Best in Show

Last week our dog Lily won Best in Show at a local pet show.  Yesterday she also won a Third Prize for Novelty Class, Child Handler.  Springy was her handler and it always amazes me how good Springy is with animals.  I hope that this will somehow be a passion that she takes into her adulthood.  I'm hopeful in many ways that her future career will involve animals and psychology, perhaps as a trainer for the police or for dog charities.  We were informed yesterday by some dog obedience teachers that Springy is a natural and that was a really good reinforcement.  University is a long way off but I'm hoping that animal sciences - zoology or biological sciences will be subjects that she wishes to study.  At the same time, I'm trying to be careful not to live my own dreams through her.

Springy's cursive writing has improved considerably this summer.  I sent her for a couple of tutorials with a tutor who is a school teacher.  However, it was Springy telling me, "Mummy, do you know why my writing improved? ... because I decided!"

We had a lovely day today.  It was sunny and warm. We went to an outdoor place for a walk and took two of Springy's friends along.  They were telling scary stories to each other (Halloween seems to be early!).  We found walnuts, beech mast and hazelnuts on our walk.   There were some adorable pigs in the woods - a mummy and 5 piglets.  She was a Tamworth - so they were all a beautiful bronze colour.  I always imagine that the reason there are legends of golden pigs is because in the sun, their bristles glint away.  I am so glad to be vegetarian:  they were skipping and running about and when we threw some beech mast in for them they ran away to their mother.  They were adorable babies and to think of them as sausages makes me so sad.

Writing workshop

Springy had a writing workshop at the library today. It was quite funny to see her roll her eyes at the boys who were not listening. She was the only girl there so I wasn't sure if she wanted to stay or whether the subject (a book she hadn't read called beast Quest) was of interest. However, she enjoyed it all and wrote a great amount of detail.

We had a bedtime story last night about a boy and his mud horse. It was from the Enki Education curriculum but I'm certain I've seen the story elsewhere too.

I'm reading a Robert Holdstock book at the moment and want to make another foray into Middle Earth to read The Hobbit. I want some sunshine days to happen next week. I'd like to hire a Rug Doctor to clean our carpets and for that I need good weather. I also want to wash all the bedding and towels again at a 60 deg C wash.

I want to tidy up the garden, mow the lawn and tidy up our lounge so that we can access the blackboard again. I wish I could work out how to re-arrange our home to make it easier to organise everything.

Springy painted a shoebox tonight and decorated it. I think it's meant to be a new room for her Sylvanians or her dollshouse folk.

Model making and walruses

Today was a really good day. Springy says she really doesn't want to play the recorder so she had a go on our percussion instruments instead. We made 2 cats, a kitten and a dog out of Fimo. Our dog had a walk and a wash under the shower, and then Springy and I did some writing practice on vowels in lower case and we then read an Usborne Animal quiz book and discussed what we were reading about.

We also watched this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iDtvGbIOU

St George's Day

We took part in a St George's Day parade at the weekend. It was good fun - I mostly followed Springy around with the camera.

Our puppy is gorgeous. She's getting dog "eyebrows" now which gives her lots of expression. Today she had a fantastic time playing with another dog and they rough and tumbled on the green.

Springy and I did a form drawing session today. We also read Pico the Gnome which is a sweet story. Springy is having trouble finding the ground and the sky in terms of balancing her form drawing but is still doing very well. She made a spell book the other day - we stayed off writing for months and now she keeps writing under her own volition. She decorated the front in the Stockmar crayons and has written some spell-like poems inside. They're copied from My Secret Unicorn, a series of books she has been reading. She also sometimes writes her own poems and is forever telling me ones she has made up, on a verbal basis.

I'm reading a book on painting in the Steiner schools. It's really interesting and has given me a new insight into the colours and the way painting is covered. Rather than using nouns to describe the way the paint colours relate (which is the incorrect emphasis of many of the "waldorf" styled consultants) they say the correct way is on using adverbs and adjectives - the colours are the entities themselves. Having recently taken a workshop on Goethean and Steiner's thoughts on colour this is starting to make more sense to me. The colours themselves are the spiritual elements and essences.

The opposite of the painting is the form drawing which relies on outlines and can be done in bold colours.

Next year - 2009

It's not very long until 2009. Springy will be starting Brownies next year which she is looking forward to, along with continuing with her Beavers and swimming. I have been trying to find dance classes but to no avail.

Her reading is great. She has a dictionary and I will be asking her to make more searches in it during next year to find new words for herself to discover. She's been making her own word searches and loves the ones I have been giving her with various themes. She enjoys word puzzles and I think she will soon be into simple crosswords. She really wants to do joined up writing so I have explained that she needs to do more Form Drawing first and that it will get there if she practices with lines and curves first. We now have a Spelling Word Book which is an exercise book that I place words in that she would like to spell. Springy also has her own poetry book - again it's just an ordinary exercise book but she has been inspired to write her own poems and illustrate them on its pages.

In terms of maths we will continue with the four processes and lots of mental arithmetic for a while yet. We've covered Roman Numerals but I would like to do a recap on them with her and go on a Roman trail in the Spring and visit Roman remains with the numerals on. Our Times Tables need more recitation and drilling.

Bad colds and reading and writing

We're all suffering from a bad cold at the moment. I can barely speak (pharyngitis) so have only managed to tell 2 stories today (very short ones) from books.

Springy has had a fairly nice time nevertheless. Her silicon swimming hat arrived yesterday, along with a pair of pink goggles (to match the hat) and she has been practising with both of them in the bath tub. She's not happy about her appearance because she looks "different" with the hat on - it squashes and distorts her face and she doesn't know who she is when she looks in the mirror. Her other lovely comment was from the weekend when we sat and watched Return of the Jedi together and she came out with "I know why they have breaks... it's so the people can change their costumes between scenes". This girl shows she has been to the theatre a few times ;)

Anyway, I found two really useful articles at the Waldorf Library:

http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/Learnreadwriteward.pdf - by William Ward

and the other is on
Teaching our children to write, read and spell by Susan R JOhnson MD. It also mentions bedtime issues and links proprioreceptive stuff i.e. the child is not aware of where their limbs are to having difficulty in getting to sleep. I'm going to think on this for Springy but I'm not sure whether that's really the issue. I know she thinks too much at night but she's very much in her body, more than I was at her age (and I was a good sleeper) but maybe I do need to giver her limbs a gentle massage before sleep and see if this can help. In terms of active days most days she has been out and about and we do other movement type activities. I know on some days we have walked miles, done balancing, climbed and so on and she still can't sleep with ease. I think this may just be the nature of Springy (this was the baby who until 8 months old would have to be woken up to feed and was a very easy and contented little baby.. then teeth and sleep patterns changed).