Tomato tulips

Springy and I have been creating some tomato tulips, radish lotuses and we made some milk jelly with pears.

Music in September

We've been doing quite a bit of music.

I've also found this resource which I have ordered:
http://homemusicmaking.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-product-is-here-waldorf-autumn.html


We've been playing and singing the sample song together with Springy doing the singing, learning the words off by heart and me playing the guitar to accompany her.  We left a message on her grandparents' answering machine the other afternoon as a surprise for them to come back to.

Here are the words (which are found in quite a few Waldorf resources - don't know who to credit with authorship):

"Yellow the bracken, golden the sheaves, rosy the apples, crimson the leaves, mist on the hillside, clouds grey and white, Autumn good morning, Summer good night."

September and what we've been doing

We've been utilising the Christopherus Second grade curriculum as our scaffolding.  Although Springy would be in Third Grade I feel that because we deviated from the traditional Waldorf curriculum last year that I want to back track a bit and go over things until January. 

We've started with a mini maths block and have been using Four in a Row maths games.  Springy has done some lovely pictures in her Main Lesson book so far including squirrels for maths (as outlined in Christopherus). 

The Christopherus package is quite pricey but the plus side is I enjoy the way Donna Simmons writes.  She's like a warm cup of cocoa with her words - comforting and friendly.  The downside is there is still quite a lot of working out to do at times and I wish the material were all together, rather in separate books at times as there is quite a bit of fiddling back and forth.  That said, I'm beginning to understand more on Waldorf again to the Class/Grades approach.

Flying the kite - Autumn 2010

Springy has done some maths in her Magic Book (main lesson type thing), and flown her Indonesian owl kite whilst we were walking L this morning. She is now outside having fun flying her kite on the dog lead as we have some gusty south-westerly wind today.

 

Embroidery

 Springy and some of her friends went to the Embroidery Guild last week. I can't believe how well their work turned out. It started off as bits of thread and material and ended up as a book cover with gold thread, crushed velvet and so on.

Genealogy

 C and I are doing family genealogy research with help from my dad (over the phone) because Springy likes history and we thought it would be interesting to know her ancestry (as far as we can take it to).

End of August

Since I last posted Springy has had another maths lesson with a private tutor.  Sometimes it's hard to be objective when you're are home educating so C and I decided that a series of three lessons over three weeks would be a good idea.  We certainly found a great tutor and Springy has progressed in a positive way.  It also helped that the tutor had a puppy at home.

Today we went out in our little rowing boat which was great fun.  We saw 3 egrets and a very big black-backed gull.  We had to be careful not to get in the way of some of the yachts that were about and their wakes.

I've got several books lined up on Native American buildings for reading (as usual here, one has gone missing in the collage of chaos).  We also have Farmer Boy and Schoolhouse in the Parlour by Rebecca Caudhill as read alouds.

Springy finished her Magic Book so it's time to move onto a new one.  I'm feeling a little more confident and have been reading various educational materials to keep inspired.  We never stop for summer holidays so we're not really about to start a new year as such.  I feel we're still in the Class Two zone for some things developmentally but that also Springy responded well over the summer to many of the Class Three elements that were introduced.

This morning in her maths lesson she was asked about solving a puzzle.  She had to get four people across to an island by a boat.  There were 2 men and 2 women.  The rules were that the boat could only carry up to two women or one man so she had to work out the sequence.