Waldorf Homeschool Network

Announcing the Waldorf Homeschool Network!

I've just created this blog as a place to come together and share and connect around the work we are doing with our children at home in Waldorf education.

Come join this blog, you can be an author and post on the blog or link to your own blog. It's a place to connect, share resources and trials and tribulations for those who are doing Waldorf education in the home, of the grades, or early childhood, and for those with early childhood groups in their home too..

Won't you come along?

It's right here:

http://waldorfhomeschoolnetwork.blogspot.com/

Warmly,

Lisa

Verse to Start the Day

It seems fitting to share this verse today, during the feast or festival of Saint Martin, known as Martinmas, a time of remembering to kindle our flame, to acknowledge by seeing, hearing and feeling that flame of the other, even when it is masked and vulnerable.

This is the verse I say to begin my day of homeschooling: 

A Teacher's Thought for his Children 

You who out of heaven's bringhtness.

Now descend to earthly darkness.

Thus through life's resisting forces,

Spirit radiance to unfold

Spirit warmness to enkindle

Spirit forces to call forth

Be you warmed through by my love

Radiant thinking

Tranquil feeling

Healing willing.

That in Spirit's heights well- rooted

And in earth's foundation's working

You may servants of the Word become

Spirit illumining

Love evoking

Being strengthening.

Rudolf Steiner

May we all warm and be warmed through by love.

Hey Ho for Halloween!

Halloween is my favorite time of year. 

For years when I wrestled with questions of religion and spirituality and sought clarity on what made meaning for me, Halloween stood out as a holiday I could fully and whole heartedly embrace with no uncertainty or feelings of discomfort. Halloween does not invoke the sort of stress that other holidays seem to call forth for me.

Halloween is all fun. Dress up and go out and play with the crunch of leaves underfoot and darkness everywhere.

I had the good fortune of living in San Francisco's Mission District for four years in my young and carefree days and experienced the celebration of the dead, with The Day of the Dead celebrations, procession and rooms. This deepened my passion for Halloween and created a bridge from my Catholic upbringing to the beliefs and values I embraced. It was empowering and awakening for me along with Z. Budapest's Spiral Dances for women at Halloween.  

Twenty years later as a parent, I bring aspects of these celebrations to my children whose ages span from seven to fifteen.

Some favorite songs:

Who are the Witches?

Chorus:

Who are the witches? Where do they come from?

Maybe your great, great grandmother was one.

Witches are wise, wise, women, they say,

There's a little witch in every woman today, 

There's a little witch in every woman today, 

Witches knew all about flowers and trees

How to use the bark and the roots and the leaves,

When people grew weary from hardworking days,

Witches made them feel better in so many ways

Repeat chorus

Women had babies and witches were there,

To help and to feed them and give them some care,

And witches knew stories of how life began,

Don't you wish you could be one, well maybe you can......

Repeat chorus

Some people thought that the witches were bad,

Some people were scared of the power they had,

The power to give and to heal and to care,

Is not something to fear, it's a treasure to share.

Repeat chorus

A fingerplay:

Five little witches sitting on the gate,

The first one said, " oh my it's getting late,"

The second one said, "Halloween is in the air,"

The third one said, "let us take to the air"

The fourth one said,  "when I finish my brew,"

The fifth one said, "my black cat comes too "

The night wind whispered whooooo, whoooo

So they put on the hats
And flew into the air, 

Singing all together, 

Hall-o-ween is here!

A Song:

Hey ho for Halloween!

When all the witches are to be seen.

Some in black and some in green,

Hey ho for Halloween!

Hey ho for Halloween!

In 1973, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English wrote Women, Witches and Nurses: A History of Women Healers , online and at Amazon. It is well worth the read, still timely and sheds light on healing, medicine, the role of women and the divine feminine.

Blessings!

A Halloween Story

by Elizabeth Thompson Dillingham

Once upon a time a big orange pumpkin was growing just outside a stone wall, far off in a field, all alone. The farmer had gathered all his pumpkins and stored them carefully in his great barn. But no one knew of the big orange pumpkin growing just outside the wall, all alone. The big orange pumpkin was lonely.

"I wish I belonged to some one, " said he.

"Miew, miew! I do, too," cried a little black pussy cat, stretching herself and jumping down form the stone wall where she had been sleeping.

"It will soon be winter," said the big orange pumpkin; "lets go find some one to belong to."

"Yes, lets do," said the little black cat, eagerly.

"I want to belong to a little girl with a sweet face and shining eyes."

"And I, said the big orange pumpkin, want to belong to a jolly little boy who whistles and sings when he works. Let's hurry right away to find them."

"Yes , let's do," said the little black cat.

So off they started-the big orange pumpkin rolling and tumbling along, and chuckling to himself as he went, and the little black cat pit patting along on her soft little cushions, purring because she was happy.

On and on they went, over the fields and through the woods. It began to grow cold, oh, so cold, and dark, too. The little black cat shivered as the wind whistled through the trees.

"See here," said the big orange pumpkin, "you can't sleep outdoors to-night. What shall we do?"

Just then they saw a man coming along the path with a bundle of wood on his back.

"Ho, Mr. Woodcutter!" cried the pumpkin "have you a knife?"

"That I have," said the merry woodsman. "What can I do for you, my fine fellow?"

"Just cut off a piece of my shell where the stem is, and scoop out some of my seeds, if you please," said the pumpkin.

No sooner said than done. "There, my little black pussy cat," said the pumpkin, "when you wish to sleep to-night, you may curl inside and be as warm as a sunbeam."

"But will you not come home with me?" asked the woodsman.

"Have you a little girl with a sweet face and shining eyes?" asked the black pussy cat.

"Have you a jolly little boy who whistles and sings when he works? "asked the big orange pumpkin.

"No, ah. no," said the woodsman, "but I have a pig and some hens."

"Then we'll go on," said the pumpkin, "but thank you kindly."

So on they went, and on, until the stars began to shine. Then the tired little pussy cat curled in her hollow nest, put on the cover, and went to sleep. In the morning they went on again, but before long
it began to rain. The pussy cat's soft fur was soon very wet.

"You poor little thing," said the big orange pumpkin; "curl inside your house and I will trundle you along."

"But it's so dark inside, and I couldn't see where we were going," cried the pussy cat, holding up a tiny, dripping paw.

"Windows!" cried the pumpkin. "Of course, windows! How silly of me! Wait here under this fence, my little friend, until I come back."

Then off he hurried across the road to a carpenter's shop.

"Ho, Mr. Carpenter!" Cried the pumpkin, "have you a knife?"

"That I have," said the jolly carpenter. "What can I do for you, my fine fellow?"

"Just cut some windows for me, if you please."

So the carpenter took a sharp knife and cut four windows-just like a face he made them, two for eyes, one for a nose, and one for a mouth, and he laughed as he did it.

When he finished the mouth, the pumpkin laughed too.

"Ha, ha, ha!" cried he. "What a relief to have a mouth to laugh with! Ha, ha, ha!" And he laughed all the way back in the rain to where the little shivering pussy cat was waiting.

And she laughed, too, and climbed inside her coach, and put on the cover. So on through the rain they went, and on and on. Just as dark was drawing near, they came to a wee, brown house by the side of the road. In the yard was a little boy picking up chips and putting them into a big basket. He whistled as he worked, and then he began to sing:

"If wishes were horses, then beggars might ride;
If turnips were watches, I'd wear one by my side."

Then the door opened, and a little girl with a sweet face and shining eyes stood on the threshold:

"What do you wish, John?' she called.

"Oh," Laughed the boy as he came in with the chips. "I wish I had a pumpkin for a jack-o'-lantern, for this is Hallowe'en."

"And I wish I had a pussy cat to love," said the little girl.

"This is the place for us!" whispered the big orange pumpkin; and he rolled up to the door, bumpety bump!

"Look, John!" cried the little girl, "here's your jack-o'-lantern!

The fairies must have sent it. Isn't it a beauty?"

"There's something inside," said John, snatching off the cover, and out jumped a tiny black pussy cat, straight into the little girl's arms.

"Oh, oh!" they cried.

And when mother came home in the dark, a jolly jack-o'-lantern with a candle inside was shining out of the window at her, and close beside it sat a little black pussy cat.

Snip, snap, snout, my stories told out. 

Elizabeth Thompson Dillingham was born in 1880, in Honolulu, Hawaii. I tried to learn more about her life and was unable to piece together a biography.

Warmly,

Storytelling ~ Sources of inspiration

My sources of inspiration:

Other people telling stories especially at Waldorf schools: kindergarten, parent child group, play groups, nursery programs, Joan Almon, Connia Manson, Suznne Down, workshops, trainings, performances

Books:
Storytelling with Children by Nancy Mellon (do it as a group if possible)
Suzanne Down's Autumn Tales are inspiring simple nature stories
Susan Perrow's Healing Stories for Challenging Behavior

Stories from childhood What stories do you remember hearing as a child? What stories did you tell or act out? What were your favorites?

Nature What is happening in nature now? What is the inner mood or feeling of the season we are in? In autumn, I feel the wind and the leaves, whirling, twirling, falling, pulling in, storing up, reckoning with the need to fan the flame within, light withdrawing, dark increasing, what are the elemental beings doing now?

What is the story line best suited for a child's perspective?
(blog post in the works on what stories for what age and why)

What does my child need? therapeutic stories? What is the picture I wish to make? What will feed him or her developmentally to see the picture I wish the story to carry?

At bedtime Ask for help from the spiritual world. We adults have a guardian angel who will respond to us when we ask for help and guidance. Bring the questions into sleep and pay attention upon wakening and during the day to the answers that just seem to arrive. Also ask our guardian angel to communicate with the child's angel and support us in our desire to meet and nourish the child.

Take a quiet moment and do a meditation. Close your eyes. Picture the child in a situation that you find really challenging and hold that picture while you breathe into your heart, breath love into the picture in your mind and ask for a story to address the challenge.

Most of all play with it, make it fun, not too serious!

Blessings

Storytelling with Children ~ The Speech We Bring

How we tell or read a story can make a very big difference in the way the child experiences the story.

The vowels carry feeling. Vowels are called the singing letters. The Ah brings wonder and awe, the E carries fear eech!, the I with understanding one's place in the world, with self assertion, here I stand! Oh brings surprise, the o of protection as in love and the long U, brings concern and withdrawal.

When we tell a story or read to a child and bring it in an even, calm voice with stress on the consonants, rather than on the vowels, the child is free to bring his or her own feelings to the story. Try chosing one or two consonants and focus on them when they fall at the end of a word when telling or reading a story.

We can enunciate clearly the sound of the consonants which name and give form, the hiss of the s, the roll of the r, the closure of the bilabials sounds, b, p, the t, the rounding off of the m and the flow of the ll.

Try saying the phrase below with emphasis on the vowels:

The wicked wolf ate the small child.

This time say it with emphasis on the d, f, t, ll and d, at the end of the words.

The wicked wolf ate the small child.

Notice a difference?

But we love the drama you say. That is something for an older child and adults. For the child who has not yet expereinced the change of teeth, the calm, warm, even version leaves room for the child to find his or her own feelings within the story. With young children, before the change of teeth (birth to seven) the focus is in doing, in being in the will, in action, in deeds. What is done in the story, the action, is what is most important to describe for the young child.

A five or six year old can hear a complex fairy tale told in the even, calm way and take it in deeply without fear while the same story told with dramatization and emphasis on the feeling letters can make it frightening for the child. A three and four year old can hear simlper fairy tales.

With older children after the change of teeth, the feeling life and learning through feeling becomes the focus developmentally.

When we sing, chant nursery rhymes or tell stories to a small child, we bring the warmth of the our voice to meet the child on a deep level, soul to soul. We can envelop our words with warmth and evoke pictures for the child to live into, through their play, through their life. Children will play out the stories they hear with dress up, singing, self talk and the creation of scenarios and socio-dramaric play. This is the basis for imaginative thinking. This is the basis for a literacy that is infused with inspired feeling and creative action.

We can support this in many ways. (More to come on this topic)

Children under the age of seven are like a sieve, they absorb everything we say, do and feel. They learn through imitation. They know when our words are aligned with our feelings and when they are not. They will play out or act our our deepest feelings and concerns.

In bringing stories and rhymes to children here are a few questions to ponder about our speech:

Is it good?

• Am I speaking clearly and enunciating my words?
• Are the words and phrases appropriate for the developmental phase of the child?
• Does it convey, in the end, that the world is good?
• Is it imbued with warmth?

Is it beautiful?

• Are the words beautiful?
• Is the combination of words beautiful?
• Is it rhythmic?
• How does it feel for the ears to hear such soumds?

Is it true?

• Am I here and fully present with the child?
• Am I fully present with the words I am speaking?
• Does it convey the truth of life I wish for the child to experience?
• Is it worthy of imitation?

Next will be a little nature story of courage to tell.

Blessings!

Celebrate the Rhythm of Life 

Harmonious Rhythms ::  Parenting with Soul :: Waldorf Homeschooling

~living curriculum program to support parenting and homeschooling

What to do with all of those ripe tomatoes?

Make Tomato Goat Cheese Salad

This is one of my favorites from Cafe Liliane. Actually everything we made there was worthy of favorite status!

Slice tomatoes, arrange on serving plate, crumble goat cheese ( I like the chervre from Vermont Butter and Cheese) on top, roll basil leaves and make thin slices to place on top, also know as chiffonade, do this with red onion too, thin slices on top. Sprinkle some delicious olive oil and lemon juice over it all. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

The photo above is from Flower Power Annie's gorgeous offerings at the farmers market.

Storytelling with Children :: Nursery Rhymes

Recently I wrote here about movement and lullabies as the first stories the child experiences. From lullabies, flow nursery rhymes. Sometimes they overlap with nursery rhymes sung as lullabies and often accompanied by movement and touch. An example,

Sleep, baby sleep,

Thy father guards the sheep,

Thy mother shakes the dreamland tree and from it falls sweet dreams for thee,

Sleep baby sleep.........

One way to bring nursery rhymes is with touch, movement, song and gesture. Baby might like a game of pat-a-cake while the first grader loves Hey diddle dinkety poppety pet! (try saying that fast and articulately five times)

For baby:

Pat- a -cake, pat-a- cake bakers man,

Bake me a cake as fast as you can.

Pat it and Roll it and mark it with a B,

And pop it in the oven for baby and me!

Clap hands together and apart, you can do this holding babies hands, and trace the B on the child's arm of back or belly.

Here's another version:

Pat-a-cake, pat-a -cake, baker's girl,

Bake me a cake with a strawberry twirl.

Pat it and roll it and mark it with a B,

And pop it in the oven for baby and me!

When you say strawberry twirl, you can make a twirl on the child's arm or back.

Here's one of my son's favorites, for the first grader, to sing and do with gestures touching the body:

Hey diddle dinkety, poppety pet,

The merchants of London they all wear scarlet.

Silk in the collar and gold in the hem,

So merrily march the merchant men.

The child's sense of touch can be soothed or stimulated with nursery rhymes.

This little piggy went to market,

This little piggy stayed home,

this little piggy ate roast beef,

This little piggy had none,

And this little piggy cried wee! wee!

All the way home!

Wiggle the toes with each verse then trace the way home on the child's foot bottom, around the ankle and up the leg

We can move the child's foot at the ankle, up and down or clasp the soles together while saying or singing a nursery rhyme. Here is an example from Mary Thienes Schunemann's nursery rhyme book in her series Naturally You Can Sing!

When I push very young children in the swing, I sing a little song that I made up and follow it with some nursery rhymes.

The song:

Up I go in my swing

Oh so merrily

Up I go in my swing

With a fiddle di di-di di

With little ones, I push from in front of them on the swing so they can see me and make eye contact. I push from their feet with the palms of my hands lined up with the soles of their feet and sing:

All around the cobblers bench

The monkey chased the weasel

The monkey stopped to ties his shoes

Pop! goes the weasel

A penny for a spool of thread,

A penny for a needle

That's the way the money goes,

Pop! Goes the weasel.

For the pop I make a popping sound with my pointer finger inside my cheek.

Baa, ba black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

One for my master and one for my dame

One for the little boy who lives down the lane

Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes si, yes sir, three bags full.

Another nursery rhythm with a pop:

Higgledy, piggledy, pop!

The dog has eaten the mop.

The cat's in a hurry,

The pig's in a flurry

Higgledy, piggledy, pop!

More on nursery rhymes, rhythm, and speech for the young child tomorrow.

What's your favorite nursery rhyme?

Blessings.

Storytelling with Children~Movement and Lullabies

Children on the Beach by Mary Cassatt, 1884

Parents have asked me over the years, to write something about the development of movement, speech, language, literacy and storytelling with children: why story telling, why not reading, why does reading come later, what stories to use, when to use them, why tell them rather than read them and what props to use. The philosophy major in me wants to explain everything in great detail which becomes quite lengthy (and dull), so here it is, with an effort to make it concise, and to make some sense of it for you. Tell me what you think.

For this moment, let's think in terms of recapitulating history. Humans in ancient time went from movement to speech to writing to reading. That's it! in a nutshell. That is how Waldorf education approaches reading which is often the big question for those new to Waldorf or outside of Waldorf education. Why wait so long to teach reading? Ah, but literacy is being taught from the beginning and as it is so with all of Waldorf education, the child lives into it, with her very being, at the very start, beginning prenatally.

The very first story for the young child is the mother, and it begins in utero, with the mother's movement, movement that occurs before the child's ears are even formed. This is the first experience of story.

With the formation of ears and beginning of hearing comes the rhythm of her body and sound of her voice.

Next come lullabies, sung by the mother or father, grandparents, siblings or caregivers. Lullabies can be traditional or made up by you. I was astonished in pregnancy and early motherhood how songs and lulling sounds emerged from my lips spontaneously and flowed with ease in me which is something I had not experienced before motherhood.

For inspiration to sing with your children, Mary Thienes Schunemann created a Lullaby book in her series of songbooks with CDs for parents called, Naturally You Can Sing!, which are recordings of her remarkably beautiful voice and lovely illustrations with lyrics that make wonderful inspiration for anyone who wishes to expand their repertoire with lullabies. 

Parent-Child Classes at Waldorf/Steiner schools are another place to experience the beauty of lullabies, learn new songs and meet others with young children. Our parents and grandparents can be a source of lullabies when asked to recall what they sung to their children and if they remember lullabies sung to their siblings, especially if they were born into a family with many children and years between them.

Or just relax and remember your early days and let flow whatever comes from you, for your child or for yourself.

To be continued...... with Nursery Rhymes.

Blessings.

Reviewing the Day

Marsha Johnson of Waldorf Home Educators was recently asked the question, "why do you review the day going *backwards*? "

To which she provided this response:

Yes.

We humans are quite asleep most of the time, even when we are walking about. We have a tendancy towards inward awareness, our feelings, impressions, judgments, worries, plans, ideas, ourselves...and we can become quite insulate as well as quite unaware of what is transpiring around us.

We can be so interested in 'self' that we forget 'other'.

Recalling the day, recalling the sensory and soul impressions, starting with what was immediate, and then practicing replaying the day, re-seeing it with the eyes of the soul, recalling a small gesture, an unspoken impression, the glimmer of an eye, the small pieces that come to us with time, helps us to sharped the pencil of our mind in a way.

Builds our memory-organ.

We do this with the children, quite directly. We tell them a marvelous tale, and then the next day, we ask them, what do you recall?

Over the night, things shift and move, dreams imbue, the spirit world whispers to us and reveals to us many things...when we have really developed our spirit organs, perhaps we can be dreaming and yet feel quite calmly awake and observing, recalling later what went on.

Practicing at night just before sleep will reveal to you the most amazing things! Small things pop up like jack-in-the-box moments, and we can nearly clap our hands to our foreheads! AH! How could I have nearly missed THAT!

Running backwards is not as easy as it seems. Our minds are disorderly these days, full of silly impressions and perceptions, sloppy minds trained to 30 second 'bites' of stuff, much of which is less than meaningless. We discipline our thinking and our memory life and we discipline ourselves.

We feel ourselves taking shape, become firm, finding the bones of the mind, so to speak, discovering how to make a flame that burns bright and heats well. Not a wild sparkly crazy inferno or a weak sickly effort that repels...but a steady bright perfect flame of a memory that illuminates here with quiet brilliance.

Take it slow, start with each little part of your day, if you manage to walk back through dinner time at first, why that is beautiful! This is an art and a true art takes time to hone and further.

As you move through your day, resting with your eyes closed, let those people, those beings who were present, come to your eye of your mind and the mirror of your heart and view them...simply without assigning any outer manipulation, just hold them like you would hold a new laid warm egg, fresh from the nest, in the palm of yourself, and see what was there.

Developing these inner organs and capacities is the very thing that will set you apart from the crowd. Truly seeing self, yes, and truly seeing Other. Avoiding that inner Frown, that face of conclusion, departing from making assumptions or judgments.......singly coming just as fresh as a summer slight breeze...listening for what is being asked of you in each moment.

If you can take this up, say in September, on the first day of that month of Micha-el, you will surely hear the songs of the cosmic choirs, rejoicing at the thought of another soul on Earth, making its light shine out into the farthest reaches of time and space! A twinkling beacon of beautiful light will begin to ray forth!

This self-moderated meditative activity is a key part of beginning to employ the fundamentals of spiritual science in your life and particularly in your teaching. It is truly one of the most valuable habits you can acquire in your life.

Try it and see what you find!

Mrs. M


Thank you Mrs. M!

Manners, Courtesy and Gentle Politeness

As adults we know what it is to be treated courteously and politely. We  know the basic rules of civility, of how to get along with others in the world, at least in public and most of the time. Yet with children the lines are more easily blurred.

Others, and particularly strangers and family members, may not know our child well enough to know that our child's play is simply play and may at times take behavior to be offensive. Loud squeals may hurt someone's ears in the grocery store and a fast moving tricycle may be dangerous around the legs of an older person walking with a cane.

How do we give our children free rein to be children and respect others at the same time?

When it comes to behavior with children and others, I often reflect back to the basic rule of three:

1. You may not harm yourself. ( a discussion on the perception of harm might follow among us adults)
2. You may not harm others.

3. You may not harm property.

Yet there is something missing in this rule of three, some nuance between the lines that is not exact and not easy to codify. It's that behavior that might be acceptable outdoors but not indoors or the rising voice in the grocery store or the use of certain slang in public. It calls for a discernment of the environment and of the audience and of what makes people comfortable and puts them at ease. This is what manners boil down to, putting people at ease in social situations.

And so appears the notion of courtesy. The word courtesy according to Wikipedia means, "gentle politeness or courtly manners." It arose from the days of the royal court and was codified in books of etiquette. I like the term gentle politeness. Somehow the word gentle which means, "of or belonging to the same stock, clan or race" brings warmth to the term. We are all human and worthy of consideration by others, all of the same clan- the human one. 

With children so many opportunities arise for reflection on language and behavior in social situations. From being in close quarters and noticing the rising volume of sound or being inside or waiting in line with a small child who needs to move and finding the lack of space for free movement or the blurting out of words or phrases that make me want to turn invisible and vanish from the spot. How to respond to that? 

I've come to use the words at ease and uncomfortable as in, "that makes others uncomfortable" or "that puts others at ease" in discussing behavior and language with my children. When my youngster starts raising his voice in the store I remind him that others might not like to hear the loudness. Or when my older child tells me that the F word is a good word, everyone uses it, I agree that it is a powerful word and when used discerningly has a great impact- and I remind him that some folks might be uncomfortable with it and encourage him to discern if his audience and his environment are at ease with his use of it.

Manners and courtesy had their origins in discernment, in discerning the social group to which one belonged, and in doing so, discerning those who did not belong. Today, in a time that acknowledges the dignity of all human beings regardless of all factors that once were considered social dividers, it seems possible to plant seeds in our children and to remind ourselves that the experience of others does matter and sometimes it is in the relating to the other human or humans that meaning is made rather than in some absolute right or wrong of the act or the word.

Father's Day Ideas

Reflections on Father's Day gifts we have made that might inspire you.

• We've painted silk neckties from Dharma Trading. Use only two colors with little ones, you cannot go wrong, always beautiful. For moms, we have made silk scarves the same way.
• For quick to organize projects we have made tie dye socks, hankies and tee shirts.
• Another quickie is to cut a watercolor painting or crayon drawing on card stock into a book mark. The child can punch a hole in the top and thread raffia or ribbon and beads onto it too. Or laminate the book mark for longevity and durability.
• For Dad's who spend time in the garden a garden stone is fun with stones, shells, gems, hand and foot prints pressed into it.