This Week

SAVORING SUMMER 

tasty

lazy days

warm and cosy spots

favorite places

new adventures

 looking forward

oh my, hard to believe it is nearly August! summer where have you gone?

Announcing a Planning E-Course!

GET ORGANIZED!
something new

please note this planning session e-course will run again from August 19th until September 16th for four more weeks of sketching out the rhythm of the year with a plan for homemaking and homeschooling that reflects the seasons and the rhythm of the year where you live

Okay friends, it's that time of year. You know the phrase, it's time to fish or cut bait...? Well now is a great time to sketch out, delve into and firm up your homeschool and homemaking plans. There's still plenty of time to explore, chew on, and digest material and have a long leisurely summer with plenty of time for reading up on what interests you. The new moon that began on Monday lends the perfect oomph! energetically to start a project that involves commitment and intention and yet leaves plenty of time to to go slowly and to savor the work. 

savor: taste and enjoy it completely 

Isn't that what we all want of life, to savor it and enjoy it completely? Yet who has enough time with parenting, homeschooling and homemaking? We do! If we start now and go with the energy of the new moon, we'll have time to simmer our plans for fall and sketch out our program for winter and spring - and even next summer too, if you wish to go that far.

Let's ride the energy of this new moon and Get Organized!

"When the Moon is new, the Sun and Moon are aligned in the same sign, and a powerful energy portal is opened. New Moons are a great time to set intentions for things you'd like to create, develop, cultivate, make manifest. There are many ways to initiate this communion with the Universe from lighting a candle to elaborate rituals. What matters is that you're committing yourself to your vision, and open to receiving guidance, healing, support from Spirit."  ~ New Moon Magic 

• Do you approach each new year with big plans and then grope for how to implement them?
• Would you like to be organized so you'll feel fully ready and confident when September rolls around? 
• Do you have too many resources and struggle with what to use?
• Wondering where to start? What's out there? What's right for you? and how to pull it all together? 

 I am offering a planning session over the next four weeks from July 15th to August 11th to lead you in organizing a planner and sketching out your coming year for homemaking and homeschooling.

We'll focus on the rhythm of the year, work with the seasons and work into our weekly and daily rhythms.

We'll begin with a look at the rhythm of the year. How does it contract and expand? How does that work with our homeschooling and homemaking? How can we put the energy of the year to work in supporting us and our homemaking and homeschooling endeavors?

We'll look at seasonal activities and celebrations as well as Main Lessons for the 2013 - 2014 school year, including festivals, crafts and handwork from nursery age through eighth grade.

I am offering this special Get Organized! planning session for homemakers, homeschoolers, teachers, child care providers, and anyone else, for a small registration fee to keep it inclusive and affordable for all. It runs from Sunday July 14th (Jour de la Bastille or French Revolution Day!) to Sunday August 11th. No need to be "Waldorf." Anyone with an interest in planning with the seasons is welcome.

*By popular demand we will start anew on Monday August 19th and go for another four weeks to September 16th*

Each week in we'll look at a different element of "sketching it out" and by the end of the session you'll walk away with planner in place, full of what is nearest and dearest to your heart for the upcoming school year along with links and resources for supplies and supporting materials.

WHAT WE WILL TAKE UP IN THIS COURSE

What are your family values?

How to align it with daily living?

What are the distinct characteristics of Waldorf education and how do they translate with homeschooling?

Daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal rhythms for main lesson, crafts, handwork and festivals

Domestic activities to support a rhythmic home life and get everyone on board

Speech

Movement

Drama

Singing and Musical Instrument

Handwork from Nursery through Grade 8

Guest speakers include Lynn Jericho on Tempermants, Rahima Baldwin on Homeschooling and Homemaking, Howard Schrader on A Strong Start, Christine Natale on storytelling and Nancy Parsons Whittaker on Resources for Homeschoolers.

This online course includes handouts (pdf form), blog posts, articles, resources, guest speakers, roundtable discussion and four weeks of guidance from experienced Waldorf homeschooling Mamas, grandmas and wise women!

First and foremost Waldorf education is an artistic endeavor in which the teacher as artist brings the material to the student through drawing, painting, modeling, speech, drama, puppetry, storytelling and more. As it is through our own artistic striving that our children benefit, we'll set off on the right artistic foot with a creative project of our own, our planner.

ORGANIZE YOUR PLANNER

We'll ground our planning in the four seasons and the rhythm of the year.  I'll offer examples and templates for planning the day, weeks, months and year. We'll explore different strategies for organization and you'll  chose the one that suits your needs best and put it into your planner.

SKETCH IT OUT

Next we'll take up planning the year through the year, the seasons, the months, the weeks and the daily rhythm of life, in the Waldorf home for nursery, kindergarten and grade school children. We'll fill in the planner.

This planning session supports families who school school yet want to have a Waldorf home life with a focus on seasonal living a well as families who wish to bring elements of Waldorf into their lives. We'll look at how and where you can integrate the Pillars of Waldorf Homeschooling with Rudolf Steiner's approach through "soul economy" to make for a rich, satisfying, rhythmic and energizing year.

You'll be encouraged to figure out what is important for your needs and your family. I'll share resources and tips to find the material you need to bring the kind of Main Lessons/Daily Activities that are important to you.  We can talk about what sort of Main Lesson to start and end the year with as well as the rhythm of main lessons, within the family day.

Most of all I can help you find the rhythm of the home that will carry you and your family through the days, weeks, months and seasons of the coming year. I can explain the whys of the Waldorf ways and help you discern the whys as to what is important developmentally and support you to explore what is important for your family.

There is no one way to homeschool with Waldorf education, there are many. I can support you to create imaginations and find the one that is right for you.

Join me, a Waldorf mom who first began Waldorf homeschooling in 1998 when we had no Waldorf homeschooling resources online. Today, I am preparing our homeschool year with a rising fifth grader and a twelfth grader who will be away on an adventure. I  have seen just about every English language Waldorf curriculum out there, I have made my own curriculum and have used others' curriculums, as well as worked in Waldorf schools, and observed Waldorf grade classrooms, in addition to work as an early childhood teacher, in the kindergarten and nursery along the way.

I love homeschooling with the Waldorf approach to life, it is truly a life shaping, life changing and growth full pathway for parent as well as child and family. Each time we return to material, something new emerges, understanding goes deeper. I'd like to help you find your way into this too. My own path has taken may turns in this endeavor and I'd be glad to share with you what I have learned along the way.

Join me on this adventure to sketch out the year ahead and remain well anchored in the day before us.

The program includes blog posts, conference calls, resource and support materials and a private discussion group devoted to Getting Organized ::  Sketch it Out!

In August I will offer a follow up online class as part of the Celebrating the Rhythm of Life in Caring for Children Program on Creating a Family Home :: Setting Up the Space ~ Handmade and Homemade Preparation (on a shoestring budget) for a year of creativity, wonder and rhythm, to ease us back into the homeschooling and homemaking year with strong daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal rhythms.

This planning session is free of charge for:

• Year round members of Celebrating the Rhythm of Life with Children
• Last Years Sketching it Out Members (June and July 2012) may return at no charge (kindky send me an email if you'd like to join in this year)

Registration is Closed

Lisa Boisvert Mackenzie began homeschooling on a remote tropical island in the South Pacific nearly two decades ago at a time when materials were scarce and the only approach was a simple one. The gifts of homeschooling while living "miles from nowhere" have remained with me and I can share with you, how to slow down, how to live simply and how to figure out what it is that matters for you in your homeschooling and homemaking with Celebrate the Rhythm of Life with Children through the Year, a program/curriculum for homemaking and homeschooling.

In Full Bloom

TODAY

Despite the heat or maybe because of it and all the recent rain, the flowers are glorious.

The sky was blue. I had forgotten that the sky is blue beneath the storm clouds.    

Some days are made for ice tea. Today is one of them.

Red roobios ice tea is so delicious, thank you Sarah for introducing me to it.

 Working on a planning session e-course.

Maybe you'll join me?

Morning Light

THIS WEEK
a glimpse of light

Dramatic thunder and lightening storms have brought a close to the afternoons this week, with loud startling bursts of thunder, sharp flashes of lightening and torrential rainfall that is flooding the garden and the roads. My furry boy has been glued to my side. He is no lover of the loud sound bursts.

Just at this time of year when I want to throw open all the doors and windows, fire up the grill, cook and eat outside and spend the afternoon curled up in the shade with a book, I find myself seeking shelter, making sure the hens are protected and settling for indoor meals.

The following morning, with the rising sun, I scout out the grounds, looking for a dry spot for the hens, one that provides some sun, some shade and some cover, yet won't  flood. I've been wondering what will become of the garden, will it drain or will it continue to flood. Do we build more raised beds?

The grass is tall, gently swaying with the breeze.

This morning, on the path between house and hen and garden beds, as I was happily drinking up the fleeting sunlight, I paused to take a few snapshots of sunlight bathed flowers.

 Coming soon is the sea of bee balm blossoms.

Waving goodbye until next year are the wood anemones, once a sea of cheerful blossoms, now a swath of greenery.

Shine on!

What's happening in your garden?

27 :: April

THIS MORNING

a cup of coffee

my fellow early riser

a walk in the garden

oh the sunshine!

   

breakfast makes for happy hens

first of the season

HAPPY SATURDAY!

How to Clean Beeswax Crayons

Beeswax crayons are such a pleasure to use, they make such beautiful colors and beautiful drawings. They are easy to use, feel good in the hand, and respond to our warmth by giving us more of their color. They last a very long time too.

Over time they get broken, bitten and chipped, and with use they get scuffed up from rubbing against the colors of the other crayons.

What to do to bring them back to their majestic purity of color?

The answer is simple and can be meditative.

• First, I gather my beeswax crayons
• Then I take out an old bed sheet or towel from the ragbag
• Then I tear off a corner of the cloth to make a cleaning cloth about the size of a lunch napkin

I use oil for cleaning beeswax crayons; it dissolves the crayon markings the get rubbed into the other color crayons. I was taught to use Citrasolve and over the years have tried lavender essential oil and even olive oil. I imagine coconut oil works too. Any oil. Citrasolve probably works the fastest, yet is probably the harshest. 

Put some oil on the cloth and rub away. The crayons will come clean.

In the end, you have clean crayons to color with and beautiful colors on the cleaning rag.

This month we are contemplating the experience of color in our lives and doing some grown up coloring with beeswax crayons over on Celebrate the Rhythm of LIfe through the Year, my interactive curriculum program that supports parents, teachers and childcare providers to awaken to the rhythms in daily, weekly and seasonal life through beauty, imagination and wonder.

I've also been doing Homeschool Consulting and now officially offer that as a Service.

Happy Weekend friends, what's on your slate for this weekend?

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

Joining Amanda over at SouleMama

Happy Weekending!

{this moment}

(this moment)

Joining Amanda over at SouleMama

Happy Weekending!

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

along with Soulemama

Winter Play on Mother Nature's Playground

The world is a playground. Note the senses involved in this play:

• Touch 
• Life
• Self Movement 
• Balance
• Warmth
• Sight
• Smell
• Hearing

and the toys are free!

What does Mother Nature's playground look like where you live?

Leave a link to a picture/blog post on Mother Nature's Playground in the Comments below.

How We Talk to Our Children

Everyday we talk. We wake up and speak. We talk to the dog, the cat, our partners and our children all through the day. Yet how often do we sit back and really reflect on the language we use? Speaking is one of those things we do that takes on its own habits and practices.

How often do we hear the voice of our mother or father or even grandparent come out when we speak?

The use of language is one characteristic that distinguishes human beings from animals. Yet sometimes, too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing. Our culture places heavy emphasis on the printed word with a push towards early reading  and often we find ourselves bombarded with words via screens and speakers in waiting rooms, airports, airplanes, bars, banks, restaurants and shops. The screen is everywhere blasting news and information at us and our children when they are out and about in these places.

We can protect children from this onslaught of media by carefully deciding where and when we take them out. We can provide diversions from the screens in waiting rooms by bringing a book or being prepared with a little verse and a finger puppet in the pocket.

We can examine the language we use when we speak to children. What are we trying to convey and can we find simpler, more creative and perhaps more effective ways of expressing it?

Do you wonder how it is that Waldorf kindergarten and nursery teachers get children to come and go with so little talking?

This month in my Celebrate the Rhythm of Life in March E-Course Program, we'll take a look and listen to the way we speak to the children in our lives. What are the words we use? Do we want to keep using them? We'll wonder together and explore ways of communicating with children that are simple and effective and energizing for child and adult alike.

In addition to the focus topic aspect, Celebrate the Rhythm of Life in March includes support materials and conversation dedicated to supporting you in bringing harmony, rhythm and balance to daily life. Materials include a Daily Rhythm Guide, Weekly Rhythm Support, Material to support seasonal celebration though verse stories, recipes, song, crafts, handwork, puppetry and best of all a community of others who are journeying on this path.

$45

Sign Up Here 

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

Along with SouleMama