I have thought ahead to what our rhythm will look like in the fall with a six year old kindergartener, an eighth grader who needs not only block lessons but “track” lessons, and a fifth grader.  I think this rhythm would work well for those whose third child is in grades 1 –3 as well.  For those with three children or more in the upper grades, there would need to be more tweaking I think – please be sure to go back to this post about homeschooling Waldorf with large families:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2015/02/23/peaceful-times-in-homeschooling-a-big-family/

This is just what worked for us last year when we were really “on task” and what I have had to add to it for eighth grade.  It takes most of the day – 8:30 to about 2:30 or 3.

Here is our sequential order, but no particular times attached:

• Daily Walk with six year old kindergartener twice a week, fifth grader will work on any independent math work or reading associated with school, math with eighth grader twice a week (like the math that should be in a math block but we don’t have time in the year for three math blocks) and once a week “life skills” with eighth grader ( I did that in seventh grade too, where we read books related to our faith or related to emotional intelligence, or the more “traditional” life skills such as personal finance, etc) .  The times we are walking either the older children will go or will be finishing main lesson book work, especially the eighth grader if we are in intense blocks.  It would be nice to have enough time for all of us to take a long, long walk but quite frankly I would rather get school done earlier and have more time in the afternoon.
• Main Lesson  with fifth grader – Eighth grader has piano practice, independent work such as writing rough drafts of summaries, finishing drawings or painting, independent math practice and also will be doing some crafts and play with our kindergartener.
• Circle, story and work of the day with kindergartener; fifth grader and eighth grader will relax or do whatever chores need to happen. I normally do our kindergartener first, but I think moving his things to the more mid-morning could work better for us at this point.
• Main Lesson with Eighth Grader – Fifth grader has  music practice and playing with our little kindergartner.
• Lunch
• Rest
• After lunch, some days each week I will work with our fifth grader on different track activities such as movement and math games and some days I will work with our eighth grader on world geography or American civics.  Our little kindergartener can play then.
• A few days a week we will have handwork and woodworking or other practical arts and our little kindergartener can join in.
• Closing verse and done!

It sounds like a lot on paper, but it really is fairly casual in terms of the fact that I don’t mind being flexible and letting things go depending upon our sanity level and what we feel up to.  I used to always try to end by lunch when my older two are younger ( and many times, most of the time have not felt successful in getting everything back together after lunch,  but last year with a seventh grader by necessity things went longer)  but with an eighth grader I feel like she needs a bit more as you just cannot fit everything into blocks…and with a lack of outside classes, I feel we really should get to our practical arts (outside of the kitchen, which we always manage to get to!)

Things change every year as they grow, so we will see if this is successful or not.  I am always willing to be flexible in trying out rhythms.

Would love to hear your daily rhythm, especially those of you with seventh graders and up!

Many blessings,
Carrie

Sometimes toddlers and preschoolers do funny things, and parents ask, “Why is it that I can’t get Little Jimmy to drink anything but chocolate milk with his school lunch?”  “Why is it Little Abby only has worn cowboy boots for the past three months every day?”

And then there are mothers of older teenagers and sometimes their list of worries can be much more serious and upsetting:  sexting, driving home with a drunk driver, car accidents, drug and alcohol use, graduating high school, teenage pregnancy, getting into college, saving money from a job so there will be something to start out in life with, the possibility of rape;  the list goes on.  Even if we have total confidence in our wonderful teenagers and their abilities to make great choices, the list can still be there in the back of our minds.

It is an interesting juxtaposition.

Thinking about some of the bigger issues that older teenagers can face makes the issue of chocolate milk and cowboy boots seem what they are – small issues that will pass in time. It is not that these topics don’t deserve thought and consideration.  Not at all!  But sometimes it can be helpful to hear and see older children in action.  The older child and teenager is where your toddler and preschooler someday will be.

This is not to negate the really important job of raising a toddler and preschooler because these years are the foundation of the years to come.  You may really not be over-thinking it, but just building a long-range perspective can take years.

I remember being a new mother and I DID feel like a deer in the headlights with my toddlers and preschoolers.  Now I have an almost 14 year old and a five year old, with a ten year old in between,  and I am starting to understand where mothers of the older teenagers are coming from with some of their worries and a bigger picture than picky eating or sleeping (although those things are super important at the time and when you are in the middle of it!). I am forever humbled at every turn.

Going back to basics always helps.  SOCIETY makes parenting toddlers and preschoolers MUCH HARDER than it should be.  We have forgotten what tiny children are all about and what the media and often even what  mainstream groups that cater to toddlers, preschoolers and their parents show us as “normal” is actually a version of adulthood brought down and made over for these tiny ages – and  so much of it is commercially driven, at least in American society.

The rules of parenting the toddler and preschooler should simply revolve around rescuing your toddler from near-death several times an hour (exhausting!), rest and sleep, trying to get a toddler to eat and potty train (exhausted yet?), helping guide a toddler’s wants and needs,  and playing!  Where society makes it hard is that it is not child-friendly, and with all the “experts” out there, mothers have forgotten how to be the expert on their own child. Also, there are no longer  great support networks for new parents that provide the “real deal” as to what these tiny ages are about!

Remember, the way to get these things “done” with a toddler or preschooler is

• Rhythm  – Rhythm and consistency, not over- talking and over- explaining, is the KEY to discipline!
• Outdoor time
• An unhurried, happy life
• Rest and sleep
• Not feeling as if a tiny child constantly needs bigger, better, to be pushed, more stimulation, more classes outside the home – RESIST the urge to bring the adult world to your child. Ask yourself, did I do this when I was a child of that age or did I do it in middle school and high school??
• The idea that childhood should be PROTECTED
• Free yourself from the idea that a small child needs to be entertained.  They need meaningful work and  over time they need to develop the ability to occupy themselves in the home environment with play

Developing a long-term understanding of the development of the human being can be a helpful guide in a society where developmental stages are not valued.  I am so grateful for all the parents out there that do try, that do worry, that do work to help guide their children.  Thank you for being such good parents!

Blessings,
Carrie

I think choosing how we spend our time outside of when our children are in school –whether that be in public, private or homeschool – is an important topic.

If your children are in public or private school, I know many families who choose to do no extra activities outside of school.  This gives children time to come home, relax and play, get homework done, eat with the family and go to bed on time.  I know families that adhere to this even when their children are teenagers, despite pressure to “do lots of things to put on a college application.”  If any activities are chosen, it might be one activity at a time that has a short life span – ie, an activity that might span 4-6 weeks and then culminate in an event.

I know many  homeschooling families that will only choose activities that the entire family can participate in (or least all the grades-aged children and therefore the younger children coming up to this age will eventually do). I find this to be especially true of families with four or more children. If the family is very large, for example, I have known homeschooling families with six to twelve children, they may choose two activities such as soccer and dance and the children divide according to their interests.  Even this can start to get a little dicey because of age requirements for different levels, but it still is a way to limit.

I think the families that are running around the most that I see in the homeschooling communities are actually those with one to three children!  There is this idea that every child needs their separate things to do.  Sometimes that is true.  However, I think it takes really careful thought and consideration so it doesn’t turn out that each child has there “own three separate things” so therefore you are running nine places between three children!

I don’t know as children below 12 need much in the way of outside, adult-led, structured activities, dependent upon the child’s temperament and extraversion levels.  Young teens  of 13-15 sometimes struggle because it seems as if many of the activities for “children” are up to age 12 and therefore those ages 13-15 need to be in a teen group of some kind.  My almost fourteen year old often feels left out in a group of older teens at this point and I have noticed this across the board in observing the 13-15 year olds. So I have tried to look for activities that still can include her with her sister and children her age (because 13-15 year olds often seem to feel left out with only smaller children as well) or activities that especially include a good grouping of 13 to 15 year olds.  This sort of grouping  also makes sense to me based upon Steiner’s pedagogy of the sixteen/seventeen year old change.

I would love to hear your thoughts.  How do you handle outside activities?  At what point do you feel children really, really need something to do outside the home?  Not to generalize, but many mothers of 11 and 12 year old girls have told me that is when they really felt their girls needed something more and many mothers of boys told me their boys didn’t care so much to do something until they were closer to 14.

Tell me how many children are in your family that are grades-aged and how you handle outside activities! Let’s have a discussion!

Blessings,
Carrie

One thing I have heard frequently in parenting and in supporting other parents is this area of the “unsupportive” spouse.  Whether it be breast-feeding, co-sleeping, homeschooling, eliminating media – it seems like this comes up a lot.  “I would like this, but my partner is not supportive.”

I can only offer you a few suggestions from other mothers  that I have heard over the past fourteen years or so…

1.  Remember your spouse is a parent too.  Sometimes we are fortunate enough to have been breastfed/have been raised with no media/were homeschooled ourselves.  Then we bring that to the table as part of us, and our future spouses and partners KNOW this about us.  However, many of us were only exposed to these ideas AFTER we had children and now it is almost like changing the rules of the game in a sense.  We feel as if we have better information and knowledge to make a better choice for our families, but we are bringing something totally new to the table for our partners or spouses…which leads to….

2.  Communication; have the honest dialogue. Communication is really important. If you set it up as “I am right and you are wrong in “X” parenting matter” ….well, you probably aren’t going to get very far.  But a heart-felt conversation in which you address your partner’s fears, assumptions, wishes in a respectful way…that can go a long way.  Be a team together.  Share information and support each other.  Talk about how you came to the conclusion you are now holding as truth; maybe that will help your partner’s journey as well.

3.  Can you respectfully compromise?  There are two of you, and you have to parent like it.  Are there baby steps?   

4.  Can you offer alternatives that  protect your child?  What compromise can your spouse make to help meet you? 

5.  Give it time.  Some families start out with a specified time frame to try things out – three weeks seems like a good time frame – and see what happens! Is everyone happier? 

If the time passes, and your spouse is not happy but overall the family seems more happy, ask yourself:  is this a parenting problem or a relationship challenge?  In other words, is this really about breastfeeding/cosleeping/media-free/homeschooling/etc. or is it really about something else? See point #7 below.

6. Be respectful.  Mothers often are the ones researching things and wanting to move things in a certain direction; be respectful and again, allow communication and time for your partner to work on this issue that you have raised.

7. How is the rest of the relationship?    I read an article once about “The Unsupportive Spouse” by Gregory Popcak in “The Nurturing Parenting”  (1996) and he wrote about how we cannot use these issues as a shield to avoid each other or not work on our relationship with our partners.  If you need help, get help. A great therapist or counselor can be the wonderful third party and objective sounding board.  You may grow even closer having worked through some of the challenges inherent in parenting!

I would love to hear your stories….how did you and your spouse handle big issues that you disagreed upon?

Blessings and love,
Carrie

The last post I wrote about language arts through the Waldorf homeschooling curriculum  brought out some terrific comments by veteran homeschooling mothers regarding finding differing expectations between Waldorf homeschooling curriculums.  One of my long-time readers wrote this brilliant comment:

Thanks again, Carrie, for your thoughts on this. There can be such a discrepancy not just between what’s done at school or home but also in comparing home ed. curriculums. Looking at Live Ed, say, or Path of Discovery, and then comparing it to much of what Christopherus suggests is do-able at a certain age for example. The expectations of the child, not just in language arts but in all areas, are quite different.
I agree with what you say about home educated children – I think they develop to their own individual time-tables, regardless of what experts might say or what other children are doing.
Perhaps being allowed to linger in a stage of development allows them to really complete it in a way that being hurried on to the next thing does not.

Yes! Oh, yes!

So always go back to basics:  read  Steiner’s lectures and  look at your child.  Know the general ideas of artistic and academic goals for each grade and know that if you are using curriculum, they do vary fairly significantly at points.  Most of all, look at the child in front of you because when it comes down to it, that is what you have:  the child in front of you and where they are and you can only build from there!  That is the reality of teaching!

Why is it that  you often hear about children in the homeschooling environment (and not even just Waldorf homeschooling, you  ofen hear this across homeschooling methodologies  unless a child is really being pushed in the academic areas or the child is just naturally brilliant) is  that sometimes a child didn’t read until 12, or they just didn’t get math until all of the sudden when they turned 14, etc. ? I think this may, like my reader suggests above,  have to do with the  time and space that homeschooling affords.  In my experience, it seems that many times the only children that meet many of these  “pre-set milestones”  are the eager beaver first-born girls.  Maybe in a group some of these children would be the little ones sort of ahead of the class in general or who get it easily and help their classmates.  Maybe  it has to do with a more esoteric reason, such the guiding hand of Spirit over  homeschoolers as a group across the land.  I don’t know, other than it just seems to be.

So, be careful with curriculums.  They can be a great guidepost to help brand-new mothers who have never seen a Waldorf classroom nor heard transition verses nor seen main lesson books.  However, I notice many mothers coming up are buying ALL the curriculums. ALL the different curriculums on the market! Are you the type of the mother that can sort through all of this?  Is there one that really matches your family better and where your child is?

At the point you are sorting through all of this, why not buy resources and make your own curriculum since the curriculums are all different anyway?  Yes, each curriculum has its gems, each one has its own voice.  But so do you! You have your own voice, your own style – and this is EXACTLY what happens in a Waldorf classroom with a teacher.  Every teacher is different and brings their own twist to the subject material.   Every teacher will design a block in a different way.

Being a homeschooling parent means being a teacher.  You are learning to be a teacher, and it will come.

Blessings,
Carrie

This is a big subject as entire books have been devoted to this matter.  I recommend that Waldorf homeschooling parents first of all read Steiner’s lectures regarding language arts. The lectures compiled in “Genius of Language”; lectures also found in “Discussions With Teachers” and “Practical Advice to Teachers”.

In the Waldorf homeschooling world, we also books of secondary pedagogy such as “Living Language” from Christopherus Homeschooling Resources, Inc which I think is very helpful for grades one through five if you are putting together your own blocks, the smattering of lessons for grades 2 through 8 such as Dorothy Harrer’s  book “An English Manual” (free as an ebook over at Rudolf Steiner Library On-Line) which includes mainly grammar (but not so much writing or progression to writing).  Also, brand new this year are little grammar workbooks from a Waldorf perspective for grades four and up here (but I think only grade four is out right now).  Unlike “Waldorf math” where a scope and sequence is laid out by such authors as Jarman or York, I have not found a true scope and sequence for language arts (writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation) other than “Living Language” (– especially for the upper grades, since, again, “Living Language” covers grades one through five).

All of this is important because, after all, in Waldorf homeschooling, we have those summaries (I say this partly with my tongue in cheek – read on).  You know, the summaries that run through all the grades in trying to summarize information in the upper grades and sentences in the lower grades.  We do use what we write to learn to read and to practice our letter and word –finding abilities in the lower grades, and in how we work with grammar and punctuation and spelling.  We find this work  in our rhythm of practice, in recall, a deepening of the subject using art as the vehicle and yes, writing as an academic piece.  (Not that this rhythm of “material-drawing-summary” should be the way to do every thing!  Trying to decide what to put in the main lesson book is part of being the teacher, and not everything has to go in the main lesson book – trying to put everything in there is a sure recipe for burn-out on both your part and the student’s part!  Is the goal of Waldorf Education writing summaries? Is art the secondary step to get to the summary?   NO, I say emphatically!)

I find that writing in and of itself is an activity that involves much thinking, and therefore I believe we really see the maturation of writing when we see the maturation of the human being.  Being able to think about a subject and write  about it clearly in order to communicate to other people involves the twelve senses – I think especially in the choosing of words, punctuation, grammar, how we phrase things, how we analyze things and can synthesize this on paper – this involves being able to put ourselves in the place of another “I” on so many levels, to be able to communicate with the “other” in our audience and in our clarity.  To me, good writing is part of the hallmark and culmination of  these senses.

In the homeschooling environment I think this takes place later than in the school setting from what I have seen and heard in working with other homeschooling families.  Therefore,  I am always a bit baffled by this push for more mature “writing” in composing summaries in the grades four and below – to me, this is more the realm of copying sentences and then copying summaries  of a paragraph or two, dictation in perhaps end of fourth and yes in  fifth grade, yes, perhaps working together to go over ideas orally first in these grades so the child can get a sense of how to start compiling things….and then composing summaries gradually and gently in middle school with excellent writing towards the end of eighth grade and in high school.  That is my  own progression in my own  homeschooling, but certainly every child is different, and you as a homeschooling teacher will need to figure out what is right for your family.

I hope to write a series talking about language arts in each grade with a few ideas.  As I have pointed out, there are many books on these subjects and it is worth your time to think about the progression normally found in Waldorf Education and how your progression will be at home. My vote and inclination is that the things we find in Waldorf Education often, again, happens later in the home environment, especially for the very active boys and girls. 

Just my two cents!

Blessings,

Carrie

Blessings,
Carrie

In our last post in this series, we left off where after reading all of our resources, we have ideas, a general flow  of topics or stories for a block and set them on paper.  I find this especially simple for the lower grades. For the upper grades with subjects where I have to write and condense information,  I may take notes on paper from different resources and then gather them into one document on the computer – “The Silk Road”, “Charlemagne” etc.    This is especially  because I may have to combine sources to write a complete picture of something in history through a biography.   I have found that  I have to be careful and confirm things one source says against another source…just to be sure of accuracy for the upper grades – every author has a bias.  

With the early grades, it may be simpler in a way because you are choosing stories, not sifting through historical data or experiments to illustrate ideas in science, but the stories also have to be tailored to be the best story for your child through pedagogical storytelling.  For example, I can add in little details that appeal to my child’s temperament.  I also can also write little nature stories based upon the plants and animals in our area;  I can also put together verses and little songs.  (We do this tailoring in the upper grades too when we tell great biographies to our children and really tailor it for their temperament or what they need to see as a consequence positive and negative of certain choices in a historical figure’s life!) 

Then on to really work on the artistic.  Many times, this starts with chalkboard drawing.   I always had images “around” in  my head and could draw on a chalkboard fairly quickly, especially in the early grades of 1 through 4 or 5 or so….However, the drawings of the upper grades are much more intricate, and some of the drawings for seventh grade have taken three to four hours.  I do not think my chalkboard drawings for seventh and eighth grade are as up to par as some Waldorf teachers in the Waldorf Schools for the upper grades at this point.  I realize also that  those chalkboard drawings can take a weekend to put together and I don’t know as that is always a realistic or efficient  experience of time for a homeschooling mother, to be honest, especially with multiple children to homeschool….  So I would say I have used some chalkboard drawings this year, but  I have also had more the experience of creating on paper with charcoals, pen, pastels, colored pencil, veil painting, etc.   It seems quicker and a better use of my limited time to work in the medium my child will be working in (ie, the child is not working in chalkboard drawing).    Modeling also is still important – in eighth grade we will be tackling modeling the head!  Guess what I will be practicing this summer??

As we move up in the grades, I  find I also have to rely  in some ways more on images from other people – because, for example, I can’t just do a portrait of Lincoln anyway I like.  It has to look like Lincoln.  So when my plans are on paper then I may need to go back and add in specific images or ideas for imagery sources.   This is where books, pinterest, image searches, etc can come in handy.  However, you still have to bring your own creativity into it as far as layout and ideas.  Do you want charcoal drawings for this subject or how will you set the subject up to bring something new artistically into the layout, the title, etc?…. But back to the chalkboard drawing and artistic endeavors in general..

For some mothers who are just starting out, they may have to really work  the proportion of their chalkboard drawings and simple people and animals.  This is okay.  It is  important to be able to break it down into simple shapes with block crayons, stick crayons, chalk.   So the chalkboard can be a great medium for a homeschooling parent to work with!  What children in the home environment often need most, however, is you to sit down and draw with them when the time comes.  They are not in a classroom where they can look around and see other first graders drawing and how that other child is approaching it!  So in the home environment, don’t panic and do remember that if drawing or modeling or whatnot is difficult for you, remember the forms in grade one are simple!  They are for a first grader!  However, even children in grades 6-8 like you to draw with them in charcoal and later in pastel chalks, etc.  So plan to have finished products in a folder that you have done over the summer (or your own main lesson book) but also plan to sit down and do the artistic projects with your child.  

The  end of the lesson normally is new material or leaving with a deepening question or idea regarding the same topic.   Steiner often talked about leaving students with a question to think about…. 

I hope this helps you see that putting together blocks is actually not that difficult, but it takes doing it. You can do this!  I am  planning right now at night….hard work especially for eighth grade, since I am learning everything I forgot from school (LOL), but well worth the time.

I hope this helps.

Many blessings,
Carrie

This book, by Stephen Spitalny, one of my favorite authors, is just wonderful and I have chosen this book to be our next book study on The Parenting Passageway. I hope you will all consider getting a copy and following along week by week!

Here are some tidbits from the introduction in which I hope to appeal to you WHY this is such a very important book.  The second sentence really grabbed me, and I agree with its essential truth:

The challenges we face as early childhood educators and parents of young children are, by and large, the result of diminishing will capacities of the young children.  One of the causes is the proliferation of technological gadgets that are promoted as necessary for modern life, and specifically those marketed for children.  Consumer culture has conspired to deliver to the young child exactly what is most detrimental for its development (foods and gadgets) while advertising wizards spin these very same products in such a way that parents line up in droves to make sure their child is not left out.

Gadgets take our children out of their willing,which is where tiny children live.  Explanations, instructions, the million questions that parents ask children take children out of their will lives and prematurely awaken children. 

The goals we look for with small children is to be able to imitate, to be able to live in their bodies comfortably, and to be able to “do” something with themselves.  The will of the adult is the answer.  We must be active in what we do – we must become makers, says the author.  Making food, gardens, toys, dolls, etc is healthy for a young child to be.

Please come with me as we explore this wonderful book that will change how you think and live with small children.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE, besides the book “Connecting With Young Children:  Educating the Will” by Stephen Spitalny is ‘Toymaking With Children” by Freya Jaffke. 

RECOMMENDED ACTION THIS WEEK:  Get rid of all screens for your children under 12 this week.  Turn them off and be done with it cold turkey.  I have many, many back posts on this topic if you will search.

Blessings,
Carrie

In Part Two of this series I commented: “ Once I get a general flow, I start  thinking….. Which biographies or stories will I pick to accomplish these goals?   What will our warm –up be, our practice be, what will our recall be from the day before and deepening this older material be, what will the new material be?  It sounds daunting, but once you get into it and start planning, it will flow..”

This is where you get to be an artist.

A great artist for the child in front of you.

So, for example, if I am looking at the Fifth Grade story of Gilgamesh, I will be thinking of academic capacities (what does my child need to work on with conjunction of this story and what will lead up this  — for example, are there forms that would tie in with Gilgamesh that would prepare the eye for writing, things we could do to prepare the body and hand for writing if writing is our goal or rhythm if our goal is skip counting, etc).    You really need to know what you are trying to accomplish academically in each grade and in each block.

I will also think of artistic capacities  in conjunction with the story, biography or subject matter (will we model in clay?  Paint?  Make a diorama?  Carve clay flat or model in some other way? What is needing deepening or a foundation in using art to express the inner qualities of ourselves and the saga of Gilgamesh?).  Lastly, I think about moral or spiritual capacities – does my child need to hear about the spiritual descending to earth of this culture, the despair of Gilgamesh and what happened to overcome it, the anger of Gilgamesh and the aftermath of that (– look at the child in front of you and that will tell you what you need to spend more time or detail upon in telling this story! A good storyteller can read his or her audience!) 

And I think of the spiritual capacities….Where does this really fit in with the archetypal journey of human development and with my specific child?? Am I developing goodness, truth and beauty? Wonder and awe?  Love? 

Once you read through all the materials pertaining to a subject, you let it rest and digest it, I think the answer will come as to what you want to emphasize.  The parts that you emphasize are the parts that you end up working with and deepening.  This cannot be found in a curriculum, but by looking at your child.

Love,

Carrie

I am trying to post a little wrap-up of each week of grades seven, four and five year old kindergarten year throughout the 36 weeks I have planned for school this year.  I hope this will encourage mothers that are homeschooling multiple children (or who want to but are worried!), and  encourage mothers that even homeschooling children of multiple ages who are far apart in age is doable.  You can find weeks twenty four through twenty six and further in the back posts you can find a post pertaining to the first two days of school this year which gives insight to our general daily rhythm.

Living With The Seasons:   Week twenty-seven of school was spring break around here, so we had a lighter than normal schedule that included a day off, a day that involved a physics class taught by a Waldorf teacher for our oldest and a field trip to an animal rescue facility for the younger children, two days of homeschooling, and a day of drama class for our middle child with playtime for the other two children.

Week twenty-eight saw us trying to get back into a rhythm.  I find down here in the south that as soon as spring break has happened, most homeschoolers are ready to quit school.  I feel like for our youngest children that could happen and be okay (so long as we didn’t actually have state requirements to fulfill! Hahahahaa!) but our seventh grader has quite a bit to finish up! 

Homeschool Planning: I have four blocks plus daily math for three months planned for fifth grade and three months of our six year old kindergarten year planned.  I am still ordering resources for eighth grade but I did sketch out three blocks so far and am going back in as I receive resources and filling things in…

Kindergarten:  Well, we are officially at five and a half year of age right now!  We are still doing a springtime circle along with a new story of Old Gnome and Young Frog, found in Suzanne Down’s wonderful “Old Gnome Around the Year” book.  We are working on painting, baking, playing, drawing, crafts and handwork.  Our kindergartener is good at cutting vegetables with a knife and assisting with pouring and stirring in baking.  We have been painting with yellow for spring and drawing with the three primary colors.  Our crafts have involved Eastertide!

Fourth Grade:  In Week twenty-seven, we talked about the ocean and the different zones of the ocean – sunlight (also called photic),  twilight, bathyal and abyssal zone.  We looked at our state marine mammal, the right whale, and  recited a lot of poetry regarding ocean life.  We wet on wet painted a sea turtle, a whale, and a gulper eel (gulper eels live in the bathyal zone).  We talked about sperm whales and their relationship with giant and colossal squids, and the tube worms that live in the abyssal  zone vents and how they take the poisonous gases from the vents and change it into energy.  Our local library happened to have a wonderful selection of books related to the ocean and ocean animals.  For myself, I went through “Oceans:  An Illustrated Reference” by Dorrik Stow.  The other books for children were:

• Creatures of the Deep:  Giant Tube Worms and Other Interesting Invertebrates by Heidi Moore – very interesting!
• Animals and Their Habitats:  Oceans  (World Book)
• Shimmer & Splash:  The Sparkling World of Sea Life by Jim Arnosky
• Water Sings Blue:  Ocean Poems by Kate Coombs (I highly recommend!  I am going to buy a copy for myself!)
• Here There Be Monsters:  The Legendary Kraken and the Giant Squid by HP Newquist    I have used this book twice for this block now and it excites me every time. 
• Giant Pacific Octopus by Leon Gray
• Journey Into the Deep:  Discovering New Ocean Creatures by Rebecca L. Johnson – this book is about the 2000 Census of Marine Life and was fascinating!

Along with our paintings and modeling (sea turtle; I had plans for us to model tube worms but we didn’t get there), we did several  poems and wrote them out.  This may be a spot where we differ from a Waldorf School in terms of all that reading from books, but they were just so gorgeous to see all those beautiful animals!  This  week we forayed into insect life.  We are reading “Little Bee Sunbeam” and talking about the hard and soft, night and day polarities of our insect friends.  We used beeswax to model a grasshopper, talked about the grasshopper and are finishing the week by  talking about ants.  Next week we will finish ants, butterflies and bees. 

We have also worked very hard on math – adding, subtracting, review of fractions and equivalent fractions, multiplication tables and multiplication, division problems and measurement.  Our fourth grader all of the sudden was interested in book one of the Key To Measurement book that she had started some time ago and really just was not there developmentally.  So now she is almost done with that book and will move on to Book Two.    We have also been working on  spelling and have seen a good progression since the beginning of this year.  Sight words and commonly misspelled words have made up the bulk of our words at this point, since spelling is really holding our daughter back from being able to write more independently what she would like to write. Visual therapy is completed, but our fourth grader  has had to really go back and re-learn the letters and how they are imprinted in her visual memory. 

What I would like to do now is to complete another short math/form drawing block, and then move into a little project now that we have gone through local geography in a block and more geography and animals in our Man and Animal Block with our state animals.  I would like to have us  make a large salt dough map of our state and label the rivers, mountains, plains, cities and go over our animal friends again and where they live.  I also would like to foray our insect studies into a bit of herbs and gardening to end the year.  We only have about five and a half weeks left of school, maybe six and a half if my seventh grader needs more time, so I think these ideas are doable.

Seventh Grade:  We are working hard in algebra right now and also metric measurement.  Our study of the Renaissance has brought us face to face with Leonardo de Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael and from there we moved into a brief discussion of paper printing, gunpowder, the growth of Portugal in exploring (Prince Henry the navigator and a review from astronomy and Africa blocks),  Christopher Columbus and the events leading up to the Reformation.  A word to the wise, the chapter regarding Borgia (Pope Alexander the sixth (not the fourth as the book states) is historically inaccurate according to the other resources in which I have been searching).  So, read ahead on that one and decide how you want to approach that.  

What we have so far in our main lesson books is

• A beautiful title page with hand-lettered calligraphy painted with gold  paint.
• A beautifully lettered Table of Contents
• A map of China with a summary about China, Marco Polo.
• A drawing from The Silk Road and a brief summary
• A beautiful watercolor painting of Joan of Arc and Saint Michael – gorgeous! And a summary of The Hundred Years War and Joan of Arc, the rise of nationalism.
• A map of Italy  at the time of Lorenzo di Medici and a charcoal portrait of Lorenzo.  A summary regarding Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael that my seventh grader wrote herself with a little help in getting the ideas down regarding comparing and contrasting these figures and what the really represent in the Renaissance. 
• A map of Spain at the time of Christopher Columbus and a chalk  picture of his caravels.

Our daughter is spending some time drawing from Leonardo’s sketches as part of this block.  Very beautiful and a great way to work on portraiture and proportion!  We are finished a book about the “Magna Charta” and will  start reading “The Second Mrs. Giaconda”. 

What we have left  this year is South American Geography (and review Mexico and Central America) and the great Incan, Mayan, Aztec civilizations and the explorers who came to this continent.  Depending upon our time frame, I would like to either finish up our algebra Main Lesson Book, although we have been practicing algebra almost daily now or finish with a bit more physics (see below).  Or both together.  Veteran Waldorf Homeschoolers call this “doubling up a block”.  It probably never happens in the school environment, but it does happen at home sometimes with math and another subject.   We have five and a half to six and a half weeks of school left, so this seems feasible. 

Our daughter had the opportunity to take a physics class with a Waldorf teacher, so that has taken away one of our school days at home for this month, but has been beneficial I think.  There are four classes and each class is three hours long and is combining different topics in physics from sixth, seventh and eighth grade.  There is homework, including writing up (materials, action, thoughts along with related drawings from the experiment) two experiments a week and demonstrating one of the experiments they did to family members at home.  Once I see exactly what has been done in this class, if I feel we need any other seventh grade topics in physics,  I will jump into that the last few weeks of school.  We also started this year with physics –lightness, darkness, color, so it could feel right to end with more physics or it might be that the class is just enough.  We were lucky to have an opportunity to participate in it.

Many blessings,

Carrie