Fables block

We finished up our Fables block with a re-enactment using models of The Mouse and The Lion. Springy made them using Fimo modelling clay which we baked. It's not the same as using beeswax, as in Steiner style education, because you can stick bits together rather than form from a whole piece but she really enjoyed it and they look really good.  We also recited the poem from Sigi De Francesca's Fables book.

 we also had some harmonica time and our dog joined in (hilarious when she howls along ).

I was reading www.patchofpuddles.co.uk today.  The lady who runs it, Merry, is a home education hero of mine.  She lost her son in the spring and it's sad to read through her experience of his loss.  I remember how long it took for me to be able to go near a baby again.  When you lose a pregnancy or a child, I think it's quite common to develop an aversion to holding babies or toddlers.  I held a 13-month old the other week and it was such a lovely experience but I got very broody and inside, although it's much easier now, I felt that deep longing for little ones lost.

OT and Waldorf

I've been making gapped paragraphs for Springy.  The idea is say you are working on a Fable, you tell the story, but a very expanded version (Sigi De Francesca has a brilliant book on the Fables) and then I wrote a simpler version out of the story but left spaces in the text and a list of words my daughter had to use to fill it in.  That way she got to do some spelling, copywork and so on but tied it into the Fables.   Then after she had done quite a few of these gapped summaries (so she's not having to write out the whole summary herself) she then copied them out into her main lesson book and illustrated them.

I think one of the points of Grade 3 thinking in Waldorf is that the child is going through the 9-year change.  They're coming out of their dependency on you as parent but not yet independent.  The OT stories are to do with authority - the Garden of Eden, Noah having to build an Ark - big boss parent authoritarian figure saying "Do as I say...or else you will pay consequences." I've done a few of the OT stories but I have to say that spiritually (I'm an atheist) I was concerned and morally I had concerns too because God in OT stories from an outside perspective comes over as a complete and utter bully.  However, I have a few books by Margaret Mayo and Usbourne bible stories that have made me review my relation to the stories, not spiritually, but as a parent I have an understanding of how our role as passive or authoritative or authoritarian person changes depending on context etc e.g. safety issues.  There is a certain wisdom in them as stories (although I still don't understand why anyone would want to be in a religion that had such an aggressive, mean, authoritarian, death-loving deity). I've used the stories without putting them into a religious context, other than mentioning they are from the Jewish, Islamic and Christian traditions of religion so she can place them amongst her friends who believe in those faiths. 

My daughter has said quite a few times things like, "Oh he's so mean, why did he have to flood the Earth?"  However, she's also picked up on how mean the other people were.   However, she's also picked up on how mean the other people were and asked "Why couldn't he have saved all the nice things and not just some?".  I haven't answered as such but she's been left with some big questions and it is these big questions that work on us through our lives.  As a parent I often find myself questioning how I parent.  In the children's versions of the Old Testament the deity is diluted somewhat so I can relate to him as a "parent".  He created his children and he's trying to look after them, even though they go astray.  If he created them does he have the right to destroy them if they disobey?  It's not going in like that to Springy now but it locks into the synapses for a later date.

October Nature Walks

Springy and I had a lovely nature walk. We saw a grey heron, looking very primeval, in the harbour mud flats. We also saw a sparrowhawk overhead. The swallows seem to have disappeared over the past few days.
In the past few week I've also bought a sewing machine (managed to thread it up easily but still can't sew straight!).

1st october 2010

Today we managed to do the Fable of The Hare and the Crocodile and we have two pages in the main lesson book. Springy has also decorated the living room with Halloween pictures of cats, bats and pumpkins. I wondered why she needed a sewing kit and a hole puncher and it was because they are hang-up pictures.