{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

inspired by SouleMama

The Lemniscate and the Senses

Virtual Tea with Carrie: Expanding the Pillars of Waldorf Education

Carrie began this conversation with a beautiful outline of three artistic pillars of Waldorf home education: Drawing, Painting and Modeling over on her blog, The Parenting Passageway, much of which she has discussed over the years, relative to many aspects of the curriculum in earlier posts on her blog. It got me thinking.

Over virtual tea, I suggested we bring in Speech, Movement, Singing and a musical instrument, Drama and Handwork.

Carrie responded with a post about the importance of bringing in the twelve senses to the discussion of Waldorf education through the curriculum and the importance of practical work.

Yes! Let's explore the senses and the curriculum.

The Waldorf curriculum incorporates nourishing elements of all twelve senses with a different focus at different stages of development. This applies in homeschool or school school, the senses are very important for human development, for in developing a sense, the energy around it is freed to later develop another sense, a "higher" sense that needs a strong foundational sense to rest upon.

The Twelve Senses correspond with the development of the human being and can be grouped in three categories: Thinking, Feeling and Willing.

We often speak of the soul capacities of Thinking, Feeling and Willing. With Waldorf Education we refer to the education the head, heart and hands. Each of these capacities corresponds with sensory and human development and each seven year phase of development corresponds with one of these capacities.

For it is through our senses that we perceive the world. If we have distortions or impeded development in our senses it will color how we take in and relate to the world around us.

Anyone with a child who has sensory challenges may have had an experience in which the child's response to the situation does not always make "sense" (there it is again ~ sense) unless we know something about the child.

For example, a six year old boy in a kindergarten classroom of seventeen children is busy playing as the noise level in the room rises. This child is very sensitive to sound. Suddenly for no apparent reason he heaves a block across the room, not at anybody and not in response to children around him. It is the noise level that has risen, he is overwhelmed, he does not yet have words to express this so he heaves the block.

The teacher, bless her heart and her deep wisdom, knows this child is overwhelmed by the noise and responds by opening the door and gives him permission to check on the hens in the garden and bring them a treat. She knows. But to someone who does not have this understanding the behavior might seem troubling and get in the way of connection and harmony in the classroom.

Let's begin with development:

In the first seven years of childhood the focus is on developing the Foundational Senses or the Sense of Willing, the metabolic limb focus: Touch, Life, Self Movement and Balance.

In the middle years, years of Feeling, the rhythmical development focus: Smell, Taste, Sight, Warmth

In the next seven years, years of Thinking, the nerve sense development focus: Hearing, Word, Thought, Ego

Within each of these seven year stages of development are phase of development of metabolic-limb growth, rhythmic development and nerve sense development.

If we begin with touch and follow the lemniscate around in a figure eight you will find yourself going through the development of the senses from the very first foundational sense of touch, being touched in utero, to the uppermost sense, the Ego, ability to sense the presence of the other person ~ another kind of touch:

Touch
Life
Movement
Balance

Smell
Taste
Sight
Warmth

Hearing
Word
Thought
Ego (the ability to sense the ego or presence of another)

(This lemniscate is based on the zodiac and the corresponding physical organs.)

Each of the Foundational senses has a companion in the upper senses:

Touch with Ego
Life with Thought
Movement and Word
Balance and Hearing

Upper, middle, foundational senses.

To this list of eight pillars and twelve senses, Carries adds practical work and the inner work of the parent teacher, ti which I say yes!

One advantage we have with homeschooling is that we can take this pillar of practical work which in the school manifests Handwork and Craft Curriculum and expand it to include chores through the day and through the week, active participation in the practical work of life through all the grades.
Carrie has written about this.

Liza Fox has written and shared a beautiful post .

I have written about it .

To this bedrock of practical work and the inner work of the adult that Carrie is suggesting, I feel like we need to bring in Rhythm and Nature. And Play. And all this on a foundation of strong connection with the child. Oh gosh, so much more to say.

But I need to get on with my day, with my homeschooling and Christmas preparation so for now goodbye.

I love to find your comments. If you have examples of your work out of the Artistic pillars or Senses you'd like to share please link to your site in the comments here and over at The Parenting Passageway. And please chime in, how do these endeavors manifest in your homeschooling? or school schooling?

Happy Christmastide!

Lisa

Expanding the Pillars and the Conversation

As a person who has straddled the worlds of the Waldorf homeschooler and the Waldorf school, as parent and as a teacher, I notice in some Waldorf homeschool circles, that there can be some feelings of resentment towards those who have worked in schools, or embrace a Waldorf homeschooling that is consistent with what Waldorf schools bring.

I know and can attest to a way of being with my children as parent-teacher in the home that is distinct from school life. The children can sleep late, eat warm meals, eat more, take time on a project, take it deeper and explore it without the constraints of moving on. A child may take all the time in the world to work on something while the parent teacher can see where the need is for focused attention.

When the weather is glorious we can be outside and "school" out of doors. We can do real meaningful work that contributes to the family and the homestead as part of our daily life. When it is really cold we can build a fire and "school" in its warmth.

A child in a classroom of thirty may not be seen, and may be left behind. A child sitting next to other children may get whacked with a bamboo lunch mat by the girl sitting next to him, and smacked with the lunchbox of the girl sitting on the other side of him. When he whacks them back with his hands, he may get blamed and made out to be the villain, because he has not yet learned not-to-get-caught and to-be-sneaky, like the girls who flank him in the front row.

The girls go home and complain about him, yet neglect to tell their parents that they had been smacking him. The parents don't know to ask, "and what were you doing?" The teacher misses the whole thing because she has twenty seven other children to teach or maybe she believes it is a karmic relationship that the children need to resolve on their own.

Yet the children get to experience Eurythmy, French and German, celebrate festival life together, and do class plays. They have the challenge of the social situation to negotiate. Sometimes this can be healthy and help build resilience. Other times, like in the scenario I described above, it can be very harmful to a child, and for all who inhabit this social dynamic.

Back to the Waldorf homeschooling versus Waldorf School schooling via the curriculum.

Some folks seem to think it is enough to bring certain stories at certain ages and create a main lesson book.

Today, my friend Carrie, over on The Parenting Passageway brings up the importance of including three arts with homeschooling in her lovely post today, on The Three Artistic Pillars of Waldorf Homeschooling, in which she addresses the arts of Drawing, Painting and Modeling for the homeschooler and gives a description of each.

I wish we could get together for tea and have conversations about how we homeschool and why and what's important. So often I read a blog post and want to say more, keep the conversation going. So this is my humble attempt to build a conversation via blogs.

In addition to these important artistic activities of Drawing, Painting and Modeling, I'm going to humbly suggest we include Speech, Singing and playing music, Movement, Drama and Handwork and make a picture of a sturdy eight pillared education. Story is the vehicle for much of the curriculum and these pillars bring story to the children.

Waldorf education is a lively artistic education that is process, not product, oriented. The Main Lesson page is a glimpse into something larger that has taken place. The rest of the story that cannot be seen or captured on paper but lives within the human being. At home we are capable of incorporating all these elements. While we may not bring Eurythmy or foreign languages we can bring these other artistic pillars in the course of a day's homeschooling experience.

These other pillars are:

Speech

Singing and Musical instrument playing

Movement

Drama

Handwork

SPEECH

Speech through story, song, verse, rhyme, blessings, prayer, moving into tongue twisters and memorized verse in the grades. Clear, articulated speech. Conscious speech. Playful speech. Speech in movement, Speech in harmony. What is being lost in speech in our time?

SINGING AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 

We sing through the day with the young child, then sing festival songs, folk songs, rounds in the grades, the musical instrument used by the adult in early childhood: the kinder harp, the pentatonic xylophone, the flute all used by the adult with the child free to play with the instruments from time to time but no lessons until first grade, then the pentatonic flute. Music connects us with the spiritual world.

MOVEMENT

Movement is fundamental to learning. Movement is the basis for all learning. The kindergarten and nursery years are steeped in self initiated movement of the child. Children learn better when they move. (see Carla Hannaford's book, Smart Moves ~ not Waldorf per se yet very good and practical information on movement and the brain and learning) Homeschoolers have so much more freedom with movement yet our challenge is to bring rhythmic and harmonious movement to our children (think math and movement games) Our challenge is to create situations for movement within a group, especially important in kindergarten and the first three grades. Waldorf education is a social education and movement is a lovely opportunity to develop that with others.

DRAMA

Drama gives the child an opportunity to bring speech, movement, singing and music together in an artistic and social experience. It is very important in the grades. We can bring drama with storytelling and puppetry and perhaps with a community of others, neighbors, homeschoolers, cousins, friends.

HANDWORK

Handwork is work that is done by hand. It can involve crafting useful objects and it can be work to sustain daily life, gardening, milking a cow, churning butter, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, brushing the dog, chopping, stirring, kneading, this is the handwork of the child under seven. An excellent article on the Waldorf handwork and Craft curriculum is here.

For more support with wet on wet watercolor painting or any other pillars of the curriculum, join my Monthly Subscription Program, this is a lively, interactive way to bring daily, weekly and seasonal rhythm to your home and to delve more deeply into activities that nurture wonder and imagination in a magical way.  

Thanks for coming over for tea, let's meet again soon.


Happy Christmastide all!

The Magic of Christmas

We have been busy getting ready for Christmas, cleaning out the house, decorating the house, cutting and dragging in greens and prettying them up with bits of red, hanging them on the doors and placing them here and there. We've been taking out the old Christmas albums, singing songs, preparing gifts, cooking and baking.

My baby, my little one, Duncan will be nine years old in a few weeks. He is beginning to ask questions. He is wondering if Santa is well Santa and if it is not somehow the parents but he can't seem to really wrap himself around the parents pretending to be Santa.

He has a plan. On Christmas Eve, he is going to set up a motion sensor and a video camera, well maybe two motion sensors are in his his plan, one near the tree and one near the bedroom doors to see what he can see. (Mind you, we don't have two motion sensors and a video camera.). He wants to wait up too.

Yet I am not feeling certain that he really wants to know or give up the magic of Santa Claus. Angus at eleven was ready. He was clear and certain. There was no turning back. With Duncan there is a hesitancy, a sense that he knows but wants to be convinced maybe that Santa is really Santa.

In a phone conversation with the workshop that makes the elf jammies that Santa brings each year at Christmas, a woman named Cathy shared with me a story from her family, of going out on Christmas Eve with her family and when they returned home, just as they were entering the house, they heard jingle bells from the back door and ran to see, but it was too late, Santa had gone and the gifts had arrived. Another year Santa actually arrived at the house and delivered a pack full of gifts.

Hmn...I am wondering how to keep the magic for him. The gifts have always arrived in the night while the children were fast asleep. I love the idea with jingle bells being heard. And I am thinking of possibilities yet nothing is coming. Have you been in this place with a child who seems to want some magic, is not quite ready to let go but needs some convincing? What did you do to keep the magic alive? I'm so wrestling with this and would love to hear from you.

Christmastide blessings on you and yours!
Lisa

(this moment)

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by Amanda Soule at SouleMama

Won't you leave your link below?

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

along with Amanda Soule

Sunday

Sunday, named for the sun, that giant star around which our earth journeys each year, from Latin, "dies solis" sun's day as well as "Dominica," the day of God.. Wonder if it is related to dominion as dominion over the planets. For many it is a day of worship and rest. The day of rest, to rest the weary body and replenish the spirit with soul full activities, often in community. I recently came upon these soul warming activities, here and want to implement two of them straight away:

4. One evening a week unplug everything and turn off the phone. Light candles, drink wine and eat nuts.

5. Buy two hammocks: one for the garden and one for inside your house.

Just the right time of year to live with the natural light and candles, particularly in the morning and at sunset.

For some Sunday is the start of the week, for others it is the end. For me, it is the turning point in the week, after Saturday's house chores are done and before Monday's school day starts, a breathing point. Which is it for you?

For our family that means a big late breakfast often involving potatoes and eggs and meat of some sort, usually bacon, sausage or ham from the farm down the road. Little brother has resumed eating pork. He quit after his favorite ever pig, one of the three we brought home to care for when they were just five days old and their mother was unable to care for them, went to slaughter. We used to laugh about the three little pigs racing across the floor squealing with delight when we let them out of their pen to run into the kitchen in the morning.

I go warm and cold my love affair with the Sunday edition of the New York Times. This week it was a hot affair. Something about a lazy morning with the paper and coffee warms my soul. Sometimes its the Fashion section or Travel or the recent focus on Waldorf education that is refreshing amidst the strife and striving of the outer world. But this weekend it was the feature on our little cooperatively owned ski mountain that warmed my heart and the provocative lead story in the magazine that piqued my interest.

Then it's off to the woods for a hike until the snow flies.

Happy Sunday!

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

inspired by Amanda over at Soule Mama

Happy Weekending ~ May it be a swinging one!

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

inspired by Amanda over at Soule Mama

This Week

'Twas a full week, this one, beginning with Halloween at the museum, followed by the parade, followed by games and food at the Fire Station and  our last conversation with a friend who was to pass over on Tuesday, unbeknown to any of us in that moment that we were exchanging last words. (Rest in peace good man.)

On Halloween day there was The Forest of Magic and Mystery at our local Waldorf school organized by our friend Sparkle over at Sparkle Stories. How delightful to be in the forest of mystery and magic and watch the little faces light up in wonder and anticipation of the Will o' Wisp. I was The Stone that is a Gnome, once my enchantment was broken, I was able to tend my fire in the woods and offer a clue to the children. Sparkle has lovely photos of the event on his new blog, here.

We were fortunate to join friends for trick or treat in a big neighborhood that loves Halloween. I got to help pass out candy which is something I normally don't do because we get no trick or treaters where we live.

The Celebrate November in the Rhythm of the Year Group is forming and what a lovely and dynamic group you are! I am excited for this month and grateful that I am able to do this engaging work.

What a full month ahead in these days of the thin veils, with Remembrances and Welcoming back those who have passed over, a house to build to hold our flame to bring us through the dark, cold winter, the last of the Harvest celebrations, Thanksgiving and then a few days later the start of Advent.

Time to fasten the seat belts, keep it simple and remember to breathe.

How was your Halloween?

{This Moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

joining in with  Soule Mama

The Feast of Life!

Many years ago, in those days when we were young and carefree, ha ha! my friend Lisa Dombek shared a book with me that was to become one of those books that resurfaces every now and then, and when it comes to my consciousness, I pick it up, close my eyes and select a page. That page always speaks to me deeply. I have perused pages throughout the book just to check and make sure that it is not every page that wants to speak to me in that moment and what I find is that the page that turns up is always the perfect page for the moment.

Does that happen to you with books? Does it work for you too, with the right message or information for the moment?

Yesterday I glimpsed the book and thought it was time for a pick up and peek. This is what came up, you may like it too.

I'll share it with you:

In your joy
you are celebrating God.
You are celebrating the feast of life.


This is not something to be denigrated
on the grounds that there is more to life
than pleasure.
Certainly there is more.
There is an infinity of more.
One is never finished
with the process of growth,
of seeking, serving, loving.
The delights of the physical world
are the delights of the spirit world.
It is all one.
Your human joy will not take you away 
from your love for God.
Love is love.
If you cannot tolerate human bliss
how will you withstand the bliss
of eternal Oneness.


If you were to check into the consciousness
of a rock
you would find a great deal of pleasure there.
You would find
a sense of Oneness that is comforting,
a delight in being a rock.
In the flow of its being
a rock in the state of ecstasy.


Ecstasy cannot be scaled
on a rating from one to ten.
It is ecstasy.
Why are you all so suspicious of joy and softness?
Is this not also God's world?
Joy is a natural ingredient of life.


You human beings tend to be hurried and pressured
and thereby deny yourselves the exquisite pleasure
of savoring your lives.
In this way, a great amount of joy
and sweetness goes unnoticed.
If life is lived with care and attention
it will give you the sustenance
and richness you long for.
Allow yourselves to renew your commitment
to your lives and to yourselves
many times a day.


You feel that because you yearn for the warmth
and the softness of life
that this will somehow lull you into inactivity?
Must there always be a harsh outer reality
to remind you of God?

If you cannot trust beauty where you find it
how can you open your heart
to Oneness with God
which is eternal beauty? 


Excerpt from: Emmanuel's Book: A manual for living comfortably in the cosmos, Introduction by Ram Dass, Compiled by Pat Rodegast and Judith Stanton, 1987, Bantam Books, New York


Thanks Lis!

Link Love

This week brings lots to mull over in the blog world. Here are a few links that I have been loving this week.

:: Over on Lynn Jericho's The Inner Year is a not-to-be-missed video, "Let Them Live in Your Heart" it speaks deeply to anyone who spends time with children, as well as to our own experience of being a child, do check it out.

:: Our friend Sparkle of Sparkle Stories now has a blog!

:: Kyrie of are so happy has begun a series on the ordinary arts

:: Catherine of the bi-lingual blog Catherine at les Fees has a discussion with Donna Simmons of Christopherus Home School Curriculum

:: My warm thanks to my friend Carrie over at The Parenting Passageway for sharing the two above links this week

:: My friend Liza needs a blog......hmmnnn Liza maybe...? (maybe I'd better say I'd love to read my friend Liza's blog if she had one ~ hint, hint)


Happy weekend dear friends!

Halloween is Coming!

Halloween is coming, then we'll see

Faces in the windows smiling at me

Pumpkins on the door step shining bright

Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!

Bobbing for red apples tis such fun.
Then we’ll come a-calling on the run
All dressed up in costumes such a sight
Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!
Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!

I think I told you last year that Halloween is and has always been one of my favorite holidays. My Mom tells great stories of Halloween from when she was a child during the depression, of mischief and pranks and a night that belonged to the children. I have fond memories of bundling up and going out with our wagon lined with an army blanket though the crisp fallen leaves in our neighborhood in the dark night in Maine.

We are busy preparing for Halloween, working on a spaceman costume. Over the years, the boys have been a gnome, pumpkin, a Continental Micronesia airplane, a lamb, a cowboy, Harry Potter, a wizard, a ghost, baker, prince, knight, Robin Hood, and a hippie.

Do you know about the story of the Sugar Sprite? It's one I have mixed feelings about. 

On one hand, the candy load can be enormous on Halloween. On the other, it's one day out of the year, it's fun for children to collect their candy, return home, dump out their treasure trove and sort through it and eat from it. Often there are trades to be made that require careful negotiation between the children. 

Allowing children to eat their fill on Halloween day is one way they can learn to set some limits for themselves, and learn to appreciate moderation if they over indulge. Limits can be set determined how many pieces may be eaten each day and when in the days following Halloween. 

The Sugar Sprite

Halloween is coming and parents often want to avoid the huge consumption of candy that comes with trick or treat. I heard this story many years ago, tried it out with my children and it fell flat. We'd had too many years of trick or treat without the Sugar Sprite behind us. 

I like that is has the potential to create a satisfying picture for the children and helps to manage the sugar load. The gesture of helping is one I appreciate too. For those who are seeking such a story, here it is:

As the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer and darker, the Old North Wind comes to visit and brings gusts of cold breezes. They blow, they blow.

The buzzing bees have gone to sleep, in their cozy warm hives.

Mother Earth has tucked the Flower Children into their beds, deep in the warm earth. They go to sleep in the ground and no longer make sweet pollen for the Sugar Sprite to eat.

Father Sun is snuggled up in the clouds as the days get colder and darker.

We put on our woolies, caps and warm sweaters, to keep ourselves warm and we cover the flower children and bulbs with layers of warm earth and mulch to keep them warm.

The Sugar Sprite is cold too. "Brrrr… how cold it is," she declares as she wraps her arms around herself to her her warm. She doesn't need warm caps, and woolies, and sweaters to keep her warm for she is warmed by the nectar from the blossoms and bees.

She needs sweet nectar and sugar to stay warm through the cold of winter.

The flower children who offer the pollen from their blossoms have gone to sleep, deep in the earth, and the bees who carry it from place to place have gone to sleep in their hives.

Oh dear, the Sugar Sprite has no sweet pollen to keep her warm. Hmnnm…. "whatever shall we do, I wonder."

"I've got it!, we can help the Sugar Sprite. We can share our Halloween candy with her.

At Halloween, our neighbors and friends give us lots of candy, far more candy than we need.

So when we return from trick or treating, we may sample some candy and put aside our very favorites.  The rest we can leave on the doorstep for the Sugar Sprite with this verse:

 Sugar Sprite, Queen tonight

 Need sugary treats for your heart's delight?

Come to my doorstep, candy awaits,

Linger not at the garden gate.

Sugary sweets to warm you well,

to help you weave your magic spell.

Winter days are coming soon,

Keep warm 'til next Halloween moon.

During the night, when the children are fast asleep, the friendly Sugar Sprite comes, takes the candy and leaves a simple gift of thanks. The Sugar Sprite knows what all children like, but sometimes the children write letters or make pictures for the sprite about a week before Halloween so she doesn’t get confused as you can imagine she has to visit a lot of children to collect enough sugar to keep her warm through the coming winter.

We're holding off on carving the pumpkins because the rain disintegrates them if it comes after we've carved them.

What are you doing for Halloween? Any fun costume ideas you'd like to share? Say hello and leave a link below to your Halloween activities. I love to hear from you.

Blog Life

I am often asked to write more articles and post more photos of our homschooling, of the Morning Garden, of my children, with examples of their work. I don't do that. I offer little "eye candy" of that sort here. The reason I share few pictures of my children and their work are many. I'll share them with you:

1. They don't like it. My children do not like to be photographed and do not like to have their pictures shared on the internet. They are adamant about this and old enough to have an opinion. My teen unfriended me on Facebook for tagging him in a family photo. Some of the Morning Garden parents did not want their children photographed for any kind of public viewing, so I never considered doing it.
2. I want to be present in the moment. For me, it is impossible to be fully present in the moment and taking pictures at the same time. It also takes my children out of what is happening. With young children, the awareness of the camera takes them out of the deep absorption in their play. The camera alters the moment.
3. Memories that live within us are more real than the ones we embrace in a snapshot. Sometimes, at really important events, I leave my camera behind because I want the event and memories of it to live within us, not in a framed snapshot of a moment. I want my children to frame their childhood memories from within themselves, not by my eye.
4. Memories get rewritten every time we remember them. The long forgotten memory that creeps up after decades is more accurate than something we recall often over the years. I want my children to have their memories of childhood intact. From Jonah Lehrer over at The Frontal Cortex:“It reveals memory as a ceaseless process, not a repository of inert information. The recall is altered in the absence of the original stimulus, becoming less about what we actually remember and more about what we’d like to remember. It’s the difference between a ‘Save’ and the ‘Save As’ function. Our memories are a ‘Save As’: They are files that get rewritten every time we remember them, which is why the more we remember something, the less accurate the memory becomes."
5. It takes a good deal of time to take the pictures, upload them to the computer, review them, choose ones to publish and then upload photos. This is a good deal of time and energy away from things I'd rather be doing. For me, this is just pure and practical economy of time.

These are my reasons. I do not mean to cast judgement on anyone who does it differently but to explain my reasons for why I do what I do. I hope you'll stay with me.

   

{This Moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by Amanda over at SouleMama

Rhythm ~ Waldorf Style

I wrote this article for my monthly subscription program Celebrate the Rhythm of Life ~ a living curriculum, when I did a test run. Because it has been viewed more than any other page on that site, and because rhythm is such a important and fundamental element of early childhood, I am sharing it with you here.

Rhythm is life! Rhythm is strength! Rhythm can carry you.

We often hear these words but what matters most.... is our relationship to rhythm. 

If we tend toward the precise and exact and well... maybe even rigid,  we might need to loosen up and have more fun, be more fluid, go with the flow, laugh more and get the children to laugh too.

If we tend toward the loose with little structure to our day or week, we might find that the day has slipped by and we have not had lunch or fed the dog or thought about dinner and we're out of milk and no time for breathing into the fun. We might need to tighten up our self discipline, set tiny goals for the day and meet them.

Balance

Rhythm is really about balance, finding our own, finding our way to breathe through the day, to be calm and present and bring attentive awareness to our lives with children. Rhythm is flow, a feeling that we are moving in and out energetically with the needs of the day. Rhythm is finding rest and a time for pulling back in after having been out in stimulating activity.

Baby Steps
We begin to find our rhythm by taking baby steps, one at a time. What is the structure of our life right now? Do we go to bed around the same time? Do our children? Do we rise around the same time every day? Do we have regular meal times? Do we set a pretty table?

It's helpful to let go of trying to make many changes at once, we might try for one small change, maybe rising first or dinner by five or bedtime by seven.

In the Moment
When we are running from behind, always trying to catch up, we find ourselves breathless and not in the moment. When we are too focused on the schedule and on what is coming next, we are unable to relax and be in the moment.

Flow
Finding a rhythm that flows is key to life with children, for children thrive on a rhythmic and predictable life and a strong rhythm can carry us all through the years with breathing time and time for grace.

For those of us who work with young children in Waldorf nursery and kindergartens, and at home as our child's first Waldorf teacher, we have a rhythm of the day, a rhythm of the week, and, a rhythm of the year.

The Daily Rhythm
is the flow of the daily activities, a balance between quiet inner focused ones and more rambunctious outer focused ones, an in breathing and an out breathing, all anchored in four basic activities for health and well being. 

Every day, every child needs these elements to develop and thrive as a human being, along with a strong relationship with a warm, loving adult and protection from too much stimulation and the adult world. 

By warm loving, I do not mean sentimental and gushing, I mean present, one who sees, hears and feels the child and responds accordingly with warmth and support. 

Once we master the flow of these, we have a solid foundation for our children's early years. They are:

1. Eating

2. Sleeping  

3. Free play

4. Fresh air

Sample daily rhythm --> Rise ~ Mama time ~ Breakfast ~ Chores + Outside Play ~ Morning Tea ~ Guided Activity ~ Lunch ~ Nap/Rest ~ Afternoon Tea/Snack ~ Outside Play ~ Dinner Prep/Play at Kitchen Table ~ Dinner -~ Bath ~ Bed

Consider additional activities, such as circle, storytelling, cooking, baking, painting, craft making to be transitions between theses anchors with the basic four taking precedence over all other activity. Cooking and baking help satisfy the eating need, so you might start with those activities. 

Circle, painting and craft making can wait until children are five years old, it is in the kindergarten traditionally that children first had some of these experiences. 

We need to ask ourselves if we want these activities for ourselves or for our children. If the answer is for ourselves, then consider how and where they might fit and respect the child's need for time and space and play.

If your child is four or older and you have time and space in your life for crafts, circle and painting by all means do them, just not to the detriment of eating, sleeping, playing and being outdoors and most importantly, not if it gets in the way of your sanity.

If you are a child care provider and have parents clamoring for activities and projects to take home, think about what the child needs to grow into a healthy human being and find ways to convey what is needed for healthy development to the parents with articles, parent nights and laying it all out in your literature and your interview. 

Free child initiated play is fundamental for healthy growth. Eugene Schwartz has a great article on play, From Playing to Thinking, in the kindergarten as the basis for scientific learning later on. It is the child's ability to take time to do small tasks in the early years, like putting on their boots, tying their shoes, wrapping a gift, collecting an egg from the henhouse, so carefully reaching in, that lay the foundation for math later on.

The rhythm of the week is the pattern or flow of activities set for the days of the week.

The nursery rhyme reminds us of how our mothers and grandmothers lived with a task for each day of the week.

Wash on Monday

Iron on Tuesday

Mend on Wednesday

Churn on Thursday

Clean on Friday

Bake on Saturday

Rest on Sunday

Homemakers have had a homemaking task for each day of the week out of pure practicality, the oven was stoked with wood to run all day on Saturday to bake the beans and the bread. The clothing that was washed on Monday, got ironed on Tuesday and mended on Wednesday. Butter was churned on Thursday, ready for Saturday's baking. The wheel went round and round, week to week and the chores got done. Everyone knew what to expect. Life had form.

Now, with all our conveniences at the flick of a switch, we are forced to carve out our own rhythm in the home.

On mending day we can add a day for mending of toys. We can darn socks, mend holes in the toes, replace a button. A toy with a broken part can receive attention on mending day. This is one way to care for things that get broken.

In the Waldorf nursery and kindergarten, a weekly rhythm often involves a grain for each day's menu based on Rudolf Steiner's work on nutrition and an activity for the child for each day.

The example below is a rhythm that has worked for me, with my own children and with the nursery program group of mixed age children. I have shifted it over the years to accommodate morning naps, mid day naps and noontime pick up. I find it flows best when it is consistent with the fewest transitions and just enough time with each activity to be satisfying - yet not get in the way of play, which is the real work of childhood.

What really fosters play in young children is an adult nearby engaged in productive work with tangible results, results you can see, sweeping, shoveling, folding, ironing. The computer and telephone do not do it for children. A weekly rhythm of home making tasks can help make a time for everything that needs doing.

They need to see us engaged in work and when they see us grapple with something, with mending or sewing or repairing a door frame, it brings a gift to them, that humans sometimes have to grapple in life for that is what growing can be grappling for children. They need to see us do it and persevere and succeed in our endeavors, even when they are hard. This helps grow children who will strive and get through the hard parts of life.

The Weekly Rhythm
 in the kindergarten or the home is a set pattern of activities, one for each day of the week. The more they can be integrated into the home life the better.

An example of activities of a weekly rhythm:
Monday ~ Visit farm or go for a nature walk, make soup stock

Tuesday ~ Make Soup

Wednesday ~ Coloring/Seasonal nature craft day

Thursday~ Baking day

Friday ~ Painting day

The Key
 to the Rhythm of the Day is to wake up before the children and

1. Get Dressed
2. Start the laundry
3. Think about dinner/organize it
4. Have mother time before the children rise ~ whatever it is that helps you put the spin you need on the day. It might be a quiet cup of coffee or tea, to read a verse, or say it aloud. Maybe it's meditation, yoga, reading, a walk, whatever it is that helps you orient yourself for the day. 

Something to think About
What is your relationship to rhythm? Does it come naturally? Do you have to work at it? What helps it? What gets in the way? Did you have a rhythmic childhood?

What does your rhythm look like? Where are your challenges? How do you move through the transitions? How does it differ in Autumn?

I love to see your comments and feel free to link to your rhythm below in the comment box.

xoxo
Lisa

If you found this post helpful and are looking to dive deeper into this topic, I offer a course that expands on these ideas in more detail. You can explore it here.

It's a wonderful opportunity to continue learning and growing together!

::

Celebrate the Rhythm of Life 

Harmonious Rhythms ::  Parenting with Soul :: Waldorf Homeschooling

~living curriculum program to support parenting and homeschooling

La Balance

Here we are at the end of summer, moving towards the dark and cold of the year. The Wheel of the Year is turning and with it are we, within.

The autumn equinox comes along with the stars in the sky known as Libra, the scale to weigh in our deeds. The sign of Libra is often depicted as Justice holding the scales of balance, here.

We are back to school yet still holding on to the long, luxuriant days of summer. The Bleeding Hearts are brown and shriveling. The tomatoes have given up their fruits. The autumn lanterns are warmly aglow amidst the decaying leaves of the plants that grew them.



 Mother Earth is calling her children home where they have much work to do to conserve the concentrated energies generated over the summer into the deep dark days of winter ahead.

I've been enjoying Lynn Jericho's Inner Year class on Balance. My relationship with balance has demanded my attention this month with lingering dizziness that came from many spinning rides at the fair.

This is my third round of inner balance work with Lynn Jericho and each year it seems that life is way out of balance for me in September, those long, lazy days of summer are hard to compress into the shorter days of autumn, so much so that it is hard for me to find the balancing point to really focus on the class.

We want to stay up late and be out of doors and linger at the beach with friends yet school is calling, there is food to dry, freeze and can, the garage needs a good clean out before winter, the grass needs to be cut, the garden put to bed, and work beckons. Where is the balance?

Part of me is pulling in. I've made my first cup of hot tea and took out the crock pot for a long and slow cooking of beef to eat with chili and nachos. I nearly built a fire last weekend to take the chill out of the house yet wrapped us up in warm woolen blankets instead. I'm not ready to close the windows.

The woolen picnic blanket has become a robe to snuggle under to ward off the night chill at night time football games.

I was glad to find an e-mail from Donna Simmons with a recent blogpost in which she offers reassurance for all homeschoolers, new and seasoned, on what she refers to as the September Boom or Bust, here.

When I saw Carrie Dentdter's recent post over on The Parenting Passageway on the Balance chapter, from her book study of The Well Balanced Child, I decided to join in the conversation on The Well Balanced Child. This book has been on my shelf for a few years and is one I have picked up and put down many times. It is a blog post in progress. Thank you Carrie.

How is the balance of your life?

Daily Life is the Curriculum

Summer has drawn back its heat and light, the days are beginning to feel crisp and cool. We're feeling drawn back to some kind of order and fresh start in everyday life. It seems like a good time to talk about homeschooling also known as the education of our children at home. 

Since how to get started and what sort of curriculum to use is often a first question, I thought I’d address the curriculum for the young child in the world of  Waldorf education. By young child I mean children who are toddling up to until around age nine. These are the years when they are curious, open and enthusiastic to join us in these tasks, which in turn provide a strong foundation for life. 

It is already well known to us as daily life: eating, sleeping, play and household work to keep everything flowing. And with the daily work, it is our task to help our child learn how to be fully human.

This includes healthy rhythms of eating, sleeping, movement and play as well as the activities of daily life, art, time with others and most fundamental of all nurturing activities that build connection between the child and the parent. 

Daily Homemaking Activities: like cooking and baking and housework, setting the table, clearing the table, sweeping after the meal.

Playful, Artistic Activities: like singing, ring games, coloring and painting, beeswax modeling, simple storytelling, puppetry.

Being with Others: like meal times and playing with other children (for 3′s and older), being with mom at the grocery or post office and reaching out to others in our building, neighborhood, or community.

Nurturing Activities and this means physically nourishing like touch, whole food and good sleep as well as warm baths, and attentive hand washing, and drying, and dressing, and hair combing, and protection from too much stimulation of the media, adult world, colors and stuff. Soulful activities stories rich in imagination, time and space for free play are deeply nourishing on a soul level. We the adults need to nourish ourselves too for we are the source of the strength to keep the household momentum going. (You know the saying, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy... well it is so, no?)

Stories are an artistic activity that are very important for children because they help create pictures of life and of what it means to be human. Stories connect us with humanity and bring powerful archetypal images that have lived within human consciousness for thousands of years. Adults love stories too.

Children will play out what they see and hear in their environment and stories are a way to provide pictorial images that the child will play out. This is why Waldorf teachers are always encouraging parents to protect children from the stimulation of the media, to protect the inner world of childhood, so rich with imagination, imagination for the moment and the future.

What is important with daily life as the curriculum is that it be filled with meaningful and purposeful work that is tangibly productive for a child. Computers and books and typing are not, they are too abstract for the young child to grasp but chopping and kneading and washing are, they produce something the child can grasp, literally and physically. So that is why it is the picture of little house on the prairie with making bread and soup and tending the garden and the animals that is found in the Waldorf kindergarten, a space tended with care and love for all the beings who pass by.

Children need real tools to work with as well, an apron, a sturdy rake, a strong snow shovel and a small version but strong adult garden shovel.

This is where the craft making and handwork in Waldorf come from, in having a relationship to the articles we need for daily living, wash clothes, pot holders, caps, mittens scarves and anything made by mom is so dear to the child, even if they do not outwardly express it, it is.

The what of the curriculum is life, eating, sleeping, caring for the child, caring for the family caring for the home and caring for others in the community. The how to get there in tiny steps is a topic for next time.

Celebrate the Rhythm of Life 

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