Our Waldorf Homeschool Journey

Unfortunately I haven’t been updating the blog, as I’ve been in hospital, and have spent the better part of a week recovering. So I have lots to blog about. StJohns’ grade 2 lessons have been going according to schedule and I haven’t blogged about 1! Disgusting, I know, but I just want to get Juliettes’ Grade 5 goodies up to date here first then do a couple of posts on his work.

I left off last week after completeing the architecture and temples of Atlantis, well the day after that we had planned to spend on the mineral kingdom of Atlantis and the awesome use of the  life force found within everything.

This is such a huge concept to bring to a child, that I don’t feel it’s suitable for Grade 5, so we just touched on it lightly without the indepth discussion of energy…

So this is how we did it. We spoke about how the Atlanteans thought differently to us, how they were more connected to the spirit world then we are. How they were able to “feel” and “will” a plant to grow for example. We spoke about the soul and spirit of us humans, then the animals and then the plants. I chose to focus on one of Rudolf Steiners’ lectures when he talks how the Atlanteans were able to use the very life force of a seed to power their vehicles amongst other things. We spoke about how in our time we think things through, we find solutions…Like how to use a seed to make biodiesel. (My kids are pretty clued up on environmental issues-so biodiesel was a known quantity to them-otherwise I would have found something else)

You see in the time of Atlantis this process wasn’t necessary as the Atlanteans were able to use the life force of the seed directly! I then had a (in my opinion) pathetic chalkboard drawing of an Atlantean Vehicle. I just was’t feeling well, and my drawing skills went downhill for a while there. Needless to say, the kids coined the phrase “The Atlanteans’ Bean Powered Car”…

 You see…Van Gogh I’m not! I cheated disgustingly…I felt exhausted, so rubbed out a few spots on the previous board and merely inserted a few “cars”. Jules loved them so I guess that was the most important part.

We then spent time talking about the energy found within a crystal, how it is used for healing amongst other things. We spoke about how the Atlanteans may have used it and how it is still used today, and we briefly looked at a few different crystals that we have about the house and their powers.

Lastly we looked at where the word crystal comes from…”krystallos” greek meaning ice. I then told Jules that it was believed that quartz was actually rain frozen for all time by the Gods.

I though this was a beautiful way to end the lesson…

Filed under: Waldorf Grade 5, Ancient Civilisations, Waldorf Homeschooling, Rudolf Steiner on September 21st, 2009