a review of all four math processes, estimating and fractions and measurement.  We will also be continuing work with spelling and grammar and looking at what makes a good sentence.  Our main lesson will focus on Botany, one of my favorite fifth grade blocks.  We will have a number of lovely painting and drawing experiences, along with modeling out of plastilina and modeling beeswax.  We also have a number of botanical gardens in our area which we are excited to experience.

Eighth Grade:  We will be using this month to focus on math review of everything we have learned in grades one through seven, and looking specifically at platonic solids, loci and volume.  There will be lots of drawing and modeling transformations to go through sequences.  We will be diving into the book “Across Five Aprils”  in preparation for our American History block and I have some activities planned to go through this book. 

Self-Care:

Self-care is so difficult for me.  It really wasn’t too bad up until I hit forty or so, but then all the children were older and had things going on and there just seemed to be no time in the day. So, one thing we are doing is looking at combining the nature pyramid and the physical fitness pyramid for children so I can also work in some physical exercise.  And, then my plan is to also have my own time to exercise at the gym or walking on the trail by my house.  I am also re-working our menu planning.

I would love to hear from you and where you are in this most expansive time of summer.

Blessings and love,
Carrie

We are up to page 34 of the wonderful book “Connecting With Young Children:  Educating the Will” by Stephen Spitalny.  We begin with the physical development of the child.  In Waldorf Education, we see the development of the young child as the most important task for the years of birth through age 7.  And, this task is the child’s to hold and own, not for us to push and force. We, as parents, help this unfold by providing a safe environment, physical warmth and by assisting with protection of the nervous system because an infant’s nervous system is not fully developed at birth and it continues to develop throughout the early years.  There are many neural connections that are forged in the first three years of life, and in Waldorf Education, we feel protection and repetition, as the way to enhance this development.  From page 35:  “Repetition is a key element in neurological development, in the development of neural pathways and their myelination. There is a faint neural path at first, through repetition it becomes more distinct, and then becomes covered with an insulating sheath of myelin.”

Random physical movements of the infant give way to the development of the brain that allows for the control of movement.  Controlled movement leads to developing capacities for speaking as finer and finer motor activities are developed – speaking involves motor activity of the  tongue, mouth, larynx and lungs.  Out of speech develops thinking, because thinking is in words. Flexibility in movement during the early years leads to flexibility in thinking in the later years.

The first three years especially are the time for walking (movement), speaking, and thinking – in that order.  All of this comes from the child himself or herself, watching the example of human beings engaged in movement, speaking, and thinking.  Thinking is founded on the development of speaking because after the early years we speak in words, not images.  It is essential for the child that they not be “pushed” into walking, sitting up, etc  and that child accomplishes this on his or her own.  Therefore, baby walkers and such as not seen as helpful.  Sometimes additional support is needed to help children who are struggling to overcome reflexive patterns by professionals, but many children would just be helped by spending less time in car seats, bouncy seats, baby walkers, and more time in movement.  The step after learning self-directed, self-achieved movement is to learn how to care for his or her own body – self-feeding, washing, toilet training, basic hygiene and then learning how to take care of the garden and home as an extension of the body.  All of this is learned through imitation,  and not so much verbal instruction.  Verbal instruction is the hallmark of the grades, ages 7 and up.

From page 44, “Play has the utmost importance in the development of the young child.  For him, there is no difference between work and play…all varieties of play are the essential avenue by which the young child comes to grasp the physical and social worlds.”  Play, not being instructed, is how a child’s brain develops.    Direct connections and interactions between adults and children and children and children in play, develops the brain.

Blessings,

Carrie

This is what I know for sure:  the decade of the forties, of which I am quite almost half-way through, are enlightening, entertaining, joyful but also heart-breaking in so many ways.  My husband and I were discussing the other day how the calls and conversations we have with friends and family is no longer about weddings and babies (although we do have a few weddings to attend this year!), but more about other things – disease, death, caregiving, divorce.  What  are these  mid-40’s really about?

It might be:

not being where you thought you would be

about some marriages crumbling and some staying through storms

about elderly parents needing care and love and still having small children at home

about teenagers and young adults  and the things that happen along the way to growing up

about learning to love yourself and the relationships in your life in a deeper way

about giving yourself the gift of supportive people and letting go of people and relationships that no longer serve you and not feeling guilty about that – it just is.

about learning to give yourself space and time

about understanding you are more than a parent or a spouse

about finding time for you and you alone and finally understanding the importance of that

about finding joy  and sheer fun in the ordinary moments and being more willing to spend your time to create those moments

It might also be about learning  boundaries.  It is about what you can and cannot solve for someone else.  It is about what you can and cannot solve for yourself,  and learning what people and ideas and things fuel you in you life and making that the priority and being okay with saying no to other things – you finally learn it is okay to not scatter your energy every which way but to focus on the truly important. I think it can also be about hanging on to what matters most, even if it isn’t as perfect as you thought it was going to be when you were younger – whether that is your career, your relationships,  your marriage, your values, your homeschooling – and finding the joy that exists in the imperfect, and the fun and joy that can be there if you choose to put it there and be open to that.

It can also be NOT hanging on to what you thought it was all about and letting it all go and starting anew.  Different people I know have chosen different paths. Some have had different paths forced upon them. This is a time where some of my friends have already lost their spouses through death, for example.  Not where we thought we would be in our forties! What the mid-forties has forged for them is new strength, new courage, bravery, flexibility and hopefully new happiness to eventually be found.

I have heard it said that the 40s can be about healing your demons.  Perhaps, but I think it can also be about realizing those demons are part of you and who you are and your journey and they are okay where they are, because you are okay.  It is not black and white, but grey.  So perhaps that is healing in and of itself to be able to see the grey more clearly than ever before and still be able to move forward and not be mired or tethered to the negative.

I would love to hear your perspective!

Blessings,

Carrie

I find the two areas that stymie Waldorf homeschoolers the most are actually not areas unique to Waldorf homeschooling, but are areas that differentiate homeschooling from a school setting:

1.  How do I teach multiple ages?

2.  How do I have a life?  How do I get things done around my house?

I would like to offer some suggestions and you can choose what resonates with your family life and values. 

In regards to teaching multiple ages, I feel this has been thoroughly addressed in many back posts.  The things that will assist you in this endeavor is to NOT create a Waldorf school in your home.  You will need a new and different way of looking at the curriculum through an idea of blending.  This post takes a good look at that.  You will need a steady and nourishing rhythm to accomplish that.  There are many back posts I have written from the time I had all children under the age of 7, one child in the grades and other younger children, now two children in the grades and one in the last year of kindergarten, and next year all children in the grades.  Because of our large age gaps, I feel certain if I can homeschool a kindergartener, fifth grader and eighth grader, any variation in between is feasible!  Be up for the challenge of rhythm in your home!  Here is one post detailing rhythm for three children in the grades, as this is the rhythm that will serve us through the last year of kindergarten and into grade one.

Next we must learn to set boundaries on our time and energy..  As a homeschooling teacher, teaching multiples ages, you will need your energy for preparation and follow-through,  self care and inner work, and your important relationships.  So I feel a very important piece of teaching multiple ages is not to take on too much outside your home unless you feel very steady about that.  Think very carefully before you commit yourself all over the place.  Your home is your priority during the school year.

As far as homemaking and homeschooling, I would like to suggest a simple rhythm of practical work including children, providing  older children with chores to do that  you have shown them repeatedly how to  do and checked in on their work, and using small bits of time.  Laundry, for example, can be done as Flylady recommends – one load in the morning before breakfast, hang up to line dry at lunch, fold and put away around the dinner hour.  Or, some mothers will save up all their laundry for Saturdays and enjoy doing a bulk laundry day.  Cooking can involve small children, but with multiple grades I often find myself without two hours to sit and cook one meal – that is the reality!- but you can chop many things at once and store, you can double batch cook, you can use a crock pot, or you can bulk cook on a weekend.  Cleaning can be done much the same way – you can choose to clean on a weekend day, or you can choose to clean one area deeply in different ways throughout the week.  There are a variety of approaches parents use, and one size does not fit all.

Sewing, mending, baking, handwork, getting ready for festivals can be brought in during an afternoon session and many parents seem to find this feasible.  Having a rhythm to your cleaning during the week is such a blessings and bonus. 

Self-care and care of relationships with your most significant others also requires time and energy.  Please be sure to put this on the list before you worry about homeschooling multiple grades or cleaning.  These things are the foundation of all other things in homeschooling.  Again, there are many back posts about self-care, but this one about burn-out in Waldorf homeschooling is one of my favorites.

Would love to hear from you.  What is holding you back?

Blessings and love,
Carrie