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 | No Comments »

Well Friday ended rather badly with StJohns’ horrid behavior, he’s going through that choleric stage at the moment, testing boundaries at every opportunity. So we never got to do is lesson with him on Friday…but that said he helped bake the lamingtons after school. But enough of that…Juliette and I looked at the Architecture and specifically the temple of Atlantis. Now Plato describes these things beautifully in one of his plays, so the lesson was relatively easy to put together.

Firstly the chalkboard drawing that was done and waiting for her in the morning…

I felt that the temple was a solid structure not the type found in ancient greece. Just my personal impression, so I went with it. We spoke about the various types and colours of bricks/stones used in their building. How it could have been plain or exquisitely patterned. We spoke of the temple, where it was situated and what was inside. We spoke of Poseidon in his chariot being pulled by winged horses and surrounded by 100 sea nymphs riding dolphins. We spoke of how the temple was covered in silver on the outside and how the pinnacles of the temple were covered in gold. We thought about orichalcum, what was it, how did it look?

I had made Juliette a small pair of butterfly earrings the previous evening using a copper coloured metal, which has a similar colour to orichalcum. She was thrilled with them and wore them today.

And then Juliette wrote a bit about Atlantis, it’s temples and the mineral gifts from the Earth that were used there. Here is her page…

And we explored a slightly different avenue in respect of drawing on Friday. Yes, she drew the temple, but then she cut out tinfoil (silver) for the walls of the temple and gold paper for the roof, and glitter was applied liberally, not only to the picture I’m afraid. It goes everywhere!!I always forget about it’s staying power if I haven’t used it for a few months. Everything has bits of glitter on it or in it, even the poor cat! But let me tell you it was worth it! Look at what Juliette created…

The thing that struck me about this picture was its’ simplicity. Often her drawing and paintings are full of detail. This was so simple. She measured and cut the paper and foil, and left spaces for the glitter, then filled it in carefully. It took her ages to do. And she put the last bit of glitter on and said,”I’m finished.” Usually she will pick up a pencil or crayon and fiddle a bit here and there, before finally leaving the picture be.

You’ll notice that we try and do an activity related to the lesson each day. In the architecture of Atlantis there seemed to be a strong feeling for the mineral kingdom, so I decided on glitter, and foil, in essence - metals. I feel that this is really important when homeschooling using a Waldorf approach. It’s part of learning using the head, heart and hands for me.

We ended the day with an odd little story from Denmark about a Sea Nymph, and we chatted about how the humans have felt about them for centuries.

Tomorrow we are going to look at the technology and healing powers of the Atlanteans, crystals and the like, it should be fun! I’m not as prepared as I’d like to be so, I’ll be up early tomorrow getting myself together.

Filed under: Waldorf Grade 5, Ancient Civilisations, Waldorf Homeschooling on September 6th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I was having a bit of a bad day with my darling 7 year old son… So I thought, you know what…I’m going to bake. I always feel better after a baking session, and this one seemed perfect as it has 3 easy steps. Each child was able to do something. I baked the sponge cake, and cut it up, Juliette dipped the sponge squares into chocolate icing and StJohn rolled the little cakes in coconut. Here’s the recipe…

1 cup of sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup of oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 cup of milk

Mix the sugar and eggs together until well blended, then slowly add oil while beating, then add the vanilla.

Now add the milk and flour alternately.

Butter a square 20cm baking tin and bake at about 180 degrees celsius for 25 minutes.

Take it out of the oven allow it to cool and then cut it into squares, I removed the hard edges first.

We got about 24 squares out of our cake. I made some big and some small, as often the kids want a snack and it’s the wrong time of the day, so they only get a little something. The big ones are for Daddy!

While your cake is cooling, bring the following ingredients to the boil on the stove, then immediately remove from heat and allow to cool.

1 cup of sugar

 1/2 cup hot water

1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa

1/2 tablespoon butter

Now both your cake and your icing should be cool (lukewarm is fine). Roll your little cakes in the icing…

Then roll them immediately in the coconut.

That’s it you’ll have perfect lamingtons!

Want to know the history of the Lamington? They were made originally by the chef of Lord Lamington, the then Governor of Queensland,who incidentally didn’t like them at all! Lord Lamington is quoted as referring to them as “those bloody,poofy,woolly biscuits”.

Filed under: Waldorf Homeschooling, Homesteading Recipes on September 4th, 2009 | No Comments »

We’ve done, the creation and plants of Atlantis, yesterday was the turn of the Animals found in Atlantis. Apparently there were elephants, cattle horses etc who lived in Atlantis, but we’d done all of those animal studies in Grade 4, so I wanted something a bit different.And it had to be from the India area…

In the end I chose the Indian Blue Peafowl, commonly called the peacock. So this morning we spoke about the fertile soil, bringing forth the many and varied plants, and because of this there was sure to be an abundance of birdlife, right? Well what better bird to decorate the beautiful Atlantis than a Peacock?

This is the chalkboard drawing I prepared for this morning…

Juliette then wrote about it and surrounded her work with a form drawing, in this case being the decoration of the feathers of the peacock…

 Then she drew the peacock, and did something a bit special. I’ve found that during a lesson block, when we’re just drawing, writing and the odd painting and sculpture type work, it can become tedious. So I try and find things that are a bit more interesting. This week it was feathers. Have a look at the picture she drew yesterday. After she had finished, she then glued fine brilliant blue feathers onto the peacocks body. She was thrilled with the result…

 Now I’m off to teach her about the architecture and great temple of Atlantis. And of course StJohn is doing a fable this morning. I need to update the blog with his things as well.

Filed under: Waldorf Grade 5, Ancient Civilisations, Waldorf Homeschooling on September 4th, 2009 | No Comments »

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 | No Comments »

Yesterday we did the first of StJohns’ animal fables for the year. We started with the fox and the crow. First thing yesterday we did a form drawing, then I told him the story of the crow. The chalkboard drawing was ready for him, it is sooooo important. I know a lot of Mom’s don’t do the drawings because they feel they have no drawing talent. Well then you’re missing out on so much. It doesn’t have to be a glorious work of art, just a bright representation of the story.Before I start a drawing on the board I find a quiet spot and ask the Spirit to help me. Seriously my drawings improved 10 times after I started doing that…The kids absolutely love it, it feeds there imagination, which is what makes Waldorf work

Sticking to the Waldorf way of doing things I don’t read the story to him, I just tell it, adding as I go. Obviously we took the original story from Aesop but our fox was hungry from a long winter and he hadn’t had a good meal for 3 days etc. He finally, after gobbling the cheese, saunters down the hill giggling to himself, with the cheese making him warm inside. We then leave it at that, allowing the child to draw his own conclusion.NEVER make a judgement for the child. Don’t tell the child the moral of the story. Don’t even ask what he thinks of it! I found with my kids, they genererally come to me the next day to talk about the story, before we do it again, and they refer to the moral of the story as they see it.

The whole point of the animal fable is that the child finds the moral on his own. It becomes part of him, as he has discovered it himself.

StJohn then wrote a summary of the story and drew a picture in his main lesson book.

Finally to end the day, we made cheese…which turned out pretty yummy, even though I had my doubt initially.

Filed under: Waldorf Grade 2, Waldorf Homeschooling on September 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »

Yesterday was the first day of Grade 5 and we kicked off with form drawing, then Atlantean mythology. The lesson block I put together went down really well with Juliette. We spoke about how Cronus was overthrown by Zeus, how Zeus split up the earth and how Poseidon found the beautiful Cleito tucked up on a land surrounded by sea. We spoke of Atlantis in the beginning, how it was shrouded in mist, and how that slowly lifted the more the people of Atlantis became one with Earth.

We spoke about how Cleito and Poseidon had children and then the land was split up between them. What was the land like? What grew there?What were their buildings like? Animals?Plants?

A basic introduction to the Continent of Atlantis prior to 9600BCE.

I drew a representation of Atlantis on one of our chalkboards and Juliette drew her representation of Atlantis and wrote about it.  All in all I think we both enjoyed it. We’ll go into detail about each aspect of Atlantis for the remainder of this week and part of next week. I originally set aside a week for Atlantis, but on reflection found we need seven days not 5 to really do it justice. Today we discovered the plants of Atlantis.

Everything that I told Juliette today was based on the study of both Plato and Rudolf Steiners’ work.

Filed under: Anthroposophy, Ancient Civilisations, Waldorf Form Drawing, Waldorf Homeschooling, Rudolf Steiner, Homeschool on September 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »

Many people seem to only give their boys traditional “boys” toys. I’ve found having a son and daughter that they both seem to like all sorts of toys until the age of about 8/9.

Juliette still loves her “Barbie” dolls (for want of a better description). Dolls that go places, get dressed into many clothes, give parties, fight, cry, get married, have children etc. etc. In other words she acts out real life but in a 10 year olds way. Now StJohn is 7 at the moment and he has always loved to join in this game, but he wants a man, not a lady doll. So what is available for boys? Well…an action man. Usually a soldier with a mean angry face who comes in a box with weapons and being plastic, breaks within a 10 day period.

I can’t stand these awful plastic soldiers! They seem so grown up and aggresive. They don’t seem to be interested in doing loving, nurturing things. So I finally said…No!NO! today we make a gentleman! This was a while back, so we got out an old action man, and we cut out a felt dude! Here he is…

 We made StJohn an orange and yellow one, as those are his fave colours. He then made clothes for his “little gentleman”. He is the same height and everything as a normal action man. He has pipe cleaners in his limbs so that he can bend, sit and dance. He has yellow roving for hair. That went from nice haircut to fright wig within 2 weeks as it started felting, just mildly but still felting! StJohn loves him! When it came time to do his face, I asked StJohn if he wanted eyes, mouth etc. and he said, “No.”

When I asked him why not, he said to me,”Well if we give him a smiley face then he can’t be cross but if we don’t put in any face then he can be cross, happy, sad, anything. You see it happens in my head, Mom.”

So there you go my answer to action man! Oh and last of all we sewed on a heart, so that he came alive (according to StJohn). He needed a heart to love you see…

Filed under: Waldorf Toys, Anthroposophy, Handwork & Crafting, Waldorf Homeschooling on August 29th, 2009 | No Comments »

I sat down a while back with the grade 5 curriculum and started to plan the study of Atlantis. Step 1 - find as much info as possible, from everywhere, differing opinions etc. Now this is where planning really takes off and there is usually such a glut of info that one needs to sift and you can pick and choose!

Well not this time. The info available was minimal and kept referring to the same sources, one of which was Plato. But again there were such differing opinions and heated argument that I ended up reading all the information myself and putting into a short book that is easily digestable! Not what I had planned at all but such is life. It was great fun and I think slightly addictive! I can’t get enough of Atlantis and what happened to the Atlanteans after the flood…

Let’s go back to the beginning.  The earliest mention of Atlantis appears to be in Platos’ writings back in about 345-3600BC. So I found an english translation of Timaeus and Critias and proceeded to read it. It was a wealth of information!

Next I read Atlantis by Rudolf Steiner. This book is a compilation of various lectures he gave about Atlantis. You can find out more about it by scrolling down the right side of this blog and clicking on the book. Now if you have no interest in anthroposophy you’ll find it as befuddling as a lot of Steiners’ other work.But if you have even a basic understanding of anthroposophy you’ll love it. It is a powerful book, which as you read it you feel truth. I found many questions I had from a spiritual perspective were answered. Our very origins are there… I can’t explain it any other way. Just get it!Buy it!Borrow it!Whatever just read it!

From these 2 sources and a few others such as Graham Hancock, Rand Flem-Ath etc, I put together the story of Atlantis. From creation to destruction, as we see it from the writings of Plato and Steiner predominantly. I’ll be doing the lessons from 01 September to about 08 September, then I can let you know how it went and have some pictures. But as it stands at the moment it’s broken down as follows:

Creation

Involves Greek Mythology mainly, the main characters and the layout of Atlantis.

Plants

Information about the fertile plains, and various plants that grew there.

Animals

Information about the animals of Atlantis both wild and domestic.

Architecture

Again the layout of Atlantis, but also the building materials and temple.

Technology

How did the Atlanteans get around both on Atlantis and across the seas?What minerals did they find deep within the earth.

The End of the World

The final days, the sending of wise people throughout earth to bring knowledge to various civilisations.

Included in all of this for the week is mixed media work, painting, form drawing, animal studies, botany and the gift of a quartz crystal each.

Putting together this small lesson block took weeks of reading, but it was worth it. Once I’ve given the lessons to my daughter, and any adjustments made, and the illustrations have been done for the little book, we’ll have it available on the blog. I look forward to sharing it with you.

Next on my agenda is Ancient India…That should go quite quickly as there is piles of info around, and we have a great little indian bazaar-type shop close by to us, so there is plenty to see. I’ve already got most of the books, and fun readers for Jules so I think I’ve past the biggest hurdle which was Atlantis! I certainly won’t by writing a book on Ancient India!

Filed under: Ancient Civilisations, Anthroposophy, Waldorf Homeschooling, Rudolf Steiner on August 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »

Well we’re nearly at the end of our holiday between grades, and I’ve been sleeping, playing with my cat, playing boardgames with the kids, having breakfast at strange places and having numerous pajama days!

And I’ve been reading….in preparation for planning the lessons. Now when you get Melisas’ curriculum you are given the daily lesson plan for the entire school year, including reminders about festivals and so many other extra activities and ideas. Obviously you do still have to gather the information to present to your child. Melisa provides you with all the resources etc. but if you’re teaching a Waldorf curriculum, you need to understand the subject in the light of anthroposophy. This part is so important for me, as I truly believe that if you don’t understand the subject you can’t teach it to your child.  Steiner says as much in many of his lectures. The child has to see your interest and excitement, in order to become interested and want to absorb the lesson.

There are days when I am not at my best and I can see the kids attention slipping, as I haven’t inspired them. Thankfully those days are few! I often just do a painting lesson or games of some sort or long walks, but no planned lesson, as I wouldn’t be doing them any good.

Anyway, everyone plans differently, so this is what I do. I read the entire curriculum for the year,order any additional books I want(usually I don’t need, but I sure do want) then pull out Steiners lectures on the various subjects (and there are many). After I’ve read these lectures I then start gathering information, books, lots of “google-ing” and then I start laying out each days work and writing up each lesson, it’s objectives and any activity on a day by day basis. I scribble in the actual curriculum book and make endless notes on my laptop at this point. I love being comfortable so this part is usually done here…

 I literally got up from the couch one evening last week, found the camera and took a quick pic. So this is exactly how I do it. (The cat is essential!And so is the tea!In my favourite mug!)

Now the day to day stuff…I first plan the Grade 5 lessons, 1 block at a time. We’ll be starting off with Atlantis. I then plan the Grade 2 block. We’ll be doing Fables.I print and bind our curriculum in an A5 size and having it ringbound, means it opens easily and lies flat! This is the one for Grade 5…

 And the one for Grade 2…

Now I do this in 5 days blocks. Making sure that we have joint activities, meaning handwork, clay, beeswax,painting,form drawing,baking etc.. It makes life easier for me. An example would be that on day 4,  grade 5 looks at architecture in Atlantis. We’re looking specifically at the main temple which was covered in silver on the outside. We’ll be using tinfoil in our mixed media artwork for that day.  So what can grade 2 do for the day which will make use of tinfoil in a mixed media artwork? I found one of Aesops’ fables about a bold and quite boastful lamp, which StJohn will do on that day. We’ll also have some gold paper so he should be able to make a remarkably interesting lamp. See so that’s how I plan… Once all of that is done, I then transfer it to the big day planner I have, again from Melisa. This is the stage I’m at now and have only copied joint activities into the day planner, and the shopping list for items needed, in other words, one day we’re making cheese so the day before I need to buy the ingredients. Also for the first week we’ll have delphiniums on our table as we’ll be looking at those in Atlantis studies. All of this goes into the day planner!

If you want to look at planning in detail there are a few videos that Melisa put together that are quite useful. To have a look at them click HERE.

Now I’m supposed to be in the garden clearing a new bed, as spring is around the corner, but it is chilly and I’m off to make more tea. I want to do a post on Atlantis a bit later today, as this is the only lesson block I had trouble finding info for. I mean in depth information, not just a clip on National Geopgraphic. It turned out awesomely! And turned into a 6 day lesson plan, which if it goes smoothly may be the best block we’ve done!It’s exciting beyond measure.

Filed under: Anthroposophy, Waldorf Homeschooling, Rudolf Steiner on August 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »