Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Lantern Walks in November: a Lovely Tradition
Monday, September 9, 2024
Trust and Striving
Can you be compassionate with yourself?
First, I want to emphasize the hard work you do - everyday - and acknowledge the sacrifice, self discipline and personal growth that comes with running a household. I am so grateful to my mom for her ceaseless enthusiasm and hard work, thank you Mom!
It is far more of an effort than a full time job. It's more like three jobs: cook, housekeeper, nanny or driver, oh maybe four and teacher/guide too, and its compensation is not in such a well recognized and highly regarded form in the outer world. No paycheck, no promotions. No time off.
Often it is at that moment when everything is at what seems like the very worst, that our greatest strides are being made ~ of human growth - for we as parents are growing human beings and our children are helping us grow to be more fully human. It is in those dark moments that truths tend to emerge. With trust and striving we find our way back to the table to clean up one more time.
Monday, August 19, 2024
Getting Started with Waldorf at Home
While it's true that establishing this rhythm takes self discipline, persistence and patience, a strong home rhythm provides strength, freedom and spaciousness to daily life. A strong healthy rhythm helps carry the day. It takes some effort to get started, and it takes time to build up a good rhythm, once it takes hold, a good rhythm provides a momentum of its own, and frees us to be more present in the moment.
The saying is true, rhythm replaces strength!
Warmly,
For more 👇 on rhythmSaturday, August 17, 2024
One of Those Mothering Things
I am so grateful for that time. Rhythm has made it much easier to be present in the moment, rather than rushing to get things done with too little time. Rhythm has been so beneficial to me that elements of the routine I established years ago still buoy me along.
If you find that the days are flying by and you're constantly struggling to catch up, take heart. It is possible to develop a rhythm that meets your unique needs and creates a sense of spaciousness in your days.
Begin by creating a simple morning routine that nurtures you.
Monday, June 3, 2024
The Child is Born with a Sense of Wonder
Fifty-five years ago, Woman’s Home Companion published an article from by Rachel Carson called Help Your Child to Wonder:
“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and dis-enchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gifts from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”
Ways to Keep Alive a Sense of Wonder:
:: Spend time in nature, not with facts. but to experience nature, which will enliven the “sense” of wonder.
:: Take time to be present in the moment.
:: Look up at the sky.:: Value the daily and the ordinary, “What lovely clouds this morning.”
:: Find joy in the ordinary, in housekeeping and chores, sing or hum as you work.
:: Find the value and the goodness, in situations that do not work out as planned, ” I wonder if maybe we were meant to take a wrong turn because now we can see the rainbow.”
:: Let children get bored, boredom is the springboard for wonder and great play and projects.
:: Be the example and model wonder, “Gee, I wonder…” “Hmnn…” and wait when a child asks a question.
:: Remember that wonder is all around us and reveals itself to us when we are free of fear, safe and silent.
“Wisdom begins in wonder.” ~ Socrates
Trust that children know, children are capable of asking questions and finding the answers and trust that it is within you too.
How do you keep your sense of wonder alive?
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
The Wisdom of Wonder
A little child looks up at the sky and asks, “Mama, why is the sky blue" Mama responds “hmmn…. I wonder.”
There is a pause. The child gets quiet and turns inward. Silence. The child looks up with a knowing smile, “I know, the sky is a blanket for the earth, to tuck it in at night and keep it cozy,” to which to mother nods.
Another child asks his dad, “Why do birds sing?” The dad pauses and responds, “Gee, I wonder…” He waits. The child muses on it for a few moments and comes up with an answer, “I know, it’s their way of talking to each other.”
Children come to understanding through wonder. Curiosity, inquisition, engagement and enthusiasm flow out of wonder and in turn inspire more wonder and understanding. It is this spirit of inquiry that leads to wisdom, the ability to ask a question, hold the question and wait for the answer to come, which leads to more wondering, more enthusiasm and curiosity, a rich and juicy life, full of wonder, awe and wisdom.
Friday, February 2, 2024
Why I Don't Celebrate Candlemas
Thursday, February 1, 2024
It's All About Free Play
That's why there are no lessons.
No main lessons in the nursery or kindergarten.
No instruction.
No this is how it's done.
No predetermined end product to take home and wow the parents.
It's all about developing the child's inner creative capacity through child initiated free play.
This is why Waldorf schools discourage organized sports, yoga, dance lessons and the like, because they all involve an adult directing the action. This takes children out of the dreamy unselfconscious world of early childhood.
The child between birth and the change of teeth lives in the dreamy inner world of the imagination. This is the world of fairy tales, where anything is possible, transformation happens all the time, and good always conquers evil, in the stories children hear.
The Waldorf kindergarten is a magical, dreamy place where the teacher works sideways to create a space that invites play. She is not the central figure, but more of a warm, consistent presence, guiding the rhythm of the day.
It's all about child initiated free play.
If you've ever seen children at play in a Waldorf kindergarten, you've heard the buzz of children at play, seen children engaged in socio-dramatic play, creating scenarios with their imagination and playing them out. Children at play in a Waldorf space transform the objects in the room with their play. This socio-dramatic play is at the heart of the Waldorf kindergarten years.
When we impose adult ideas for creating a specific product, we are imposing the adult world on children. This is not their world. Their world is one of developing the inner imaginative world and playing out what is in their own inner world. It's a time for curiosity, exploration and playing out their own inner world. This is how children learn. When we impose adult projects, we get in the way of their process.
You may wonder, what about the watercolor painting and cooking and baking?
What about the crafts? I have written about crafts here.
With cooking and baking, painting, coloring and modeling, the teacher leads by doing. She does not instruct. She guides the children with her doing, and if needed with "pictorial language." There is no expectation of a particular end product.
There is no instruction. The children join the adult in her work, and contribute to the process in a way that allows them to step back into play. At home our children can join us in our work, yet it can be helpful to remember that their work is child initiated and child drive imaginative free play. So they may step up beside us, join in and then return to their play.
In a culture that is so material and end product oriented, we sometimes lose touch with the importance of process. For children, the process is in the play.
As homeschoolers we can create an environment that supports our children in their own free play, and we can craft a rhythm that flows through the day, I know because I was living miles from nowhere during my first child's early childhood and I was determined to provide a Waldorf early childhood experience for him.
After my second child was born, I became a single parent, I wanted to be home with him, and I wanted a Waldorf experience for him, so I began a Waldorf Morning Garden program in my home, a way to earn a living and create a space for other children to join us for a Waldorf experience of early childhood.
You can do it too!
If you'd like to learn more about how to create the "space" to support child initiated free play, and use pictorial language, and craft a rhythm that flows through the day, keep an eye on my curriculum program. I offer affordable eCourses to support parents and homeschoolers on topics such as these, and I am in the process of reformatting my affordable curriculum program to make it more user friendly.
In the Waldorf early childhood years, the focus is supporting children's free play and child initiated unselfconscious activities.
We live in a very material world. It's easy to get caught up in the Waldorf stuff, especially with all the beautiful things that can be bought.
Yet Rudolf Steiner told us then, "They play in such a way that their activities lie far from the goals and utility that adults connect with certain activities. Children’s play only imitates the form of adult activities, not the material content. Now it is more relevant that ever.
They don't need all the stuff, they need time to play, they need the protection and freedom to live in the dreamy world of wonder, of early childhood.
The children will imitate what we do and how we do it. It is our warmth, our kindness, our finding joy in the everyday, and the quality of stories we tell that spark healthy development of the children.
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
What to do when my child resists homeschool activities?
Notice that the question is "when" my child resists and not "if" my child resists?"
Children will resist our plans even when they are made with the best intentions at heart. Know dear mama, or dear papa, that you are not alone, and that it is normal. So normal. It happens to all of us.
Deep breath out.
This post is focused primarily on the early childhood years, from birth to age 7, on those moments when children don't want to do what we have planned for them.
You may have sketched out a plan and organized materials and put a good deal of energy into how you want your day to unfold as a homeschooler and then, your child resists and flat out refuses to join you.
It's frustrating, I know. Super frustrating even.
We've all been there, many times. Take a deep breath. Shift gears. Go outside. Fall into your what-to-do-when-it-all-goes-sideways backup homeschooling plan.
Take time and reflect on what is leading up to the resistance. Step back and look at the big picture. What does your child need?
Their resistance is an opportunity to look at ourselves and consider how we do what we do.
What is the mood we are bringing to the activities we want them to join us in? Are we feeling hurried and rushed with an attitude of I-need-to-get-this-done-in-order-to-get-to-the-next-task? They feel it.
Children feel everything and absorb it deeply. They are like sponges with our moods, they often feel them before we are aware of what we are expressing.
Children learn through imitation of what we do ~ so what we do and how we do it is of all importance.
Consider resistance an opportunity to reflect on what kind of energy we are putting out around what we want to do, and how we are inviting our children to join us in.
Am I feeling joyful?
Do I create a warm invitation to be at my side, to put on an apron, to participate with me?
Waldorf early childhood education is different from more mainstream ways in that we don't have a checklist of tasks the child must complete to be homeschooled. We have life as the curriculum and as the parent teacher, our job is to find joy in those tasks and make them inviting.
We can observe our skills of observation to try to understand what our child's behavior is telling us. Often it has nothing to do with what's happen in the moment, and more to do with a bigger need, like needing to run around, needing to play, needing to get out of the cart or grocery cart or needing a cup of tea and a story told to them. This is where tweaking our rhythm can make all the difference.
With Waldorf kindergarten at home, the focus is on making activities like cooking, cleaning, coloring, painting inviting and joyful so that the children want to join us and to ground them in an experience of life is good. I focus on this in my monthly program.
Some children don't want to join us, that's okay.
We go on to the next task whether the children participate or not.
It's more about the adult taking the lead and being consistent and predictable in the way our day unfolds and doing it with real joy that comes from within.
The benefit to the child is observing an adult engaged with their hands in meaningful work/activities. Our tasks work on the child's will forces.
Children need us to be charge of the day, the plan for the day and our own work. In a world that can feel so crazy and chaotic, our children need us to be solid and reliable for them, to lean into us. They also need plenty of time and space to play around us while we work, and join in out of their own freedom.
Our task is to make the "work" so delightful they will want to join in. This includes balancing activities like opportunity for free play and being out of doors with more quiet experiences like hearing a story.
Saturday, October 7, 2023
The Little Red House
by Caroline Sherwin Bailey
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was tired of all his toys, and tired of all his play.
"What shall I do?" he asked his mother. And his mother, who always knew beautiful things for little boys to do, said: "You shall go on a journey and find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside."
This really made the little boy wonder. Usually his mother had good ideas, but he thought that this one was very strange. "Which way shall I go?" he asked his mother. "I don't know where to find a little red house with no doors and no windows."
"Go down the lane past the farmer's house and over the hill," said his mother, "and then hurry back as soon as you can and tell me all about your journey."
So the little boy put on his cap and his jacket and started out. He had not gone very far down the lane when he came to a merry little girl dancing along in the sunshine. Her cheeks were like pink blossom petals and she was singing like a robin.
"Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?" asked the little boy.
The little girl laughed. "Ask my father, the farmer," she said. "Perhaps he knows."
So the little boy went on until he came to the great brown barn where the farmer kept barrels of fat potatoes and baskets of yellow squashes and golden pumpkins. The farmer himself stood in the doorway looking out over the green pastures and yellow grain fields.
"Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?" asked the little boy of the farmer.
The farmer laughed too. "I've lived a great many years and I never saw one," he chuckled, "but ask Granny who lives at the foot of the hill...She knows how to make molasses, taffy and popcorn balls...and red mittens! Perhaps she can direct you."
So the little boy went on farther still, until he came to the Granny sitting in her pretty garden of herbs and marigolds. She was as wrinkled as a walnut and as smiling as the sunshine. Please dear Granny, said the little boy, "Where shall I find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside?"
The granny was knitting a red mitten and when she heard the little boy's question, she laughed so cheerily that the wool ball rolled out of her lap and down to the little pebbly path.
"I should like to find that little house myself," she chuckled. It would be warm when the frosty night comes and the starlight would be much prettier than a candle. But ask the wind who blows about so much and listens at all the chimneys. Perhaps the wind can direct you."
So the little boy took off his cap politely to Granny and went on up the hill rather sorrowfully. He wondered if his mother, who usually knew almost everything, had perhaps made a mistake.
The wind was coming down the hill as the little boy climbed up. As they met, the wind turned about and went along, singing beside the little boy. It whistled in his ear, and pushed him and dropped a pretty leaf into his hands.
"I wonder," thought the little boy, after they had gone along together for a while, "if the wind could help me find a little red house with no doors, and no windows and a star inside."
The wind cannot speak in our words, but it went singing ahead of the little boy until it came to an orchard. There it climbed up in the apple tree and shook the branches. When the little boy caught up, there, at his feet, lay a great rosy apple.
The little boy picked up the apple. It was as much as his two hands could hold. It was as red as the sun had been able to paint it, and the thick brown stem stood up as straight as a chimney, and it had no doors and no windows. Was there a star inside?
The little boy called to the wind, "Thank you," and the wind whistled back, "You're welcome."
Then the little boy gave the apple to his mother. His mother took a knife and cut the apple through the center. Oh, how wonderful! There inside the apple, lay a star holding brown seeds.
"It is too wonderful to eat without looking at the star, isn't it?" the little boy said to his mother.
"Yes, indeed," answered his mother.
Monday, October 2, 2023
The Big Red Apple
Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived in a cottage by a wood with his grandpa. All summer long the boy and his grandpa worked in their garden, milked the cow, fed and gathered eggs from the hens.
One crisp autumn day Bobby's grandpa sat by the fire while Bobby lay on the hearth rug, looking at a picture-book.
"Ho, ho!" yawned grandpa, "I wish I had a big red apple! I could show you how to roast it, Bobby."
Bobby jumped up as quick as a flash. "I'll get you one," he said; and he picked up his hat and ran out of the house as fast as he could go.
He remembered an apple tree down the road —a tree all bright with big red apples.
Bobby ran on by the side of the road, through the drifts of fallen leaves, all red and yellow and brown. The leaves crunched under his feet. At last he came to the big apple tree, but though Bobby looked and looked there was not an apple to be seen—not an apple on the tree, nor an apple on the ground!
"Oh," cried Bobby, "where have they all gone?" Then he heard a rustling through the dry leaves on the branches of the tree:
"I haven't an apple left, my dear.
You'll have to wait till another year."
Bobby was surprised.
"But where have they all gone?" he asked again. The apple tree only sighed. So the little boy turned away and started home across the fields.
Pretty soon he met a pussy-cat. "Oh, pussy," he cried; "do you know what they have done with the big red apples?"
Pussy looked up at him, and then began rubbing against his legs, saying:
"Mew, mew, me-ew!
I haven't a big red apple for you."
So Bobby went on, and at last he met a friendly dog. The dog stopped and wagged his tail, so the little boy said to him: "Oh, Wagtail, can you tell me what they have done with the big red apples?" The dog kept on wagging his tail, and barked:
"Bow, wow, wow!
If I knew, I'd surely tell you now."
So the little boy went on until he came to a kind old cow who stood looking over the fence. "Oh, mooly cow," said Bobby, "will you tell me what has become of the big red apples?"
Mooly cow rubbed her nose against him, and said:
"Moo! Moo-o-o!
I'd like a big red apple, too."
The little boy laughed, and he walked on till he came to the edge of the wood, and there was a big, gray squirrel. "Hullo, gray squirrel," said Bobby, "can you tell me what has become of the big red apples?"
The squirrel whisked about and looked at Bobby.
"The farmer has hidden them all away,
To eat on a pleasant winter's day," he chattered.
Then the squirrel ran to the foot of a chestnut tree and began to fill his little pockets with shiny nuts to carry to his own storehouse; but Bobby said: "Oh, thank you," and ran up the hill to the farmer's house as fast as he could go. The farmer was standing by the door, and he smiled when he saw Bobby.
"Good morning, good morning, my dear boy," he said; "and what can I do for you to-day?" "Please," said Bobby, "I'm seeking a big red apple." The farmer laughed. "Come with me," he said, "and you shall pick one out for yourself."
So Bobby and the farmer walked out to the great barn, and there Bobby saw many barrels standing in a row, and every barrel was full of big red apples! "Oh, what a lot!" said Bobby.
"Why did you pick them all?"
"We didn't want to leave them for Jack Frost, did we?" said the farmer. "Does Jack Frost like apples?" asked Bobby.
"He likes to pinch them," said the farmer, "but we like to eat them; so we gather them in for the winter."
Bobby began to look about the barn. Near the barrels of red apples was another row of barrels all filled with green apples, and further on was a great pile of golden pumpkins; and near that was a heap of green and yellow squashes, and another of turnips, and then piles of yellow corn.
"Are you keeping all those things for winter?" asked Bobby. "Yes," said the farmer, "we've been gathering in the harvest —all the good things that the summer has given us."
"And do the squirrels gather in a harvest, too?" asked Bobby.
"I reckon they do," said the farmer.
"Then that was how he knew," thought Bobby.
Soon the little boy's eyes began to shine.
"Won't you have lots of good things for Thanksgiving!" he said. "Pumpkin pie, and apple pie—and everything!"
Bobby walked up to the barrel and picked out the biggest red apple he could find.
"Thank you, Mr. Farmer," he said; and then he ran home to give the apple to his grandpa. "My, my," said grandpa, "wherever did you find it?"
"Oh," said Bobby, "I went to the apple tree, but it didn't have any. Then I asked the cat where the big red apples were, but she didn't know. I asked the dog, and he didn't know, and then I asked the cow and she didn't know; but then I met the squirrel, and he knew, because he gathers in a harvest himself. So he told me to go to the farmer. And I went to the farmer and asked him for a red apple, and he gave me this great big one!"
"Well, well," said grandpa, when Bobby stopped, out of breath. "Now find me a bit of string."
Bobby found the string, and grandpa tied one end of it to the stem of the apple. He fastened the other end of the string to the mantel shelf; and there the apple hung over the fire.
It turned and twisted, and twisted and turned, while grandpa and Bobby watched it; and the juice sizzled out, and the apple grew softer and softer, and, by and by, it was all roasted. Then Bobby fetched a plate and two spoons, and he and grandpa sat before the fire and ate the big red apple.
This story from the turn of the 19th century by Kate Whiting Patch, with a few adaptations of my own.
Photo by me.
Hope you liked the story. It's one that would make a nice prelude to building a fire and roasting apples together. Or it could be told with figures for Bobby and his Grandpa and the animals he meets on his journey to find the apple.
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
What is Waldorf in the Home?
- Waldorf homemaking
- Waldorf parenting
- Waldorf homeschooling
- Waldorf Nursery Care Program
- Waldorf Morning Garden Program
An Approach
Timing
Intentional
Holistic
When people talk about Waldorf in the home, they often mean incorporating Waldorf ways into their family life and parenting practices.
Aspects of Waldorf in the home:
Rhythm, Repetition and Reverence Imaginative Play
Natural Materials
Artistic Experiences
Nourishing Meals
Time in Nature
Good Sleep and Time for Rest
Purposeful Work to Imitate
Minimal Screen Time
Respect for Child Development
Atmosphere of Gratitude, Reverence, Awe and Wonder
Joy, Humor and Happiness
Atmosphere of Warmth and Love
Adults Working on their Inner Development