I had a dear friend of mine email me to ask about when to switch to colored pencils; what brand, and the ins and outs of pencils!  So I thought I would just share our experiences over the years as we have been through many colored pencil experiments at this point.

First of all, the timing to switch to colored pencils is rather individual, so do observe the child in front of you in the homeschooling environment.  Many do switch to colored pencil for writing only (with the drawings in Main Lesson Books still in block and stick crayons) in the second half of second grade or the beginning of third grade and the pictures/drawings in third grade are usually a combination of pencil and crayon.  By fourth grade all the drawings are typically in pencil with perhaps block or stick crayons for special parts of drawings or occasional drawings.  You will discover which picture calls for what as you teach!   

To be honest,  my  soon to be eighth grader is still using colored pencils to write.  We never switched to fountain pens, (GASP! the horror!) except for calligraphy work on certain assignments, because we both love the color and the ease of pencils.  I will try to take pictures of some of the really amazing work our daughter did in seventh grade and show  the differences between things written in calligraphy versus pencil.  It brings forth different aesthetics and feelings. This year,  in eighth grade, our daughter’s Main Lesson Book work will include colored pencils, graphite pencil, calligraphy pen, perhaps we will try our  fountain pen for some of the history summaries.  I know some Waldorf Schools use even some regular pens but to me, they really are not pretty and don’t appeal to either of the sanguine pieces of myself or my daughter though – just being honest! We will do a few pieces that are typed (typing typically comes in during ninth grade in the Waldorf Schools but we are home and will probably do some typing this year).  We are also unorthodox in that we never switched to using a regular sized three ring binder for seventh and eighth grades like most Waldorf School classes do…because neither one of us liked the aesthetics of it so we just continued to use the main lesson book style we loved…..but that is another post!

So what brand of  pencils??

The gold standard in Waldorf Schools seems to be the Lyra pencils.  We have used both Lyra and Primsacolor over the years.  At first, we didn’t like the Primsacolor as much as they seemed to break easier, but recent batches we have bought didn’t seem to have these problems (or maybe they just work well with middle school aged children??).  Now we pretty much only buy Primsacolor, but certainly have a HUGE stock of Lyras in varying shapes and colors from over the year, and we use both brands readily and for different things. You will get to know the hues of your pencils!

This post was very, very helpful to me when we were starting out:  Lyra versus Primsacolor  You can compare the hues of the colors by viewing this post.

Here are a few more of my suggestions regarding writing utensils:

• Remember, that in the early grades, no matter what utensil you use for writing, you are working in tiny increments with lots of aids for borders, lines, spacing, etc…Remember those golden paths, golden stars between letters, using a three pronged sky-earth-water line for cursive, etc.  In the middle years of grades three through six is when most people switch to writing in cursive with fountain pens.    So it doesn’t have to come in third.  Fourth is the most typical grade to move from writing in crayon to fountain pen.
• You can start out writing with the giant triangular shaped Lyra pencils in the second half of second grade or beginning of third grade.    They can really help grip.
• Do NOT buy the giant boxes of 24 to 100 colors for small children!  More is NOT better!  They really need nothing more than red, blue, yellow and green, sometimes purple,  for second grade.  You can add in one color at a time, which can be very sweet!  The writing typically is more stick crayon and moving into pencil in second grade, so it is a gradual process.
• Fingerplays throughout first through third grades are important, as is writing with the feet.  That really has nothing to do with pencils, but thought I would throw that in there!   And remember, probably one of the peaks in fine motor control for these earlier grades is actually in FIFTH grade, so don’t expect too much in second or third, especially out of those poor, eager little first born girls!  It can be easy to push but please don’t!
• The triangular giant Ferbys can help a child get a good grip, but I think also look carefully at hand strength, core strength, posture…some children seem to need the weight of a colored stick  crayon to hold them back and drag along the paper so they make careful letters and some really need to move to a colored pencil.  Observe your child!
• Cursive writing is usually practiced in second grade, but not used in writing things in the Main Lesson Book until third grade or even beginning of fourth grade, depending upon the child and the fluency and ease with which they write in cursive. 
• Third graders can be pretty careless with writing in general, no matter if you use colored crayons or pencils..so think about how much you are asking for, if you are setting good boundaries about the work being done in a careful way..but don’t ask for so much! Not everything needs a summary, and pick and choose what blocks you are going to require writing for…
• Grade Four is typically when the child has 12 colored pencils plus stick and block crayons.  Sometimes you really need those block crayons,even in the upper grades, for something where it is just right.  Middle school grades is where one can expand into even more colors.

Hope that helps some of you in your planning,

Carrie

Today I am fortunate to be over in Tiffany’s space at Live Learn Love Eat. Here is  the opening of that post:

A WISE OLD OWL
A wise old owl sat in an oak,
The more he heard, the less he spoke;
The less he spoke, the more he heard;
Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird.

-Traditional Mother Goose Rhyme

I do not profess to be wise (nor old!), but as I head into my ninth year of Waldorf homeschooling, the sentiment of this rhyme resonates with me more and more. I used to feel as if I had pat and succinct answers for the questions families asked regarding Waldorf Education. I could talk about the work of Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher, and his work into looking at the development of the spiritual human being throughout the lifespan. I could talk about how Waldorf Education was a holistic method of education that Rudolf Steiner helped to develop in order to address the head, heart and hands of the child. I could talk about the eight artistic pillars of Waldorf education that works to develop the capacities of the child in a holistic manner that incorporates the art of speech, drama, drawing, painting, modeling, singing and musical instruments, movement, and handwork.

However, I think today, after homeschooling our oldest child  now entering eighth grade, and homeschooling our middle child now entering fifth grade, and with our youngest child getting ready to embark on one final kindergarten year, I would tell you that ….. to read the rest, please go visit Tiffany’s blog, Live Learn Love Eat.

Many blessings and thank you to Tiffany!

Carrie

We are up to page 27 in this glorious book by teacher Stephen Spitalny.  He talks about the development of self consciousness from birth or before birth and how we experience ourselves as separate until in our 30’s we may have “feelings of isolation and deep separateness”.  This is a very personal and inner experience of aloneness irrespective of our life circumstances.  At this point in our lives, we have the choice and option to forge our own spiritual path that re-creates the connectedness to the spiritual world that we were born with. 

In order to see this development of self-consciousness, we look at children in the early years of Waldorf Education are seen as having two fundamental processes at work:

• First, the physical development of the body
• Second, the increasing awareness of self.

Author Spitalny details the development of the infant to the toddler to the preschool-aged child.  He describes how during all of the early years children have a need for repetition and sameness.  Repetition, in Waldorf Education, is seen as building the will of the child.  From page 31:  “Adults need to be aware of this and support the child’s desire for having the same things over and again, because it serves a developmental need.”

The role of a toddler’s “no” is fully described.  This is a very large leap toward awareness of self in a young child that sets the child on a path that ends eventually around the age of 21 in which the young adult is connected to the core essence of themselves (the “I” or “ego”)

One thing that is pointed out that can be of interest in this age of selfies and documenting almost every aspect’s of a child’s life with pictures, video and social media is the idea that children birth through seven should not be shown pictures of themselves over and over as this is a prematurely awakening experience.  Children should love in the eyes of their caregivers, and from this becomes their beginning experiences of consciousness.

Children have the innate ability to experience things adults do not find accessible, such as forces within nature at work, or sensing the thoughts of others. “The arising of the intellect and the awareness of the self as a separate being from all that is around it leads to a gradual diminishing of the faculty of sensing thoughts and feelings of others, and a loss of the direct experience of nature.”

Many blessings,

Carrie

So, I am in the midst of planning.  Fifth grade planning is done; I am still working on kindergarten and eighth grade planning. I finally decided on blocks for eighth grade to include:

• August:  Geometry/Mensuration
• September:  Physics (mainly electricity, hydraulics and aeronautics)
• October:  American History
• November:  Organic Chemistry
• December:  Geography of Asia
• Christmas Break
• January:  Oceanography/Metereology (although I am  still debating about placing metereology into ninth grade and just focusing on oceanography)
• February:  World History Themes
• March:  Anatomy/Physiology
• April:  Spring break and a short block on the Evolution of Human Freedom that will cover some of the wonderful biographers of peacemakers who changed the world 
• May:  Medical Geography (the block my eighth grader picked)

I had planned an almost five week block of Revolutions but decided at the last minute that Revolutions would be better suited for us to go with the polarities found in ninth grade – binary, comedy and tragedy, the hot and cold found in thermodynamics, etc.

There are a few things that will be done daily (math) and a few things that will be running a few times a week (High School Spanish I, High School Latin I, and then World Geography and some focus on governmental structures for our state and nation).

Most of my blocks for eighth grade are either done or 50 to 75 percent done, so it is good to see the ending line in sight.  I wanted to be done planning everything by June, but it didn’t happen, so here we are.

How is planning coming for you?  I would love to hear where you are.

Blessings,
Carrie

“My experience has taught me that every child has a natural artist within.” – Learning About the World Through Modeling, Arthur Auer

Ideas for An Introduction, Verses, Modeling by Age,  and More

Most importantly…

Do make modeling materials available to your child.  Arthur Auer states in his book that most children these days are not doing enough modeling at home or in the classroom. I taught Sunday School Kindergarten several years ago and I found that to be very true.  The kindergarteners did not seem to have any idea what to do when presented with a lump of homemade salt dough, and had to be taught how to pinch off pieces and make balls and little “snakes”. So, most importantly, have modeling materials and experiences for both your Early Years and grades children available.

An introduction…

An introduction to beeswax modeling materials for the small child for the very first time could include a beautiful story.  My friend Cypress has a story that she wrote for this purpose and shared on her blog  here.  There is also a story in the book “Learning About the World Through Modeling” by Arthur Auer, so you can check there.  That is a wonderful resource for modeling with both beeswax and clay throughout the grades.  For modeling heads in eighth grade I have liked the book, Modeling the Head in Clay by Lucchesi.

Verses

There are a  few verses to use as you are getting out your beeswax modeling materials found in different publications, including one in “A Child’s Seasonal Treasury” and “Learning About the World Through Modeling”.  You can also check my  Beeswax and Clay Modeling Pinterest Board that has two verses for the Early Years one younger grades verse.  For older grades, modeling is tied in with lessons, but one could also use any number of beautiful bee poems.

Other free inspiration for the Early Years includes this free sample lesson from Live Education  http://www.live-ed.com/Waldorf/PROD/k_living-kindergarten-introduction

When working with children, we need to know when to work with a more “construction” approach to modeling materials (ie, sticking things on) versus trying to make a figure or something arise out of the whole. 

Modeling In the Early Years Through Grade Eight

For ideas regarding small children under the age of seven and beeswax modeling, please go back to Part Two of this series for ideas.  Other ideas include making a simple ball, flat figures that can be stuck onto a window.  Children love to see adults making art, so your own example and time set aside for adult modeling is most important.   Concavity is a concept that often comes in most distinctly after the nine year change, so looking at this feature as predominant in an early year child’s creations may be telling.  

In grades one through three, it is helpful if the teacher or parent works on the “whole piece” idea of artistic modeling mentioned above – bringing something out of the unity of the piece of modeling material.  Letter and number symbols should be formed in beeswax as well as other creations.  The exploration of fundamental shapes in modeling – convex, concave, flat, elongated, etc  are important to explore before the child attempts to copy things the teacher  or parent is doing.    As eight to ten year olds gain strength in their hands, they  have more dexterity in working with beeswax, but it is important to make sure the children spend enough time warming the beeswax in their hands before attempting to model with it.  Clay can be used in increasingly larger amounts for main lesson work in homeschooling after age nine as children are more grounded on the earth. Children ages nine and up tend to model with more concave forms than before. 

The grades of four through six are VERY important.  These are years when adults really need to be encouraging.  Children in these grades can be very self-conscious and aware that they don’t do some things as well as other things (this is true I find in physical activity skills as well) and will shut down if they don’t think they can model well.    They want their pieces to look more “real”.  To do this requires a big leap in fine-motor skills and artistic perception.  It is also important to talk about how modeling is not about such scientific accuracy in these grades, and to help the child set realistic expectations and model that for the child in a specific way.  Modeling takes on a much more formal role in these grades.  Animal forms are important in fourth and fifth grade. 

The twelve year change is important.  Arthur Auer writes on page 140 of his wonderful book, “Modeling harmonious and interesting forms can help them (twelve year olds) balance and readjust to the new mechanics of their elongating limbs.  They can appreciate anew the infinite possibilities of movement and form of their hands.”

For ages thirteen and up, we provide experiences in carving wood and soapstone and clay.  Working with heavy material is important.  We explore through these substances the things we are studying in the curriculum. 

For the Artist Within You

Every adult has an artist inside them.  Arthur Auer has wonderful exercises for the adult in terms of looking at your hands, modeling archetypal forms, archetypal animal gestures, and more. 

Last But Not Least

Please don’t forget that opportunities for modeling exist all around us.  For small children, the sandbox and snow are wonderful opportunities.  Bread dough on baking day is another opportunity.  Playing with rich clay (frequently found down here in the Deep South) is another whole body experience.   Making salt dough together is a wonderful activity.  So, please slow down, and really savor these experiences and wonder with your child. 

Many blessings,

Carrie

“An artistic aim of modeling at any stage is not to make exact copies of  natural objects, but to more freely render aspects of their essential gesture and form, thus heightening our awareness of the world and ourselves.” – Learning About The World Through Modeling, Arthur Auer

So, How do I begin?

The first place to begin is to practice yourself.  Take a half of a sheet of beeswax and warm it in your hands.  In the beginning, there really is no form to take as this is an exploration of a gift from our friends the bees, and we gladly drink in the smell of sunshine and flowers and hold the warmth in our hands.  You can stretch the half sheet out and make a bowl, leaf or flower.  This is demonstrated in this  lovely tutorial from Sarah Baldwin over at Bella Luna Toys.  I find most challenges arise when one takes too large a piece that seems impossible to warm enough. Even warmed, the beeswax will not be fluid; there will be resistance as this is an important part of the process of modeling with our will forces.

One color is enough to experiment with the process of modeling, and the beeswax can be saved, warmed and made into a new creation.  As a child turns five or so, he or she may want to make little shapes. However, remember that the kindergarten years is still about process over product; it is still a time of free exploration. Perhaps something will arise, for example if you tell a little nature story whilst the child is holding the beeswax in his or her hands to warm it. This is about the process of holding, warming, smelling, touching, exploring, and yes, willing with the hands to see what can be made and perhaps then destroyed and made again.   I remember a snippet in one of the Waldorf Newsletter Clearinghouse newsletters that talked about how a Kindergarten teacher would lay out a little “scene” of silks, stones, sticks, etc and perhaps make one little beeswax character for the scene and just leave it open for the children to add to with their own pieces of beeswax.

Small preschoolers often want to stick and stack soft colors of beeswax together like building up blocks.  Arthur Auer talks about this on page 35 of his book if you would like to read more.  However, I feel one of the main ideas with beeswax modeling for the young child is to make something out of the whole, out of the unity.  So, for example, as Sarah Baldwin demonstrates in the video linked above,  a little mouse would have a pinching the beeswax to make the feet, ears, whiskers, as opposed to breaking pieces off and rolling them around and sticking them to  your creation.  In the grades, as we use more colors and such, then the part of adding to the whole does appear, but I feel  this is not as much the work of the small child.  So again, perhaps ways to alleviate this for the under –7 children  is to keep the process  “process oriented”, stick to one color or non-pigmented beeswax, and to model with your child. 

Types of Beeswax

For a small child in the kindergarten (ages five and six), you can, as mentioned , buy beeswax that does not have pigmentation.  Companies such as Stockmar add minerals for pigment to their beeswax and the colors are vibrant, which is perfect for the grades.  Companies such as Artemis add plant pigment to their beeswax and the colors are more of a pastel hue.

Our next and last part to this series will look at inspirations for modeling, look at modeling by age, and more!  If you need to see the first part of this series, please see here

Blessings,

Carrie

Modeling is one of the oldest basic human activities and brings us to some of the most essential parts of being human – the spiritual activity of art, the grapple with the will and transformation of problem solving.  Modeling is a part of the  rhythm of work in a week for children in the Early Years, and is used extensively in the grades.  In seventh grade, hands and feet are often modeled as part of the journey into physiology, the Renaissance, and perspective and often the head is modeled in eighth grade. High School moves into more serious sculptural design as the student discovers the sculptural forces within himself.

Modeling strengthens many forces in the children.   Modeling is wonderful tactile experience to strength the Sense of Touch, one of The Twelve Senses often mentioned in connection with Waldorf Education.  It is a way to strengthen the will forces of the hand, provides an exploration into flexibility and visual perception and forces of conceptual strength and incorporate the Sense of Smell.  The Sense of Life is strengthened as a child handles materials as the materials are sometimes not the easiest to work with.  Beeswax can be hard at first and needs warmth and softening; clay can be wet and sticky.  But yet, if children move through this with willing, this medium can become moments of triumph.   You can read more about the connection of the life forces of the body to sculpture in Waldorf Journal Project 6.

For small children, beeswax modeling material is often used to strengthen the Sense of Warmth.   This article by Rahima Baldwin Dancy explains why beeswax modeling material is used when children are younger than the nine year change, and how this does not mean that small children should never play with clay, but why beeswax modeling materials are often preferred below fourth grade.

There was a book that created quite a stir a few years ago regarding using clay with grades-aged children below the nine year change. You can also see this article regarding the use of clay in the early GRADES.  http://www.waldorflibrary.org/journals/22-research-bulletin/1201-autumnwinter-2012-volume-17-2-modeling-clay-for-all-ages  This article points out that there is a lot of dogma around this subject and that Steiner did indeed talk about clay for the early grades (but not the Early Years!)  However, I will say at least in my experience, Waldorf teachers in the American Waldorf Schools that I have met are not at all open to using clay for children below fourth grade.   I am not sure if this is changing or not, so if you are a Waldorf teacher in a Waldorf School, please chime in.

Some people ask at what age should an Early  Years child begin with beeswax modeling.  I have seen some say as early as two or three years old.  I think in the home environment of Waldorf homeschooling, early experiences with modeling would include being outside with sand, beach, river clay, and also with domestic experiences such as bread dough shaping. I find bringing beeswax modeling to a five and six year old to be a good place to begin (unless you have older students and your four year old is clamoring to have a piece too!)

In our next post, we will look at how to begin.

Many blessings,
Carrie

This is the third part of looking at normal stages of sleep for children. 

Part One covers children ages four through nine.

Part Two covers children ages eight through twelve.

Today, we are going to look at teenagers and sleep.  While infants and children are often “larks” – waking up early and going to bed early, many adolescents are “owls” who wake up late and stay up late.  Sleep patterns are controlled by hormonal factors and brain signaling related to development, so this transition to a time of being “owls” is often followed back to a transition of being a “lark” again as maturation occurs. 

Early rising for school doesn’t mean that teens will feel ready to go to sleep from a hormonal and brain development standpoint, so what often occurs is actually a shrinking in the number of hours a teenager gets.  And unfortunately, a teenager needs more sleep than either adults or much younger siblings.  They still need about nine to  ten hours of sleep a night!

In the book “The Teenage Brain:  A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults” by Frances E. Jensen, MD with Amy Ellis Nutt, the authors note, “Memory and learning are thoughts to be consolidated during sleep, so it’s a requirement for adolescents and as vital to their health as the air they breathe and the food they eat.” (page 89).  There are some very interesting studies in this book noted in regards to learning, motor learning and sleep.  It has been found that studying or practicing something and then “sleeping on it” really does increase retention and performance. 

Melatonin is released about two hours later in a teenager’s system and it also lingers longer, causing a teenager to be drowsy in the morning.   There are also interesting differences in amount of slow-wave deep sleep cycles in teenagers as compared to adults, and differences in the pruning of brain synapses as related to learning and sleep.

From the book “The Teenaged Brain”, page 96:  “It [lack of good sleep] can have profound and lasting effects on teenagers and could contribute to everything from juvenile delinquency to depression, obesity, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease.  Studies have shown that teenagers who report sleep disturbances have more often consumed soft drinks, fried foods, sweets, and caffeine.  They also report less physical activity and more time in front of TV and computers.  Another study found that teenagers who had trouble sleeping at ages twelve to fourteen were two and a half times more likely to report suicidal thoughts at ages fifteen to seventeen than adolescents with good sleep habits.”

Ways to help your teen’s sleep include:

• Taking away electronic devices before bedtime.  Those should be locked down for the night.
• The bright LED light of a computer screen should be turned off an hour before bedtime.   The lights suppress melatonin
• Have your child do “non-tech” activities at night and do the same activities at the same time at night.
• Make lists of things that need to be done to help decrease any anxiety.
• Avoid television in the bedroom – associating television and food with bedtimes is often cited by experts as problematic for healthy sleep patterns.
• Keep the house as peaceful and emotionally stable as possible.  Arguments and tension disrupt sleep!
• One epidemiologist recommends that teenagers should have a bedtime that is 10 PM or before, according to sleep studies.   Keeping bedtimes and awake times consistent are helpful.
• Check to see what caffeinated drinks your teen is drinking during the day to stay awake.  Cutting those out may be helpful in a quest for sleep.
• And as always, speak to your teenager’s medical team if you feel the fatigue or sleep challenges your teen is facing seems different than the norm.

Blessings,
Carrie

Our last post regarding Chapter One of this book can be found here.  One of the major premises in Waldorf Education for the Early Years is that the child is working on the growth of his or her own physical body and that this work continues for a longer period than we might otherwise think.  For example, respiration and pulse rates do not establish consistent rhythms until the child is six or seven years old.  Eye muscles for tracking take at least eight years to develop according to this chapter (and many of the optometrists who specialize in visual therapy will tell you this is still developing up until age fourteen), the frontal lobes of the cortex are still developing throughout the teenaged years, etc.  Therefore a fundamental truth of Waldorf Education is that:

To allow the child’s forces of growth and formation to do their task without hindrance allows him to build a solid foundation for physical health throughout life.  These are the same forces that power the intellect, and as they are gradually released from their body forming activities, the intellect develops.  However, the intellect can be forced into early functioning at the expense of the developing physical body. 

The child is seen as a gradually awakening being who is born with a “dream consciousness” and children are seen as attaining and coming to self-consciousness at their own pace. 

The NEEDS of the newborn are seen not just as the need for food, warmth, dryness, being kept clean but the “soul needs” of attention, affection and nourishing touch, the need for acceptance and welcome and appreciation.  This is the basis for the child in growth to develop a basic trust in the world and in other people.

I would love to hear your thoughts on any of the topics in this book up to page 27.

Hope you are reading along,

Carrie

If you hang around at all in the world of Waldorf parenting and homeschooling, I think you quickly discover rhythm is frequently discussed and seen as the answer to many of the challenges that parents of tiny children face.

It is also something that can lead to a feeling of guilt for many parents – I was nursing on demand, and now I have to transition to having more set times on things?  I was following my baby’s lead, and now I have to lead, and how do I do that and still respect my child?  What do I do when my (older) child doesn’t “follow” what I thought/had planned?

Nursing is a separate topic from this – nursing is always on an infant and toddler’s lead.  If you need more ideas in this area and how to craft a rhythm around this, please do look up the terms breastfeeding, toddler eating, etc in the search engine box on this blog.  There are many ways to hold rhythm for a nursing infant and toddler and yet hold the whole family in a rhythm as well.

Rhythm can be your  lifesaver. Not only does it solve so many behavioral and discipline challenges just by having a rhythm of what normally happens when, it also can free you up to be helpful to not just your own family members, but  to neighbors and community outside of your immediate family.  If you feel like you are drowning in your own home under meals, diapering and potty training and sleep times, rhythm is your friend and ally to help build this ability to help yourself and others.   If you are convinced of this, it takes away much of the guilt that you are doing something that is not respectful “to” your child.  To the contrary, rhythm is the most respectful teacher of your child and in integrating the family as a whole.  Rhythm is also a way mothers can learn to be content and happy AT home, rather than having to go out every minute.

Rhythm is about helping your child meet their capacities in a developmentally appropriate way.  Rhythm is about getting the needs of the whole family met; which is very important as children mature and grow.  Rhythm is about the child being part of the family, and the family in unity.

Rhythm helps foster boundaries,  for a child who sees that parents have work within the home that nourishes the entire family and also has the time and space for patience with small children.

Rhythm helps you to learn to say “no” to fast tracking childhood through too many outside activities.   Rhythm helps you realize the limitation of one parent, multiple children, and length of time things take with small children. Rhythm gives one a sense of time and space.

Rhythm isn’t set times – it can be a general flow with plenty of  time and space around the margins.  However, it can also provide a needed push toward regular meal, bathroom and rest/sleep times.  This can be such a wonderful thing for families where this does not come naturally.

Rhythm can be built from where you are.  If the only thing you have that is rhythmical in your family is a waking up time, you can build from there.  If the only thing you have going is that you tend to eat dinner with the other adults in your family at a certain time, then you can build from there.

Rhythm can take into account your goals.  Perhaps your goal is to get your toddler to go to sleep earlier – rhythm can help you work towards that.  Rhythm can help you with potty training and also with meal times.

Rhythm  can be flexible depending upon the seasons, the day of the week and account for differences in the weekdays and weekends.

There are many, many back posts on this blog regarding rhythm, but one you might enjoy is the five secrets to setting a rhythm for your home and this seven part series regarding rhythm that begins with this post.

Many blessings,
Carrie