Help! I'm Not Prepared for Michaelmas - What to Do?

My Question of the Week is: 

"HELP! I am feeling so unprepared for Michaelmas, what can I do?"

My response is this:

Keep it simple. 

Let go of the feeling that you must have Michaelmas "stuff."

You don't have to buy anything.

Really.

Resist should dos.

Embrace what's around you.

You don't need special toys or a sword and a cape or a scale, not even a picture of the Archangel Michael for the littles (the under nine crowd.)

You don't have to buy figures for the nature table.

Notice the gifts Mother Nature is offering at this time of year: beautifully colored leaves, apples, acorns, seed pods... bring them in, make it pretty - there's your nature table. You might like to sew and add a simple gnome from an old sweater that got felted in the dryer and is ready for a new purpose, for gnomes are the elemental beings of autumn.

Resist talking about the Archangel Michael or a festival with the children younger than second grade.

Really.

We want to share it all with them, we love it so much. Save a little for the years ahead.

Let second grade be the year of learning about the Archangel Michael.

Young children look to us to learn what it means to be human. They need to see us finding joy and meaning within. They don't need names for this harvest festival, they need experiences. Of seeing a task through. Of harvesting marigold seeds or fruits or vegetables or nuts. Of putting the garden to rest. Of playing in the leaves. Of taking the sweaters and hanging them to air. Of washing the lawn furniture and preparing it for winter. Of sweeping leaves off the deck. Of picking apples and bring some to a neighbor. Of baking pies and sharing one with someone who could use some sweetness in their life.

You don't have to craft anything or even to learn a whole circle this week.

Embrace simple.

Let your celebration flow out of your life.

It won't look like the Waldorf school.

You're not a Waldorf school.

You're a mom or a dad, living in a home creating a culture of your family.

Your celebration will suit your family and your life.

A few examples of what I mean by simple:

:: Tell one story of courage.

:: Go apple picking.

:: Polish apples with a flannel cloth from the ragbag, with care.

:: Cut an apple in half horizontally and discover (with a feeling of awe and wonder) the star inside.

:: Go out in the evening and wonder in amazement at the stars.

:: Roast vegetables in the fire ~ corn, potatoes, carrots, onion, something yummy.

:: Gather marigold seeds from the dry and dead flower heads.

:: Make seed packets from watercolor paintings for your marigold seeds. Put them away in a dry spot to "sleep" over the winter.

"For the young child, Michaelmas is a harvest festival, a time to savor the harvest, roast vegetables, polish apples, cut them in half to discover the stars within and celebrate through song, story and food the gifts and  wonders of nature and all her beauteous bounty. Michaelmas is also a time for purposeful work." More here

Simple. Simple.

Read up on Michaelmas for adults, and walk with that, carry it along in your being, and just notice how it feels, what comes up for you. What inspires your courage? 

Colors and Days of the Week with Waldorf Education

Then

The world of Waldorf education first came online in the late 1990's with a chat group that included parents, teachers and administrators of Waldorf schools. A few of us had an inclination towards homeschooling, which was controversial within the world of Waldorf schools at the time, and out of that group was born another group dedicated to Waldorf homeschooling which gave birth to more groups.

Now
Today, in 2017, we have many websites as well as social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even online programs and courses devoted to Waldorf homeschooling and homemaking, including my own program and eCourses. The point being that the world of Waldorf education has opened its doors to the world.

With this expansion of Waldorf into the world, some notions about Waldorf education seem to have taken on a life of their own, outside of the pedagogical grounding Waldorf education ideally experiences in a school environment. I've noticed some online versions of things attributed to Waldorf education that I'd like to explore with you, within the context of myth busting.

Myth Busting
Steve Sagarin and Sarah Baldwin have delved into some of these myths with an exploration of the pedagogy associated with the use of gnomes to introduce the four processes in first grade and the notion that the teaching of literacy is delayed in Waldorf schools.

(The nourishment of a deep love of literacy and language begins at birth in the Waldorf realm. This is a topic I feel passionate about yet will save for another post.)

What I'd like to talk about is the use of colors and the names of the days of the week with children in the realm of Waldorf homemaking and homeschooling. It seems that once the cat came out of the bag, with the sharing of the meditative practice for the adult to reflect on the qualities of the days of the week, a whole new world unfolded online to share this with children by naming the days of the week by a color in order to create a rhythm of the week.

This practice of reflecting on the qualities of the days of the week with a particular meditation, is for adults. It is something a teacher might do.

I'm not sure how it hit the online world of Waldorf homemaking and homeschooling, but it did.

Why We Do What We Do
I've had some wonderfully wise and helpful Waldorf mentors in my life. One in particular inspires me to constantly ask myself why I we do what I do, to inform the action with an understanding of what it means for the child.

We can ask ourselves why would we tell children about a color of the day? Why would we make a chart with the colors, how would it serve the child? What is the child's experience of this?

Out of this emerges for me, a deeper question, how can we help bring children into healthy rhythm, into a healthy rhythm of life?

What's Happening Developmentally?
The young child, from birth to age 7 or so, even age 9 for some aspects, lives in the realm of the will, that is in the realm of activity.

In this stage of development, children are developing the WILL forces, the forces for doing, for being active. They are in the realm of DOING and can relate to what they will DO week after week by their physical experience of it, by DOING it, not by talking about it. 

What does this mean for sharing about colors of the day and creating charts for the activities of the week? 

Talking to children about colors of the day and showing them charts are all abstractions to a young child. To talk to them this way brings the child into the intellectual realm, while taking them out of the dreamy, wonder and awe filled realm of childhood. 

To keep track of time in such an abstract way belongs to the realm of the adult. Slowly the grade school child is brought into the realm of a schedule, initially through a strong weekly rhythm based on doing, on activities, with the same activities repeated on the same day of the week, consistently, week after week.

Name the Doing

In a Waldorf early childhood program, the days of the week are named for the ACTIVITY that is done on that day, such as "painting day," bread making day," "soup making day." These activities are done consistently week after week, as part of the weekly rhythm for children.

At home, a few examples of weekly rhythm we might have and use as names for the week:

Soup Day (we make soup)
Bread Day (we make bread)
Painting Day (we paint)
Crayoning Day (we color with crayons)
Woods Walk Day (we walk in the woods)
Playgroup Day (we meet with our playgroup and play)

So please, let's ditch the conversation about colors and keep the charts for ourselves. For the child under nine, just do it -  do the activity for the day consistently that is! 

Children thrive on having a predictable and consistent life, with days such as soup making day, a baking day, a painting day. These activities deeply nourish the four foundational senses of childhood while the strong weekly rhythm provides deep nourishment to the child, and to the whole family.