Friday, 11th November 2010

We are stocked up on dog food, hen food and guineapig food. We have a tube of cardboard wide enough to accommodate our guineapig and Lily has new dog toy that she is very excited by and keeps asking us to throw.

We also lit a lantern and walked around the kitchen table as it is far too wild and windy to go outside with a real flame. Poor Lily had to wait until this afternoon for her walk because it was pouring down at an angle.

We keep seeing either a curlew or a whimbrel in the harbour (not today though as it was far too choppy when the tide was in). I need to take a photo so that I can fully identify it with Springy's help. From the way it is staying it's more likely a curlew as they stay resident in the winter, whereas whimbrels just pass through.

 

And Springy   is currently still up singing her times tables in a rather odd operatic voice. "Numbers are are fun, threeeee times six iszzz eight-teeen..." !!!

The Tower of Babel

We did some 3 times tables (with stamp stamp clap), told a story about the Tower of Babel and Springy is now playing with some old clay that is soaking in water. She's going to be doing some clay tablet writing over the next few days (I hope - not much clay though!). We've also read Story of the World about the first writing.

 (update:  we didn't have enough clay to make the tablets but she made a mini Tower of Babel.  It was interesting to note how she has recently been asking about what did people talk like in the past.  She was asking about the Stone Age and so on and how people would have sounded so the curriculum meshes with her developmental needs).

Old Testament Stories and clay

We did some 3 times tables (with stamp stamp clap), told a story about the Tower of Babel and #Springy is now playing with some old clay that is soaking in water. She's going to be doing some clay tablet writing over the next few days (I hope - not much clay though!). We've also read Story of the World about the first writing.

 I went to Michael Hall earlier this week and had a great time experiencing a Day in the Classroom.

We covered Nature Stories.  I learnt a lovely story from experienced Waldorf teacher David Smith (30 years of class teaching).  This is an adaptation because it as an oral story and I didn't tape it:

Once there was a plant nursery and in the autumn and spring, as you may know, a lot of birds either leave or come to our country.  They travel from far away, sometimes from countries to the far north with ice and snow and sometimes from hot places such as Africa.  Now there were a lot of new baby plants growing in the nursery and some of the birds had travelled long and far and they watched the little plants.  They noticed that one of the plants was growing bigger than the others.  They gathered around and had a look and they noticed that the leaves on this baby plant were so big.  "Aha" said the swallows, "You must be an elephant plant - you have a trunk and two big ears."  The birds laughed.  The baby plant felt sad because he didn't want to feel different from the other plants in the nursery but the birds kept calling him an elephant plant.  The birds said to the other little plants growing in the nursery that they shouldn't talk to the elephant plant anymore.  The little plants at first said "Oh no we're all plants" but the birds said that if any of them kept talking to the elephant plant that they wouldn't be friends with them.  The elephant plant felt very sad.  He was all alone and so he turned his head up to the sun and asked the sun to make him like the sun.  "Please make me like you Sun."  And he grew and he grew as he held his head to the sun.  The birds had flown away for a while and when they came back they noticed the elephant plant.  "Ooh, you've changed, you're just like the Sun," they said.  They started to make a fuss and told all the other birds and the other plants in the nursery that the elephant plant looked like the sun.  The birds said "How did you stop being an elephant and turn into the sun?  We know what you are, you're a sunflower," but the plant didn't want to talk to them.  He started to turn away and as he did his heart went cold.  He didn't want to know the birds or the other plants in the nursery.  They'd been so mean to him and his only friend had been the sun.  But as his heart turned cold he started to change again.  His golden sunshine flower darkened.  The birds tried to talk to him again.  "We're sorry," they said.  "We're sorry we were mean to you but we didn't know that you were a flower of the sun."  The other plants said sorry too.  "We're sorry too, we're sorry we listened to the birds when they said not to talk to you.  It doesn't matter that you were different."  But the sunflower was still hurt and his heart went even colder until all the light went from him.  And then he felt so sad.  He missed the birds and the other plants and he began to cry little grey tears.  His tears fell to the ground and the birds gathered about and they picked them.  "Ooh, these taste delicious. Thank you," they said to the sunflower.  And the sunflower didn't hurt anymore.  The birds took some of the seeds and they planted them.  "Next time we see an elephant plant we'll remember to be kind."

Mr Smith tells story after story throughout the Main Lesson.  He doesn't just do one.  He links them to the next day and the previous and so on, adding on.  It's nothing like most of the curriculum emphasise where there's only one story per day.  He had such a quiet voice but it seemed to resonate all around the room.  We were leaning in to listen.  He held a picture of a Cicely Baker tree picture - a beech tree.  This is not verbatim but is the gist of what he was doing:

 "Do you remember I was telling you about the trees and at this time of year the leaves start to change colour and they fall off.  Well there's a tree called the Copper Beech and they're all one tree.  What colour do think it is?  It's a brownish red colour.  Now the squirrels ran off with some of the beech mast (and he had some to show because they go out gathering up stuff from nature before or having a look about and he links his stories in that way).  They buried it in the ground and it grew and grew.  And do you know what colour the leaves were?  Green!  Not copper because copper beeches are all one tree.  No, to grow a copper beech you have to take a branch off a copper beech and plant that, not the seed.  It's called grafting.  Apple and pear trees are grafted.  Can you remember the tree that the King of Spain's daughter had?  I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear but a silver nutmeg and a golden pear...  Later in the year we'll do some grafting.  Some pear trees can have 10 different pears on them or apple trees can have different branches each with a different type of apple...but we'll do that in the garden later on."

He also had some plastic worms, yes plastic, to show the different lifecycles of a worm because he says bringing animals to the classroom often results in accidental death.  He also has a briefcase of plastic insects including a preying mantis.  He asked whether it was a praying mantis or a preying mantis (good way to discuss spellings).

He said that Grade 3 is when you introduce rules.  The Old Testament is rule introduction.  Then you start with grammar, spelling and so on.  I was amazed by how much writing there was for Class 3 in their Main Lesson Books.  The writing was small and cursive already.

Music:

Nice idea on how to introduce musical staves - once there was a little gnome playing his recorder but all the notes kept floating away on the breeze and he couldn't remember how to play them again. Fortunately there was an angel sitting in a nearby tree and her hair caught the notes....

 

 

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.