Our Waldorf Homeschool Journey

This morning we started school with a few movement exercises. StJohn was skipping and Juliette was doing some hoop work, which worked well to calm things down for their main lessons.

For Juliette today it was The Plant Kingdom of Atlantis. Now in neither Plato nor Steiners’ work is there much to go on other than the beauty of the plants, the immense trees and the various grains that were grown. Because of this I found out about flowers that grow in the vicinity of India and found a beautiful book which is downloadable for free here! It is a beautiful book with paintings and details of the flowers. This book will come in handy for our Ancient Civilizations India Block in a few weeks time.

Anyway I had to find a flower that grows in both India and South Africa as I wanted to have it in the room when we discussed it. Finally I decided on the Iris. It is a plant of the lower kingdom. It is beautiful and easy to get hold of!

We bought a bunch and it’s been on the table since the beginning of the week. It is an out of the ordinary flower for us to have. I generally choose a mixed bunch of smaller flowers, so I noticed these flowers were being investigated by both kids. I said absolutley nothing until this morning when I discussed the Plants of Atlantis and the possibility of the Iris growing there.

Again I’d already prepared the chalkboard drawing the night before. Just a small one as the big board was still being used for the map of Atlantis.

 

 We spoke about the leaf of the Iris, which has parallel veins, and the beautiful petals, and Juliette ws awed when she discovered the six pointed star in the centre of the flower. Juliette then drew the Iris and journaled about the plants of Atlantis, and a short separate piece about the Iris.

I didn’t do a full Botany lesson with her, that will come later in the year. This was just a gentle introduction to the beauty of the Plant Kingdom.The lesson was mainly focused on how the people of Atlantis were more plant like than animal like in the earliest days. A discussion about the soul and spirit of the earliest Atlanteans.

Then we ended the day with a surprise gift for her. A book to keep pressed flowers in. She’ll be collecting flowers, leaves and other foliage throughout the year and finding their latin names. She was hugely interested in the taking apart of the Iris and preparing it for pressing. Of course this was only after I had convinced her that due to the flowers coming death, it would be a beautiful gift to give it to be preserved for the foreseeable future.

Tomorrow we do the Animals of Atlantis…

Filed under: Waldorf Grade 5, Ancient Civilisations, Anthroposophy, Waldorf Homeschooling on September 2nd, 2009