Rainbow Gnomes

I recently made these adorable rainbow gnomes for a mom for her son's birthday party. I am still amazed I was able to crank out 35 of these guys in one week. - what can I say , have to keep my repeat customers happy.

Anyway these little guys inspired me to come up with a story and puppet show for Ryan.



HERE IS THE PUPPET SHOW OF THE "RAINBOW GNOMES" IN PHOTOS:
(this is the short version)

The story start of with the earth gnomes working hard beneath the earth mining crystals. One day they decide that they would like to see what the world looks like above ground.
So they go to see the Gnome King and ask for his permission to travel above the Earth.
The Gnome King calls on the Fairy Queen to come and help his little gnomes.
THe Fairy Queen uses her magic and the Earth gnomes become the Rainbow Gnomes. They are so happy with their new job as rainbow gnomes they decide to stay and harvest the colors for the rainbow.

Below is a picture of the puppet show after the story was over. I started off with the rainbow side covered up with silk and then uncovered the rainbow world when the fairy queen waved her magic wand. It must of inspired Ryan because afterwards he told his own story for about 20 minutes.


We then worked on some block crayon drawings. I have been trying to keep our drawings simple since I found Ryan was getting frustrated trying to draw what I was drawing. I have never told him he needs to draw like me, but he felt he needed to. So I have been keeping my shapes simple for now.

Ryan's drawing

my drawing

OSV Homeschool Day

We attended another Old Sturbridge Village Homeschool day yesterday and this time we took Sage with us! I know he is not homeschooled like Ryan, but it was such a great opportunity for him to attend some classes at the village. Ryan took a farm class, print class and home remedies class. Sage took a woodworking class, textiles class, and games. Overall we had a fun time even with the cold rainy weather.

After our first class we headed over to the blacksmith shop and on the way saw an actual wild skunk crossing the road!! That is a picture of him below as he heads into the woods.

Sage's boat from woodworking class: Can you tell by the look on his face that he did not want me to take his picture.
Here he is weaving in his textile class. He said his favorite was the games class but I did not get any pictures :(
Here is Ryan's print class. They made marble paper and a farm brochure with stamps.


THANKS KIM FOR DRIVING US THERE AGAIN!!!!!

Thursday Fun

On Thursday morning I told Ryan we could have a Mommy-Ryan play morning. I know this may seem like an odd thing to say since I am home with him everyday. Most of the time I encourage him to play by himself. In the Waldorf Philosophy Adults should not get down on the floor and be a part of their fantasy would - it is for the child to experience this themselves. One thing I have found with Ryan though is that occasionally he needs someone to play imaginatively with. Since he does not have a sibling at home to do this with - that is where I come in. I enjoy building a farm or a Gnome village with him. Or putting on silk capes and being a princess while he is my knight trying to save me. I also find it strengthens our bond as mom and son. So, when I told him we were having a "playdate" he was so excited. It is something we are going to start to do once a week.

When I was looking at our fun/hard work of setting up a farm - I realized that I made 95% of everthing we were playing with. I was very proud of myself at that moment. It has only been since I discovered Waldorf and bought "Toymaking With Children" that I discovered how much I love making these things. As you may notice there are hot wheel cars in our Waldorf Playroom. I took me a while to allow metal - factory made cars in the playroom - but I realized he loves them and will play with them like they are people. He had the cars drive up to the farm and ask for meat and vegetables. I am happy to see that the felted playmat I made is holding up to the cars. He plays on it everyday - yeah.


After our playday , Ryan and I took our bikes to the water resevoir near where we have our Waldorf Homeschool Co-op. I was so proud of him , he has only been ridding a 2 wheeler bike for a few weeks now and it took us a good hour to go around the whole trail. He stuck with it and did great. Just to give you a little history of RYan's bike riding: I never taught Ryan to ride a bike - never had to run after him as he learned. Last fall he picked up a friends 2 wheeler and just started ridding it!! This came from a boy who never wanted to take out his bike with training wheels. We went all winter without riding and in the spring he took his money and bought a bike , took it home and he was off ridding it. He had such confidence in his abilities by day 2 he was trying to ride no- handed. Yikes talk about giving mom a heart attack. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised he has good balance. This may come from learning to walk in the sandy beaches of Florida where we lived until he was 2.




It was such a beautiful day for a bike ride. We had a great time as always at our homeschool co-op. The kids made the cutest gnomes - I have not taken a picture yet of it - but it is cute! Ryan gave him a very special spot on our nature table.

Hiking at Wadsworth Falls

On Monday Ryan and I met up with some friends at Wadsworth Falls. It was a beautiful spring morning, perfect for a hike.

The roots on this tree are amazing. How cool to be able to actually see how the roots are growing.
Ryan and his friend were having a great time hanging out by the creek and throwing rocks into the water.
On to the hike! Along the trail is a Giant Laurel tree. This is a perfect climbing tree. When we first moved here 3 years ago we came to this park and I have a picture of Ryan at 2 year old on this same tree!
I did not get a picture of the beautiful stone wall along the path, but here is a picture of the tunnel underneath it. The boys loved going through this and climbing up the other side.
We made it to Little Falls!! With the sun shinning through the trees - it truly was a zen moment.
As my friend and I were staring at the beauty of this - our boys were already climbing up on the rocks and figuring out how to get closer to the water!

This little flower is such a beauty in the middle of the woods. The funny thing about it is that you dont notice it right away because it's head is bowed down. Once you find one all of a sudden you notice that the forest is full of them. I experienced the same thing in the woods by our house. Except that they were yellow - humm maybe tomorrow I will go and see if there are any purple ones.
At the end of the hike the boys played on the beach by the pond when we noticed several frogs on the bank. They spent 20 min at least wadding through the pond and catching frogs. Ryan was soaked and had to ride home in his birthday suit!

One of Ryan's catches. What better way to spend a Monday morning/afternoon! A very hands on learning day outdoors where a boy can be a boy!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Happy Earth Day. Today is the day we stop and reflect on Mother Earth and think of all the wonderful things she has given us. It is also a time to think about how we can help her. All the little things each one of us can do to make a difference. Recycle and reuse as much as you can.

We try very hard to be "green" some things we do :
1. only use cloth napkins and towels (the only paper product is the toilet paper)
2. Hang out the laundry as soon as it is above 40 degrees outside. Use an energy star washer using cold only
3.. recycle and composte
4. non-toxic cleaners
5. use our reusable bags at the grocery store

Things I would like to do better:
1. Cut down on toilet paper (I'm working on that one)
2. become more self sustaining and try to erase my enviromental footprint!

Sage and Ryan

Last week Sage was home on spring break! yipee party! It was great having him at home with us. He and Ryan spent alot of time just hanging out and being brothers. It was great to watch them get along and really enjoy each others company.





Cleaning the bathroom together. THey spent 30 min, in there cleaning and talking!






We had a great week - the pictures say it all.

Garden Planning

It has been awhile since I have written a post. I have to say that I had not been feeling well last week - just the yucks I guess. Is yucks a real medical term?hummm. I am feeling better and this weekend I was able to get a few things accomplished.

Sat was beautiful weather - sunny and warm!! I planted some seeds in the starter pots. Lets see I planted : snap peas, 2 different types of lettuce, lemon balm, cosmos, and forget me nots. I still have many more seeds, but I think I will wait until I can plant them in the ground. I do not have enough room to start all of our seed indoors. I am excited about our garden this year. I found potatoe seed plant and I can't wait to grow our own potatoes. We are also adding some container garden to expand what we can grow. Lets in addition to the above we will have tomatoes,onions,spinach,califlower,cucumber,pumpkins,carrots and many flowers. I am going to try to create a butterfly garden this year. We will see.

Here is the shelf where I have our seeds started indoors: The plastic over them helps to create a "greenhouse" effect. In the past I have not been very succesful at starting seeds indoors - I am not sure why. This year I am determined to get it right!

Ryan planted these 2 seedlings : cucumber and pumpkin at our monthly nature class. They made their own pots out of newspaper! Too cool and then you can plant them right in the ground and the paper disinigrates. They had a cool tool at the nature center but at home I just used a glass jar to roll up the paper. Tony helped me out a lot by making some. I did not get a picture though:(

go seedlings go!!!

Rainy Friday -Pretzels,fingerknitting and much more..

This morning after Dad went to work and Sage was off on the big yellow bus, Ryan and I set about to do chores. I washed the dishes and he rinsed and put them in the strainer. I discovered this picture of the dishes after I downloaded the pics. I guess he was experimenting with the camera.

While he was doing the dishes he saw a Cardinal outside the window and called me in excitment to come quick and see. We then spent the next 5 minutes running around the house watching where the Cardinal was going. He eventually landed on the tree in the backyard and flew off into the distance. It was a a lot of fun running to the windows searching out our little red friend!!

Then we made homemade whole wheat pretzels. They came out yummy!! I have to admit, I did put way to much sea salt on them and had to scrap most of it off. Still yummy though and so easy to make.
This afternoon we started finger knitting some horse reigns. I made some to take to our co-op to use in circle time for the kids to be ponies and we decided we needed some at home also! I found that using the clip board really helped Ryan. I also found this finger knitting verse in our Children's Seasonal Treasury :

Use your little pinchers, go into the cave.
Grab the little snake,My but you are brave!
Pull it back through, so two of you can play.
Close up the hole, so he can't get away!


We also went on Ryan's first bike ride on his new bike w/out training wheels and in the rain!! That will be on a post soon to come ...

Our Thursday Endevours

I have to say the Homeschooling my 5 1/2 year old is sometimes the hardest job I have ever had! But is also the most rewarding job that I have ever had. I don't really look at it as a "job" - it is just our way of life. AND that is the greatest thing about homeschooling. I can adjust our way of learning when I see that Ryan is burnt out. It is funny that this week we did most of what we usually do, except that is was done is an informal way. Ryan started asking me to do puppet shows and willing came to join me in modeling, block crayon drawing and water color painting. Where 2 weeks ago you would of thought that I was dragging him over hot coals. He did not want to sing, draw, paint or be helpful in anyway. What he needed was a break and a Mommy who need to remember that things have to be creative and fun for Ryan if we are to continue our "lessons"!!

So I did not light our candle at story time. I waited and this morning Ryan decided he wanted to camp. So he came down with his sleeping bag and we set up camp in the playroom. I brought the guitars so we could practice by the "campfire"(Ryan just started guitar lessons!!) Then when it was time to "sleep" I read a story to him - thus I was able to have storytime and a guitar lesson with out a second thought that this was work in any way. I know it is important that children are not played with all day - The adults need to do their adult work. In the Waldorf pedagogy Adults are encouraged to do their work while the children play near them. I do this a lot with Ryan but I find with him being the only one at home with me during the day - he needs a someone else in his fantasy play. He loves to play as some kind of worker and he usually needs a customer - that is where I come in sometimes. Even if I come to his restaurant - I will bring my knitting. Or today I "played" camp out with him and then after story quietly went on with chores about the house. I found if I do this for 5-10 minutes he is content and then goes on happily playing by himself.

Here is a picture of Ryan under the big green crocodile bag and our little camp fire nearby.


Thursday is our watercolor painting today. I told the painting story of blue having a birthday party and his friend red and yellow came and they danced and danced and as they danced new guests arrived. Ryan was happy to see brown on his paper. We talked about blue,red and yellow all dancing together created a new guest - brown! I got this story inspiration from the Painting with Children book by Brunhild Muller (Author)
Below is my painting. I love how the colors blended. We talked about how even though we both used the same red,blue and yellow our paintings are very different- but both beautiful. Ryan really liked the story. It helps that I have decided to go back to the basics of Waldorf Kindergarten right now.


On Monday I had hosted a spring puppet show at the house for our homeschool friends(pictures to come). So we spent most of the morning getting ready for that. That evening Ryan was feeling a bit rowdy so I had him follow me to the table with our block crayons. When we sat down he rolled his eyes and said he did not want to do "lessons". I told him we were just drawing - no lessons. I picked up the block crayons and started drawing while saying this verse:

In the heart of seed buried oh so deep
Lay a dear little plant fast asleep
"Wake"said the sunshine and creep to the light.
"Wake" said the voice of the raindrops bright.
And the little plant heard and rose to see
what a beautiful outside world could be.


Ryan joined and made this drawing below. I was amazed no complaining - no half attempts to draw - he really enjoyed it! YEAH.


Today at our homeschool co-op we modeled ducks. This is the duck family that Ryan and I worked on.
We also started making geo boards for string art projects. Ryan hammered all the nails in with out my getting them started! This week I have seen such change in him besides just a haircut!