The End of the Beginning

I have officially declared that last week was our last week of First Grade.  Yea!  We all survived!  Unfortunately, it did not end on quite the note I was planning.  We finished off this year with nature studies.  I wanted Grant, and Johanna since, you know, she's always there too, to learn a little more about our native plants and animals.  I did this through a story.  I made up a story which I started telling on Monday while we were walking on one of our woodland trails.  Sidenote:  On our walk we found this cool red mushroom, and Grant was trying to make it rain (not that we needed any more!) by shaking the water from one of the trees. 

The main characters of my story were a family of raccoons.  In the story I talked about what raccoons looks like, where they live, what they like to eat (which is just about anything), and how they go about their days, and mostly their nights.  I talked about how they are mischievous, curious creatures, and they got into all kind of trouble in my story.  I talked about them making their home in a hollow oak tree, and how they like to sleep up in the trees during the day.  I described oak trees, and then we took some leaf samples back the to school room and Grant did some leaf rubbings in his lesson book.  We discovered that we actually have quite a few different species of oaks on our property, along with lots of shagbark hickory trees.  Even though we live on Pin Oak Road, the majority of our trees are white oaks.

Our school day was "cancelled" Tuesday because I took Kitty Man, and Mia, to the vet.  That became a whole morning affair.  I received some bad news about Kitty Man, so we'll see if he hangs in there for a little while longer.

On Wednesday, I introduced some new characters into the story as we were sitting outside near our pond.  The raccoon brother twins went to the pond to visit their friends, Mickey and Jerry muskrat.  The kids learned more details about muskrats.  When we got into the school room, we did the penny whistle lesson, reviewed math with bean bag tosses, and then we did a "form drawing" of how Mickey muskrat might swim around in the pond.  After the drawing, Grant copied a short sentence, and then we ended that school day with some reading.

I knew we wouldn't be having school on Thursday, because the kids and I were going to be picking Kitty Man up from the vet.  So, when I told Grant on Wednesday that it was the last day of First Grade, I thought he would be happy and excited (since according to him it was the worst thing in the world), but he was actually a little sad.

So, we didn't cover everything I would have liked to this week, but hopefully Grant knows more about raccoons and muskrats and can identify a few different kind of oak trees now.  Maybe????

Jugs and Bears

Julia's confinement has been great! Don't worry, she enjoys it too because she gets snacks. It is making main lesson time go SO much smoother.

This week has been grey, cloudy and rainy. We were still able to take our morning walks all week and enjoy our Halloween songs and verses. We added jump roping this week to Grant's circle time. He REALLY likes that. The tongue twister I introduced on Monday was, "Jolly juggling jesters jauntily juggled jingling jacks." It took him awhile to get it, and then we let it rest for the day.

In our story, Katie had to go collect water for the family in jugs and her father taught her about the letter J, and told her The Water of Life. I told the Grant the same story and we talked about the letter J, practiced writing it and practiced the new form drawing for the week. Next, we started our drawing from the story.

"J is for Jug" Chalkboard Drawing

Grant's jump rope the he finger-knitted

I made a run to a local "paint your own pottery" place and picked up a "pottery to go kit". I got a jug for Grant to paint and a pumpkin plate for Johanna to paint. Knowing that Grant would also want a pumpkin plate, I got one for him, too. They really had fun painting these on Tuesday. It is hard for them to imagine the change the colors will make after they are fired. When we painted them, the colors were very dull, pastel, and rough. But the magic happens when they bake and glass that is in the paint melts, and voila, bright shiny colors! Grant also told me the story of The Water of Life. We wrote the letter J and the summary in his book, and finished our drawings. By today he had mastered the new tongue twister.

Mom's The Water of Life Drawing

Grant's The Water of Life Drawing

On Wednesday, we learned about the letter B and I told Grant the story of The Willow-Wren and the Bear. Grant practiced drawing the letter B on his chalkboard. For this, I draw three line on the board. A blue line for air, a green line for grass, and an orange line for dirt. Then I draw the different letters and explain to him how some stand tall way up into the air, some stay and play in the grass, and some dip down into the dirt. For some reason, he is always excited when one of them dips down into the dirt! After he practiced it, he wrote it in his lesson book. I also introduced a new tongue twister today, "A big black bug bit a big black bear, but where is the big black bear that the big black bug bit?"

In the afternoon I made some bread dough, and Johanna helped me make bread for dinner. We had some men at the house doing some work, and Grant was much more interested in "helping them" then making bread with the girls!

"B is for Bear" chalkboard drawing

On Thursday, we wrote the summary of The Willow-Wren and the Bear in his book and he drew the form drawing in his book. Earlier in the week he struggled a little with this one, but after a little practice, walking it on the driveway, drawing it in the air with his hand and arm, etc, he was drawing it with ease.

For handwork this week, Grant finger-knitted a strap for a felt treasure bag I made for a Birthday gift. Next week we will start on a Halloween sewing project. Grant picked out this project and is very excited to get started!

S is for The Six Swans

This week Grant is learning about the letters S and T. We started off Monday with our usual walk, circle and penny whistle lesson. The penny whistle lesson was different today. We basically stay with the same lesson for 2 weeks (which would be 8 lessons) and then we move on to something new. Grant was pleasantly surprised with the new change.

Next, we moved on to the main lesson. First, I told Grant the next part of our container story about Katie and her family and how they were setting up a temporary home by a nearby stream where Katie would hear many stories from her father. After that I told him the Grimm's fairytale, The Six Swans. I introduced this week's form and the letter S. He easily found the two S's and this week's form in my chalkboard drawing. We practiced drawing the form on his chalkboard and he also traced it with his finger in some flour. We talked about the sound that S makes and made a list of "S" words as Grant was practicing writing the letter S. After that we drew a picture (with our 3 block crayons) in our main lesson books from the story.

Mom's Swan Drawing

Grant's Swan Drawing

Before starting our walk on Tuesday, we walked out the form and the letter S on the driveway. Once inside, he practiced writing the letter S on his chalkboard (this is a hard one for him) and we used dragon tears to make an S and this week's form. Next, Grant re-told me the story of the six swans and we wrote a summary of it in his book. Dad interrupted our lesson at one point so he could show us a turtle he found in the backyard. We all enjoyed watching it, and while we were out there we picked two small red tomatoes off one of our tomato plants. This will be good conversation for tomorrow when we learn about the letter T.

On Wednesday, we learned that Katie's father also set up their camp near a grove of coconut trees and they enjoyed a treat of fresh coconut and coconut milk. After their meal, Katie's father told her about the letter T and the story of The Three Little Men in The Forest. Grant practiced writing the letter T, but he was feeling a little under the weather so we called it a day.

Julia and I left on Thursday morning to take a trip to Toronto, Canada to visit a friend of mine. As luck would have it, Thursday is Dad's day off, so he finished up with Grant's lessons for the week. They talked about the story and wrote a summary of it in his book. Grant also drew this week's form and the letter T in his book. They had fun reviewing all the letters that he has learned so far with a bean bag toss game. I was also able to find a whole coconut at the grocery store, so they had to figure out how to open it and then talked about it and ate the coconut out of the inside. The decided to use a sharp rock to open it, just as those who first discovered them probably did. They said it worked really well. While Grant didn't care much for the coconut, Dad and Johanna liked it.

M and V

This week we learned the letters M and V. We started each day with our walk, circle time and penny whistle lessons. I introduce each letter with a chalkboard drawing, a Grimm's fairytale, and then different activities using the letter. My brain will be full of fairytales! I suppose when I learn a new one, an old one will be pushed out. Then I will have to re-learn them all again for Johanna, and maybe I will still know some of them by the time it's Julia's turn!


On Monday, we continued the story of Katie's quest for knowledge as she learned about the letter M through the Grimm's fairy tale, Simeli Mountain. We also learned the form drawing for this week. After Grant found the letter M in my drawing, he practiced drawing the form and the letter M on his chalkboard. Then we drew a picture of mountains and he wrote the letter M in his lesson book. When we were outside enjoying some play time before lunch, I drew the form on the driveway in chalk and Grant and Johanna enjoyed walking it forward and back. Grandpa Russ even helped Julia get in on the action.

On Tuesday, we reviewed the story of Simeli Mountain, came up with a short summary and I wrote it in his lesson book. Then we looked at some geographical maps of the different continents and found that all of them have mountains. We talked about the fact that we don't have mountains around us, but we have hills (which are a lot like mountains, according to Grant). Then Grant reviewed the letter M by tracing with his finger in flour. We also made bread today, and as the kids were kneading and shaping the dough, Grant made this week's form using the dough. When we went outside I collected a handful of sticks and then asked Grant to make the letter M and this week's form out of them.


On Wednesday, we checked back in with Katie and her family as they set up camp near a valley so she could continue with her lessons. Today we learned the letter V as I told the Grimm's tale The Vagabonds. Grant easily found the V in my drawing, and then he practiced writing it on his chalkboard before writing it in his lesson book. Julia is certainly making school interesting as she is always trying to get up on the benches at the table and be part of what is going on. She is not very happy when she doesn't get her way!



Once we were outside, the kids collected buckets of broken hickory nuts as we talked about how the squirrels cracked them all open. (Wouldn't you know that we were able to relate it back to our story for the day as the first line of the story was, "The cock said to the hen, "It is nutting time; let us go together into the mountains and have a good feast for once, before the squirrels come and carry all away.") We also admired the myriad of mushrooms all around our house including one that was as shiny and smooth as bronze when the sun was shining on it. In the afternoon we did some wet-on-wet watercolor painting. Grant and I used red, blue and yellow paint to make a blue sky, with purple mountains, and a green valley down at the bottom. Johanna used red and just had fun exploring the color.

On Thursday, we reviewed the sounds that M and V make while tossing bean bags as part of our circle time. I tossed him a bean bag while saying either M or V, and then Grant tossed it back to me while saying a word that started with the letter. He tried to make up some words, but I told him they had to be real words! Grant re-told me the story of The Vagabonds and we wrote a summary of it in his lesson book. After that, he copied some "V" words I had written on the chalkboard into his book. Then we continued our geography lesson by looking a Map of Missouri. No Mountains, but plenty of rivers, forests and roads. We found where we lived, where his Grandmas and Grandpas live, and where his friend in Illinois lives. After we looked at the map, Grant drew his own "Indiana Jones" map and we all went outside to follow the map to the treasure.



On Friday, we had our first day of homeschool co-op. Julia is in the nursery, Johanna is in the preschool class, and Grant is in a class that teaches about the rainforest and another one called community helpers. I asked Grant what the special guest talked about in that class, and he said, "Ah, she was talking about health. All the stuff that you guys know about. I was thinking my Mom and Dad already know all this stuff." They do pay attention sometime!

First Week of School

We have finished our first week back in school. We start each day off with a walk to get the wiggles out, though I don't think you can get all the wiggles out of Grant! Then we go into the school room and come together for "circle time". In circle time we enjoy seasonal songs and verses complete with movement and props. There is also a lot of counting in the verses and songs to start introducing it to Johanna in a fun way, and re-enforcing what Grant already knows. I made some beanbag "apples" and hobby horses. When Grant saw me making the bean bags, he wanted to make one too. He wanted his to be blue. It is his special "apple" during circle time. Our circle theme is a trip to the orchard. We end our circle time with a blessing on our day and then we move into Penny Whistle lessons. I have had fun learning to play this, so I can teach Grant.

After the lesson, I sit down and read a book, mostly for Johanna, Grant likes to listen too, and Julia tries to wreck the whole thing by crawling all over us and grabbing for the book. After the book, I move into telling the story that starts off Grant's lesson for the day. We are starting first grade with Language Arts lessons, the Waldorf way. Grant will learn to read and write as the letters come alive for him through stories, drawing, and painting.


We started our first week off with form drawing and the introduction to the story which will take us through the whole year. Form drawing is a precursor to writing and will help Grant learn how to control the crayon (and eventually his pencil) when writing/drawing, and is the beginning of nice penmanship down the road. I introduce the form by drawing it in the air, drawing it on his back with my finger, having him do the same, and then moving on to the chalkboard where he can practice drawing it before he draws it in his main lesson book. Grant will be making this main lesson book which will serve as a first reader for him, as well as a record of his school work. On Wednesday, we broke out the play dough we made in Kindergarten (infused with the nice, calming scent of lavender, aah..) and used it to make the 3 forms. The wavy line made a good snake!

Form Drawing 1

Form Drawing 2

From Drawing 3

Our story started with the introduction of Dad Joseph, son Ben (10 years old) and almost 7 year old daughter Katie who start out on a quest to find the Wise Old Sophia who is a magical enchantress who lives in the mountains and will give the "gift of knowledge" to Katie. On their journey, Katie will learn many things to prepare her for her meeting with Sophia, including the letters through Grimm's fairy tales (this will make more sense as we go along). I am also going to use some Hans Christian Anderson tales to honor our Scandinavian heritage.



I drew a drawing on the chalkboard that represented the first part of our story for the week, and I also included the forms in the drawing. Can you find them?





The first three days of the week he learned a new form and heard another part of Katie's story. On Thursday, we summarized the story so far and I wrote it in his main lesson book, and then we drew a picture of the family with block crayons. Yes, as you may be wondering, these are rectangular shaped crayons that we will use to draw pictures throughout the year. We will only use red, yellow and blue, and Grant (and me too) will learn to blend those 3 colors to make all the rest.

Mom's Block Crayon Drawing

Grant's Block Crayon Drawing

Julia was very insistent all week on getting up on the benches at the table and doing what we were doing. She liked the coloring, and the taste of the crayons, too.


When we are done with lesson time, the kids have some free indoor play time, and then we head outside to play before heading in for lunch. While we were outside on Thursday, I drew the 3 forms in chalk on the driveway and Grant and Johanna walked them frontwards and backwards, shoes on and shoes off. Then I challenged Grant by having him do the straight line with his eyes closed. He did a pretty good job!

We all enjoyed the first week, and look forward to next week when we start having fun with letters!