Saturday, February 9, 2008

Back to Lessons

As I mentioned in my post below , Imbolc was a time of awakening and renewing our energy as well as a time to transition back into our homeschool rhythm. The week did not go exactly as I had planned, but not to bad. I am still learning to adjust to Ryan's learning style. He is high energy,persistant, and leaps throughout his day. I am working on getting him to find quite time which right now has been impossible - I'll keep trying. Knowing that I have an active learner I try to adjust our lessons that way, but still keeping a balance. Ryan likes to be in charge of his learning and teach himself new things. This is great ! I love that about him. We definetly have a child-led learning environment and I seek out ways to guide him through his journey. At the same time a lot of the Waldorf Pedagogy is how I want to teach him so I do my best to start there first!






We started our week by hearing the story of Mother Holle. The first day I simply lit a candle and told the story, we then practiced writting the letter Hh on the chalkboards and turning them into houses.

here is the link for the story if anyone is interested:
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=lmr&book=k3rainbow&story=holle





We also practiced some of our numbers. The chalk board is a lot of fun for Ryan so he enjoys his lessons.








This is a simple set up for our puppet show of the Mother Holle story (the farmer was added after the story) My pictures are out of order and I can not figure out how to switch them - but we did the puppet show on Friday. Fridays are usually our puppet show day.



On the second day of our story I usually set up a few puppets and a simple scene for the story that Ryan can look at while I tell the story.





We also baked some delicious cinnamon-raisin bread and made some great choc.chip cookies with garbonzo beans in them. They came out delicious - even Tony,my biggest dessert critic liked them. Yeah protein filled cookies!!!








We took the opportunity this week to reorganize the playroom. Our dear friend Kim gave us her 2 playstands and we needed to make room for them. We ended up taking Ryan's work table out of the playroom and into the kitchen (and if we get hungry, we are right next to the fridge ). We can also look at and see if any birds are at the feeder.





New shelf re-organized. Not sure if you can see, but our newly knitted horse and pony are on the second shelf.










New kitchen area. Ryan was very definte about leaving the kitchen in front of that sun door so that he could look out across the yard when he is cooking. Plus he needed all his pots and pans near by so he can reach them - he is a busy cook ( and he cooks everyday down there!!)












3 comments:

* * said...

Hi! I am new to your blog and I am really enjoying it! This post is beautiful and inspiring. I have three little one's that I am homeschooling in the Waldorf tradition. I am so new to this and I am still finding my way in regards to where to turn for ideas for lessons, songs, celebrations etc. Are you making things up on your own gleaning from all different places or using a set curriculum? Thanks for any advice : )

julie said...

Thank you Nicole, I have many different Waldorf resources that I pull from. Each year it becomes more natural for me and I am becoming more confident in my own abilities to pull together lessons and as reliant on the books. I continue to learn all I can about Waldorf Early Education - I really find it is a wonderful and beautiful way for our children to learn.
There is a great book called Heaven On Earth, A handbook for parents of young children. It gives many wonderful examples and ideas for creating a rythm.

Nice to meet you Nicole.

* * said...

Thank you Julie for your response. It is nice meeting you also! I appreciate your book recommendation, and will certainly check it out. I will continue to look forward to reading your blog!