a little crafty nest

moments from the week

As the snow recedes, though not disappearing quite yet (it snowed today!), we are expanding into recently uncovered areas to play.  Once again, we found ourselves drawn to the shop, to be close to papa and hear the buzz of his saw.  Before he begins his first contract of the season next week, he is working on a little home renovation ~ of the inexpensive variety...love those!!!

But over the bridge and to the shop we go...to climb, chisel, and teeter-totter ~ country style!

When I moved the long board over, I asked the children to stay clear, and it looks like they took it to heart.  I suppose they are not used to seeing mama move big boards around, but they look nervous, don't they?

Indoors, this little bug is as snug as one can get...he loves to get cozy in tiny little spaces, and there he sits until he is discovered, upon which he gleefully giggles!

We have been spending the last of our homeschool money...for science experiments like this worm garden.  Indeed, it is fascinating to watch the wormies compost the leaves and dig their tunnels.  Forrest was right into this activity, trudging out in the pouring sleet to dig up some critters from our gardens.
We also purchased a beautiful "real" guitar for Forrest to begin Suzuki guitar lessons in the fall.  I had intended to hide it away til September, but he asked me if I had bought it yet, so I showed him.  He is thrilled!  He really seems ready to begin...and, as he says, "rock out!"

Oh goodness, do you see his haircut?  He hadn't had a trim since a family event at my parent's last summer, and it was really getting too long.  So, I just began to trim it up here and there before realizing that I should NEVER cut my family's, or anyone's, hair ever!  Luckily, he doesn't know any different, but Josh reminded me of the time I managed two distinctive clearcuts up the back of his head with the clippers that forced him to buzz his whole head.  Yes, I can manage to shave hair, but not trim it.

And finally, we spent a few moments here and there this week in our garden, reconnecting with the soil that is coming alive again!  Critters of all sorts are visible, waking up and greeting this new season.  My little girl preferred to help mama in the kitchen garden while the boys tended a bonfire across the creek. 

Yes, indeed, it feels good to be back in this space...how I've missed it!

homespun waldorf winter faire

Hello, friends.  Today I am honoured to be guest blogging over at the Homespun Waldorf Winter Faire.  I've never before blogged anywhere else, so I am a wee nervous, but I do think this is so worthwhile.  Homespun Waldorf is a forum for Waldorf-inspired homeschoolers to get inspiration, ideas, and support.  I am a recent member, and really do enjoy the conversations.

Stop by, if you like...there will be guest bloggers all month long!

moments from the week

The January cold snap arrived this week, with a pile of snow...and more on the way!  It was easier getting the children outdoors, with all the fresh powder possibilities beckoning. 

Lots of skating at the local outdoor rink behind a little restaurant near us.

Yesterday we arrived long before our homeschool friends and the ice was covered in a few inches of fresh snow.  Using a shovel, we made a series of meandering trails to skate along ~ perfect for playing "tag".  My sweet girl is now skating on single blade skates and her sense of balance is incredible.  In her very own Sunshine fashion, she refuses to use a chair for support, but insists on doing it her way, at her own pace.  This is her third day skating, and she is now beginnng to glide.

And this eager, active boy is so happy to be playing hockey!  Hard to believe two weeks ago he was using the chair for support.  It is a real testament to homeschooling as we have been spending a lot of time here during the week when most of the local children are in school.  I have felt really good about it, knowing that my six year old simply wants to be active...all the time!   Some days we skate with just one other homeschool family, wth six little people on the rink...and other days we are here when there are more than forty people on the ice!

Last weekend, we had our diabetes trainer come visit our home to set up Sunshine with one more piece of technology.  I think I'll save the details for February's Pink Elephant, though I will share that in less than one week we are seeing the benefits of using the sensor, a continuous glucose monitoring system.  It has taken us several days to get used to all the bells and alarms that ring, but it is worth it! This is a photo of Forrest playing with Lenny the Lion's pump and sensor.  Diabetes nurses use this stuffie to help the little ones feel more comfortable with injections and needles, and indeed, it works! 

Housekeeping in the little playspace beneath our stairs.

Playdough pie...just like mama's.

Inventorying our seeds from last year to get ready to make some orders soon.  With all this fresh snow, it's hard to believe it's almost time to begin our starts.  Though, if the truth be told, I'm always thinking about the garden ~ all year round!

Adventures in a boat in the middle of a lake.

I'm not sure words are necessary here.  It speaks directly to my heart.

 Friends, have a wintery, snowy weekend full of fun!

What are your moments from your week? 

homeschool happenings

*I was inspired by my friend, Taisa, who did a post in November about her Homeschool Happenings.  I loved hearing about her adventures in learning with her children.

Here we are, immersing ourselves once again in our regular rhythm and routine ~ ah, how I love it!  I really thrive on rhythm, (which also helps wonderfully when trying to manage a three year old's Type 1 Diabetes).  We are back into homeschooling ~ and because Forrest is in Kindergarten, it really is pretty mellow.  It is a wonderful way to step into the world of homeschooling, sampling here and there, trying on bits of this, discarding some of that.

We are using the Christopherus curriculum, and for Kindergarten, Donna is pretty loose about it all.  Truly, learning at this age is merely play-based, structured by the rhythms of the family and the festivals of the season.  We do a morning circle three times a week, and while I have heard it is a challenge for many homeschoolers, the circle works most of the time for us.  Perhaps because my children are so young and any excuse to sing loudly and do verses with actions is always great fun! 

handwork on Mondays

During the circle, we also discuss a virtue of the week (actually, we talk about the virtue for two weeks).  I used this in the classroom when I was a teacher at a local alternative school and it was wonderful.  I use only the most basic virtues suggested, like patience, respect, truthfulness, generosity.  I briefly introduce the word and we talk about what it would look like to practice this virtue, and then we use that word throughout the day/week as a reminder of how we can treat each other better.

We also read a fairy tale, often from the Brother's Grimm collection.  I spent a good deal of time in the summer reading most of them, deciding which ones were appropriate for Forrest.  We read this tale three times (or more) during the week.

    So far, we have enjoyed...

• The Little Red Hen
• The Hut in the Forest (Grimm's Brothers)
• The Star House (Grimm's Brothers)
• Little Boy Knight (Suzanne Down)
• The Giant Turnip
• Harvest Moon Magic (Suzanne Down)
• Elder Brother
• Rumpelstiltskin (Grimm's Brothers)
• Little Red Cap (Grimm's Brothers)
• Autumn Bear (Suzanne Down)
• Mother Holle (Grimm's Brothers)
• The Elves (Grimm's Brothers)
• The Star Money (Grimm's Brothers)
• The Gingerbread Boy
• The Legend of Babushka

my Kindergarten resource pile...most of which I acquired when I was a teacher

My ongoing dilemma with our homeschool year has been the question of Forrest's readiness for Grade 1.  He is a November baby, and he turned six last fall.  I wrestled with this for so long, flip-flopping back and forth several times, and then some more.  I consulted various forums, friends, and our local Waldorf Kindergarten teacher friend.  Almost all of them suggested waiting to begin formal schooling until Forrest is as close to the age of seven as possible.  There are many reasons for this, but my favourite explanation was simply, "Once you've awakened Sleeping Beauty, you can't get her to sleep again."  So, we chose to keep it simple this year. 

There were a few moments when I clearly saw this was the right decision, despite his body showing the classic Waldorf signs for intellectual readiness.  I attempted to add a few Grade 1 activities such as the Weather Tree to our circles.  He lost interest in that after a few weeks.  He also has a Main Lesson Book called the Mother Goose Book.  We recite a nursery rhyme every circle, one per week.  On the second day, he illustrates the rhyme in the Mother Goose Book.  He was so enthusiastic about it and readily set to work for ten minutes, putting his best intentions into his drawings.  After a few months, he announced he didn't want to do this anymore, and I happily obliged.  (I could just picture him in a school setting, where Kindergarten children go all day, five days a week, and my boy would be getting bored and mischievous, being sent to the principal's office for disruptive behaviour).  However, the following week he asked to do the illustrations again, and has been into it ever since.

Forrest's Mother Goose Book ~ illustrating "Snow, Snow Faster"

Towards the end of December, I noticed Forrest seemed bored ~ a word my children don't really use.  I talked to him a bit and asked him how he was feeling, and he told me he wanted to do more school work.  Oh dear, I panicked and worried tremendously about our homeschooling path.  He is, afterall, a very gregarious boy who interacts so well with others.  However, after a lot of reflecting, we decided Forrest needed more challenges, not public school.  So then I pondered beginning to teach the letters to him.  But I kept thinking about Sleeping Beauty.  Instead, I came up with a second Main Lesson Book for him to illustrate, the Sounds Like Main Lesson Book.  With a new sound each week, Forrest (and Sunshine, if she likes) draws everything he can think of that starts with that sound.  Last week was "B" when we read the story of Babushka.  This week it is "S" because we are singing a lot about snowflakes and snowmen.  Forrest loves this!

Forrest's Sounds Like Main Lesson Book ~ illustrating the sound "B"

We also are beginning to visit the library twice a month...and that is a very special treat in my little one's eyes.  It is very exciting to go to town with the express intention of loading up on some new stories.  As Forrest said recently, "Mama, I just love the Books."

Forrest's first knitting project on wool he dyed himself ~ a blanket for his doll, Erla

Art continues to be a central activity for my children and me.  We handcraft on Mondays, setting up the week for handcrafting whenever they feel like it.  Today the children sewed their own gnomes.  We plan on doing some weaving, knitting, and more sewing as well.  We also paint, model, draw, create, often based on the seasonal festivals.

Can you guess who made the pink and purple gnome and who made the blue and green one?

Finally, I recently discovered the Homespun Waldorf forum...it is wonderful!  There are a lot of familiar mamas on there, and it is such a treat to engage in conversations with them about learning at home.

This homeschool year is an ongoing journey of learning for all of us.  I so treasure the time with Forrest, when all is so fresh and exciting, when his enthusiasm is contagious. 

I would love to hear how other people are experiencing their homeschool year so far.

 

a few special moments

Who knew that...

...living in the country with no asphalt for miles, sidewalk chalk works great on our rock wall?  Hours and hours of quiet, busy play ~ spread out over several days, mind you.  All these rocks were eventually covered in a rainbow of colours.

 
...a boisterous, armed knight may suddenly transform himself into a mood of peaceful contemplation, and painstakingly illustrate his glorious adventures?  Forrest's energy and enthusiasm can leave me speechless, just as his artistic focus channels some amazing artwork. 
...eating breakfast beside the morning fire is cause for celebration and excitement?

 
...when Nana and Pops visit, some huge pushes can send you flying right off your swing?

 
...this boy would find the Lord Vishnu so intriguing?  Thanks to my husband's mom, Nanny, Forrest wishes he were Vishnu with his discus ~ Halloween costume idea #1.

 
...our local homeschool group means more picnics and beach time for everyone?  And that swimming in chilly, mountain lakes is still possible.  One more reason homeschooling is working for us!

 
Wishing all of you a beautiful, golden September weekend!

to keep the home fires burning

Up until now, our woodshed was really a delapidated tarp shed, leaning towards the earth with a saucy attitude.  I finally convinced my husband to build a proper woodshed and take it off the "honey-do" list. 

To make a long ramble less rambling, my long and loquacious rantings paid off, and Josh finally built a proper shed...with a little help from a five year old.  Yes, the beauty of homeschooling is that life around the home is all learning!  With his own tool belt strapped on, crammed with various real tools, and a handful of those wonderfully fat construction pencils...my biggest little fella helped build one heck of a woodshed!  (This translates into hammering many nails into a wood stump and telling me how he wanted a workman's lunch outside with papa so they might discuss how the woodshed is coming along)!

 
 
 
 
A delivery of free slabs makes the walls of the shed.

 
Do you see the mountains profiled in the back wall?

 
And then we had many hands to help stack that first cord...including a few cousins.

 
 
With all that help, we managed to stack our first cord of wood to keep our home fires burning this winter.  Now, only five more cords to go!

 
And my five year old is so very proud to exclaim, "How do you like the woodshed we built, Mama?".  I love it, my son.  Thank you.

dyeing is grape!

While the weather is so very bonny and bright right now, I've wanted to do some outdoor handwork before we hunker down beside the cookstove for the darker days.  I thought that Forrest might dye his own wool that he will use for fingerknitting and weaving in the homeschool year ahead.

I immediately looked around our property at the bushes and trees that might provide some dye matter.  Long ago, in another time of my life, I used natural dyes for my own handmade clothing that I sold at music festivals.  And because oregon grape season is in full swing, a picking we went.  Now, for those of you who don't know about these bushes, the leaves are like holly with very sharp pricks at the leaftips...not very child-friendly. 

 
Much to my pleasant surprise, however, my two helpers never complained once!  They were so busy slipping the grapes off the stems which happens with a fluid and satisfying pull along the stem.  Pretty soon, our buckets were full and we were within just five minutes of our house.

After a long vinegar bath, we rinsed our yarn (I think this was a mistake!) and soaked the skein of wool for several hours in the oregon grape juice we had prepared.

 
The colour here looks so deliciously purple and rich!  Hmmm...once it was rinsed and dried, this little old skein was pretty, well, drab.  Live and learn!

After a visit to the store for some food colouring, our next dye bath experience, turned out exceptionally vibrant and colourful. 

 
Here is the wool all squishy wet with food colour dyes...I was so shocked at the colour!  Imagine, this stuff is meant to be ingested!!!  I had intended to do more dyebaths with marigolds, onion skins, and beet juice, but after the anti-climatic outcome of our first oregon grape dyebath, I decided that these two little people might enjoy some sunnier colours. 

 
(And oh! that trucker's hat my boy will not take off!  He was given another hat at another garage sale on the weekend and he thinks it is the best thing that ever happened!  Ahhhh, at least I can smile about it ~ so far!)

The simple method for dyeing (or painting) yarn came from a Fall 2009 Living Crafts article.  It was such fun and afterwards there was much dancing and prancing about with delight!

 
Once upon a time, natural dyes were the colour in my life.  I am a natural, earthy -coloured kind of girl...but as a mama, I'm relishing the rainbow hues that the food colouring created.  

 
 The oregon grape dyed skein is in the middle...a dusty, greyish purple.  Definately beautiful in its own right, but more for my colour palette than the children's.

Forrest wants to make fingerknitted chains with his skein and Sunshine has requested some rainbow mittens for winter.  I'm delighted with this whole experience. 

 
For now, I'll stick to the jelly I made from the oregon grapes we harvested a few weeks earlier.  And the food colouring ~ I'll only use on the yarn!

homegrown schooling begins

Sometimes when I decide to do something that takes a big leap, I know exactly why I want to soar through the air, taking such a risk.  I don't necessarily know what the landing will be like, but I have faith that all will be as it should.  Such it has been with the deciding of homeschooling our three children. 

However, the smaller details often get jumbled about in the ensuing confusion.  Such as....um, should we or shouldn't we start Forrest in grade one?  Back and forth, back and forth, pros and cons, upsides, downsides, all sides.  In the end, it was getting a little tedious trying to make such decisions, I tell you.

 
Forrest will be six in November and as we are quite enamoured in all things Steiner-ish, the reasons why a child ought to be as close to the age of seven when beginning formal schooling (Grade One) made sense ~ to us.  But then, he is such a bookish little fellow.  And he is beginning to pick out letters on his own in signs, books, and stores.  I love the Waldorf Kindergarten philosophy of immersing the child in home rhythms and activities, modeling the busy-ness of home life.  We loosely did that last year, well, since birth, really.  And it seems Forrest is ready for more.

Then I found this Hawthorn Press book, Kindergarten Education ~ Freeing Children's Creative Potential by Betty Peck (2003) which is jam-packed with good ideas.  It leans more towards a grade 1 curriculum in many ways, teaching the alphabet and numbers.  I decided to combine both the Waldorf kindergarten philosophy with Betty Peck's.  For now, until Christmas when we see how we're feeling, we will hold off on letter introduction and keep it simple.  Circles of singing and verses, a fairy tale, a weather tree, crafting, and a special Main Lesson Book project. 

Forrest's first Main Lesson Book is a Mother Goose Book, illustrating one nursery rhyme each week.  I chose nursery rhymes that somehow connect to the Fairy Tale of the week (we do 3 days of "schooling" and repeat the tale each day).  This week's fairy tale was The Little Red Hen and the nursery rhyme was Hickety Pickety My Black Hen. 

 
Forrest was sooo excited to begin his Mother Goose book...and I also made him a special block crayon holder, too. 

 
He is very careful with such things, and it was so sweet to see him unrolling it just to look at the fresh, smooth beeswax crayons.  Then he'd roll it back up and put it away.  I think he must have done this five times on our first day!

 
I see the challenges of homeschooling a young child with two other small children running about.  Sunshine, who is three, is very keen on imitating her big brother, and so she also has a Mother Goose Main Lesson book to do with as she likes. 

 
As far as meeting my one year old's needs, well, the ergo baby pack has been very liberating for those moments when I need to be more present with Forrest...as well as having Papa spend an extra 15 minutes in the morning entertaining Huckley outside while we get things sorted out.  This, of course, will change as Papa must work, so we'll see how this evolves.

Our homegrown schooling journey begins, with a big leap of faith!  I'm 100% convinced this is the right thing for our family, especially when asked this morning, "Is today a homeschool day, Mama...please?"

*          *          *          *          *

If you care to share your week of homegrown schooling adventures, just leave a comment or a link below.  I think the more ideas and experiences that are shared will only help inspire more creativity, more learning, and more fun! 

home-grown schooling

Everyone has their own reasons for parenting the way they do.  Who can decide what is best for another's child?  All I know is that we are about to begin our homeschool journey with my oldest child ~ with excitement, with enthusiasm...and with a smidgen of trepidation.

 
There was no clear, defining moment to deciding to homeschool our children.  No lights blinked brighter, no chorus of angels sang sweetly in the background.  Rather, it was a gradual knowledge that, of course, this is what will work best for us.  It kind of seems to flow rather naturally with our simple, home-grown lifestyle.  Educating our own children is just another piece of the sustainable-minded puzzle that we are peicing together as our life.

 
So, here we are with just a few weeks to go before we begin.  I've bought a curriculum, I've read countless books, I've grilled seasoned homeschooling parents (and children), I've read the Brother's Grimm fairytales...all of them, I've crafted everything from puppets to crayon holders to library bags!  I'm even a certified teacher.  You might say I'm ready.

 
But it's so much more than that.  It's the atmosphere of our home, it's the knowledge of when to sit back and let wonder take control, it's the humble recognition that I can only do so much.  Am I really ready?

 
I think so.  Besides, the biggest reason we are choosing to homeschool, is frankly, I'm so darned loving every minute with these three little ones, I couldn't imagine not having them around all day long!  It won't be long before they are taller than me and busy making plans with friends.  For now, I'll take all I can get.

What are your ideas and reasons for homeschooling?