Waldorf Math- more fun with number qualities...

We have progressed on to the nummber 8/ VIII. Each day they are so excited to do the riddle and get closer to getting the 5 keys (the vowels).

I made up my own riddle for 8 today after DH and I pondered "What is 8?" last night! It was a fun way to get him involved.

I have 8 legs to carry me around
I live in corners and close to the ground
To eat, I must spin and I can jump
Don't mistake me for a small bump- spider!

Then they drew the 8, VIII and EIGHT in the MLB with a nice picture of a spider.
I read a story from "Among the Meadow People" which I found on the Baldwin Project website and printed out for free! It was all about a little spider family and how the mother spider taught the babies (all 170 of them!) to spin webs.

I also want to share a heartwarming from Jen at Ancient Hearth, since we are doing the same Math Block!

Jen says...Thus began our first Maths Block: Quality of Numbers. I pulled from some amazing sources and slept on it for a time before we started maths:

~ Eric Fairman's "Path of Discovery"

~Kristie Burns' Earthschooling "Sixth Sense & Holistic Math: Using the Six Senses & Whole Body to Learn Math" ebook

~Marsha Johnson's "The Quality of Numbers" file in her Yahoo Group

~Barbara Dewey's "Mathematics for Waldorf Homeschoolers Grades 1-3"

~A Little Garden Flower's "A Journey Through Waldorf Math"

The night before we started, I took some paper and some glitter glues that we had in our crafting basket and I drew out the Arabic and Roman numerals from 1 - 10 (see picture above). The glitter goes beautifully with the story we are working with and we have gold, silver, rubies, and emeralds alternating in our numbers...

Then, I created a story inspired by Eric Fairman and Marsha Johnson with some tweaking to make it our own. I set up the scene on our table and covered sections with a blue silk that I would pull back as the characters moved further and further along.

It began with a young boy and girl who were romping through the lush evergreen forest one day when they spotted a frisky little hare. They decided to follow him. Every few feet the little hare stopped and turned to them, as if he was waiting for the children to follow.....click here for the rest of this amazing post!