Holiday Memories

I have been so busy this holiday season with normal busy stuff and also planning our my business for 2011, so I thought I would just put up 1 post that will "catch up" the past month!
I am dedicated to more frequent posts next year ;)

Hope you all had a wonderful season and are looking to the new year for joy and inspiration for all your dreams!

 Thanksgiving at grandmas


Celebrating Advent

 The Tree

 Making homespun gifts, the girls really did well sewing on my machine.

 Lily snapped this one of me knitting a cowl (while working at my desk)

 Here was the finished product. My first attempt at circular needle knitting. I am making more!

 The Family Holiday card

 Night of a Thousand Candles at Brookgreen Gardens

 Brooke lighting a candle at our Winter Solstice Festival

 Baking Day with Grandma

 Winter Solstice Table

 Snow!!

Winter Festivals

Did you know that Advent starts this Sunday? The winter festival season will be in full swing in just days. Are you prepared?  Thinking back over the past few years, I have learned so much about the true meaning of this "season". This is what I love about Waldorf, it has turned out 1-day big-bang into 6 weeks of gentle, thoughtful giving, celebrating and creating.

We start by making our Advent wreath. I use the same grapevine wreath each yr and we add greenery from around the yard. I found a 5-candle holder in black iron that we will slip into the center and add candles. Each week we add the corresponding mineral, plant, animal, etc.. and lit the 1st, 2nd, third candle counting down to Christmas Eve.

My favorite part of this breathing in season, is the Winter Solstice. We do our spiral on that night complete with greenery, apples and candles. We have dinner by candlelight and the kids adore it! They talk about it all year..
To hear more about these wonderful festivals and to get stories, ideas, verses and more check out my newly released workshop & guide- "Winter Festivals Made Easy"
It includes history and ideas about:  Advent, St. Nicholas, St. Lucia, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice and Christmas. Waldorf teacher Anne Cleveland from the Santa Cruz Waldorf School is gracious enough to share her wonderful experiences with us!  If you are unsure of what to do or how to do it, she will ease your mind and give you the best tip- creating an inner experience for you and your family.

Blessings to all!

Geometric Math

We spent the last 2 weeks following part of Eric Fairman's Path of Discovery 2nd grade guide. I loved the concept of Geometric Math and since this was our first Math block this year, it was a gentle interactive way to re-introduce.

Here are some of the pictures and drawing we did.  The girls really enjoyed this and I did too. It was amazing the "feel" they got from walking and drawing these designs.

The last part was to tell the story of the Circle & the Square and then free hand draw a square within a circle. However, there was no story given in the guide. So, I made one up I thought you may enjoy it and feel free to adapt it for your lessons.

The Circle and The Square:

Once there was a circle laying flat on the ground. He didn't mind looking up at the clouds going by during the day and the twinkling stars at night. But, one day he heard a lot of noise and fun coming from down the street. The more he listened, the more he wished he could go see what was happening that seemed like so much fun! If only he could life himself up, maybe he could see. He struggled, and struggled and then- he was up! Wow, he looked around by turning himself this way and that. He could see all around and he heard the commotion coming from the next block. The circle started rolling down the hill! When he got to top of the next hill, he spied a square, laying around as he used to be. He told the square his tale of lifting himself up and heading toward the fun sounds. the square wanted to join him. He lifted himself up and looked around. But when he tried to "roll" he just kept falling down. The circle got an idea and asked the square to jump up into him and hang on. Then away they went!
They found a carnival at the end of street and what fun they had rolling around checking out all the sites.
(I used a lid from a jelly jar as the circle and a square post-it note to demonstrate while I told the story)

Enjoy!

The Spiritual Side of my Life

With my interview with Neale Donald Walsch, author of "Conversations with God" today, I have been looking at the spiritual side of my life. I have also taken a look over the past year of my business and seen the way source has weaved its energy into my success. This amazing little book has introduced me to a new concept which I have just implemented called, tithing.  It is something I heard about years ago but didn't understand until I read the chapter in this book. It is: giving back to a place or person of inspiration. This is much different from my visions of donating weekly at a place of worship.

If I hear a piece of music that inspires me, read a book that uplifts me or just get some advice from a friend that offers me hope. That all counts! She calls it "spiritual food" and it is what makes you remember who you are, feel joy, get inspiration or know everything is going to be alright.

I am in my second week of tithing 10% of what I earn through The Waldorf Connection. At first, I felt hesitant, but after sending someone that first check, I felt great! And now I am on the "look out" for more inspirations. This is how it works. You will start to see the good out there. And the universe always gives back to you what you are giving to others.  Check out the book, it could change your whole perceptions around money & abundance and giving.

Toothless!

My "baby" finally lost that big front tooth this weekend. I say "baby", but as you know I have twins, so that is impossible. But, she is my smaller less-tooth-loosing sweetie. In fact, her sister lost her front tooth almost 1 1/2 yrs ago!
But, here we are and it was nice to have that time in between, so this seemed like a big deal again.

We had a very busy weekend with visits from the ToothFairy and the Sugar Sprites (did you leave out your candy??) As well as Halloween activities and it is also mu husbands Birthday!  Yikes!

A Fortune Teller and a Fairy set out on the candy hunt.

"Mrs. Applebee"  made an appearance and went trick-or-treating last night at the girls requests. She brought her pencil and ruler and used her "school marm" charm to keep the kids in line. LOL


 Happy Birthday sweetie!

First Weeks of Fables

Our fables are going well. I chose to do wolf & dog fables first, as my twin girls are really into wolves at the moment. We did The Shepherd Boy & the Wolf (the boy who cried wolf). This was important as one of them is going through this phase right now.
During writing our sentences, I highlighted the nouns in "orange" but without explanation, as recommended by Eric Fairman in his Grade 3 Path of Discovery.
Then we did The Wolf and The House Dog. I decided to mix things up a bit and create a moving picture in our main lesson books.  See the picture, it was so easy and the girls loved it!  They re-created the story several times while "acting it out"

I also introduced punctuation, as Lily is reading so well, she needed to have this so her reading out loud would be easier. I created a fun punctuation game!  First, I wrote a sentence on the blackboard 4 times.

I am hungry.
I am hungry!
I am hungry?
I am hungry, thirsty, and tired.

I explained each ending punctuation and comma. Then they had to walk across the room and when I siad the punctuation, they had to act it out.  Example- they walked while I said "I am hungry" period. (stop) then they had to stop.




When I used the exclamation mark they jumped!  Question mark was a shoulder shrug and holding arms up like "I don't know"  and a comma meant a -pause- and then continue walking.. What fun! And it really was exciting to bring movement into the lesson. They got it!

We also made these orange bird feeders from Rhythm of the Home summer edition. The girls hng them in their nature house (a thicket of bushes they play in)

Tall Tales Block

We began our 2nd grade school year with an alphabet & number review. The girls wrote all the letters in their main lesson books and this let me know what still needed more work.

Tall Tales was a fun way to begin this quirky 2nd grade curriculum. I wasn't sure how the stories would be received, but they really seemed to enjoy them!

Our first tale was not a popular one, but it is a "girl legend" called Dona Flor. Set in New Mexico, this giant woman helps the village with their "big mountain lion" by discovering he is only a baby roaring into a hollow log from atop a mountain.



 Next, we did John Henry and Paul Bunyon.

 We were also reviewing vowel sounds by bouncing a ball, bean bag tossing and just reading some basic readers. Brooke was needing a bit more practice and someone recommended "Reading--literature: the primer" by Harriet Treadwell. It has been amazing!

 Here was a fun blackboard drawing of Johnny Appleseed sleeping under the stars with his fire smoking. I really like using the chalk!

 A Painting day gave us a chance to paint covers to our main lesson books. This helps us know our own (yes, I include myself as I have one that I work in). I ended up buying thick drawing pads from the craft store with a odd picture on the cover, so these wet-on-wet's are lovely to hide that.

 The girls write the sentences and decorate around the page with form drawings.

 We spent time learning "camp fire" songs like "I've been working on the railroad", "Dinah won't you blow your horn" and the girls favorite, "Clementine".
I think at this point they have a good foundation of reading. Lily is reading almost any book she finds around the house and Brooke has grasped the basics enough to move forward.
Next up, Fables.

Michaelmas

Our festival this year was extended due to 5 days of rain.  We spent a rainy day telling a lovely story by Christine Natale from her "Fairy Tales" book called "The Strong Boy".

 While I told the story, we warmed our beeswax.  Then we each made part of the dragon and fastened him to the candle (by using a hair dryer on low). He came out amazing and honestly,they did most of it.

See the fire coming out of his mouth?  We did add his 4th leg before he went on the candle.

The next day, I told the story of St.George and the Dragon and we made the dragon bread.

Here he is before we baked...

The girls enjoyed decorating his body using raisins for scales and sunflower seeds for teeth and spines.  Last night we had a bonfire, lit our candle and slayed our dragon. He was tasty!

I found a Form Drawing that looked like an eye and we drew our "Dragon Eye" in our main lesson books. What fun!