Toddlin'

Well, I guess we should start calling Julia a toddler now. She has been toddling around a lot lately, taking a few steps here and there. Her favorite thing to do is walk while pushing Grant and Johanna's hot wheel bikes around the driveway. She becomes a little more confident in her walking everyday. It won't be long before she takes off!

Yes, I did realize after I took the pictures that she was missing a shoe. Johanna helped me find it and I put it back on!

A Visit to the Pumpkin Farm

This Sunday we took a trip to the pumpkin farm. We tried to go the Thursday before, but were rained out. On Sunday, Grant asked again if we could go. It was a beautiful day, so we loaded up the kids and off we went. Everyone had a lot of fun. Julia really liked the "corn" box. Grant's favorite part was the bouncy horse tire swings, and Johanna liked picking out the pumpkins. Her favorite was the little "baby one" she picked out for herself.

Grant and Johanna are very excited about Halloween. Grant says Autumn is his favorite time of the year because of Halloween and Thanksgiving (his favorite holiday because he loves to eat all the good food).

W and C

This week it was back to the letters. Grant learned about W and C. We started with W on Monday. First we learned that Katie and her family started making a canoe to use on the nearby stream. In the story, Katie learned about the letter W and her father told her the story of The Fisherman and his Wife. I told Grant the same story and then we drew a picture from the story. Grant is starting to get better drawing with the block crayons, but they are a little challenging for him to use. We will have to add in some extra practice with those in the afternoons. I also introduced Grant to our form drawing and he practiced tracing that, and the letter W, in flour with his finger before moving onto practice on his chalkboard. This week's form is a hard one for him!

Chalkboard drawing for The Fisherman and His Wife including the letter W and this week's form

Grant's form drawing in his lesson book

Grant's "W is for Wave" drawing

Mom's "W is for wave" drawing

On Tuesday, we started our morning with a canoe ride around our lake since we were talking about Katie's family making a canoe. It was a beautiful fall morning and a perfect day for a canoe ride. We all enjoyed it. I did manage to drop Julia's hat and one of her shoes into the water, but both were recovered quickly.

During our music lesson on Tuesday, Julia came over for a visit and made it very difficult for Grant to play his penny whistle! Of course Grant did not mind the interruption and found it to be very funny. This week, his music lesson includes a ball-bouncing game to the verse of "1-2 buckle my shoe, 3-4 shut the door, etc... He is really enjoying that! It's like having P.E. right in the school room. I'm a little nervous about having a ball in the room, but so far there have not been any major disasters.

Johanna getting in on the ball bouncing game

We also wrote a summary of The Fisherman and his Wife in Grant's lesson book, talked more about W and words that start with W and he finished his picture from Monday. Grant has a little birch bark canoe he got in Minnesota, so during bath time he took it into the tub to see if it would float. It didn't float, so we talked about why and how it was different from our big canoe.

On Wednesday, Grant learned the letter C as I told him the story of The Poor Miller's Boy and his Cat. He had an interesting time trying to figure out my chalkboard drawing before he heard the story. He thought the man was trying to hit the cat (it took him awhile to figure out it was a cat) with the axe. I intended for the cat to be laying on a red rug, or Carpet, but Grant thought it was a pool of blood he was laying in from being hit by the ax. This has to be a boy's way of thinking, because surely Johanna would not have come up with such a gruesome story to go along with my drawing! Okay, so maybe this wasn't my best drawing! It all made sense to him after I read him the story. Below, I have included our summary from this story, so my picture will make sense to you, too. We also enjoyed another canoe ride that evening before dinner.

Chalkboard drawing for The Poor Miller's Boy and His Cat and the letter C

Our summary from The Poor Miller's Boy and His Cat:

There once was a miller who had three men working for him. He said whoever could bring back the most beautiful horse would earn the mill. The three set out and camped in a cave. The first two left the third behind as he was the drudge and they thought he was stupid. He woke and said, "Where am I?" He started walking in the forest and met an enchanted cat. She said she would give him the most beautiful horse if he worked as her servant for seven years. He worked for her faithfully. At the end of the seven years, she had him mow the grass and dry the hay in a meadow with a silver scythe. Then she had him build a house out of silver timber using a silver axe. She showed him the way back to the mill and said the horse would follow him in three days. When he returned, he found the other two men had brought one horse that was blind and one that was lame. In three days a beautiful princess brought the horse to the mill and left it there for the miller. The third miller's boy, who was her servant, left with the princess. They were married and he was rich for the rest of his life.

Thursday started out cloudy and rainy, so instead of our morning walk Grant and Johanna did a kid's yoga video, or as Johanna likes to call it, yoda video. Once in the school room we reviewed the letter C and this week's form. Grant had gotten much better at drawing it by today. He was very excited because now he knows "how to draw waves and put boats on them." He also finished finger knitting his jump rope so we will be moving on to a new handwork project.

Michaelmas

We are taking a break from letters this week to celebrate the Festival of Michaelmas. It is the "festival of courage". Michael, the archangel who inspires courage, is associated with this festival time. Michael is the brave dragon conqueror who wields a sword of cosmic iron, and brings strength to mankind, strength we can draw upon as the days become darker and we find our light within. Through the inspiration of this angelic being, the lowly peasant, George, was inspired to persevere. Though the odds were stacked against him, he completed a daunting task, conquering the "dragon".

Brave St. Michael is my guide

As free and fearless forth I ride

With courage of St. George of old

I dare to fight fierce dragons bold

It is pretty common in Waldorf Schools for the Kindergarten or First Grade classes to make wooden swords during Michaelmas. Since Grant already has a wooden sword, we designed a shield and him and Grandpa Paul made it. They also made Grant's knitting needles.

On Monday, I read a story about St. George conquering the dragon and then we decorated a dragon candle to use during our meals for the rest of the week. We made dragon bread for dinner, and Dad read a verse from Luke before we ate.

On Tuesday, I read a Michaelmas story from South Africa and we used our block crayons to draw a picture of a dragon.





On Wednesday, we made a dragon and angel mobile. We started by dyeing a white silk green, and let it dry while we took our walk. Once inside, I read the first part of the Michaelmas story involving our favorite fairy, Tiptoes Lightly, and her friends (remember her from Kindergarten?). After the story, we finished our mobile. We collected a twig from our red bud tree, and used our green silk to make a "dragon" and a white silk to make our "angel". Grandpa Paul came to visit us today and joined us for dinner, so we made another dragon bread for him, and read Revelations 12 about Michael and the angels conquering the dragon and throwing him out of heaven.

The Angel and Dragon Mobile

The Great Knight Grant

On Thursday, I finished reading the Tiptoes Lightly Michaelmas story and then we did a wet-on-wet watercolor painting with red and yellow to make "dragon flames".

Grant's "Dragon Flames" Painting

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.

My Belly Button Hurts

We started off the week with a bang. Literally an explosion from Johanna's mouth. On Sunday night, I heard a noise coming from our staircase and I turned on the light and peeked around the corner to find Johanna standing there after she had already been put to bed. She told me her "belly button hurt" and the next thing I know....yuk! You can just imagine. Being that she was on the stairs it also had a nice showering affect down through the railing and onto the carpet below in the living room, along with covering many stairs. I rushed her up to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. We still did not have time to get the seat up and get her properly positioned before it happened again, but finally before she did it a third time, we managed to get her over the toilet. Needless to say, she was a little shaken up and had left quite a mess of herself and the house. I was also thinking this was really the first time in three years this has happened to her, and I'm sure she was wondering what the heck was going on! I took her and put her in the tub and washed her off. As I was drying her off, she asked me, with a tear in her eye, what we were going to do about the stairs. I told her not to worry that Dad was cleaning it up. I dried her hair, put on warm pj's and tucked her back into bed. Then I joined Dad for the rest of the clean-up. Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Rainy Day