waldorf homeschooling Archives

Welcoming :: 2016

January 14, 2016 | Leave a Comment

We celebrated a lovely quiet Christmas in 2015, sharing our Christmas Eve with dear friends and relaxing on Christmas Day in the heat that gripped our little island home. New Year’s Eve was shared with the same lovely friends, enjoying some botanical infusions I’d made from that long awaited book ‘Wild Cocktails‘ which is a collection of recipes from Lottie Muir and her rooftop bar in London – Midnight Apothecary. It was so much fun to spend the days between Christmas and New Year’s infusing various spirits with produce from our gardens and making all kinds of fruit and herbal syrups in preparation for New Year’s Eve Cocktails and Mocktails.

Our family then enjoyed a few weeks of taking in all the deliciousness of our Southern Summer. I immersed into planning land for a week to put together the first block for our 2016 school year. I am so inspired by the Oak Meadow program for Grade 2. We loved both the Kindergarten and Grade 1 program so I was looking forward to seeing what the Grade 2 program had in store for Chilli this year.

I always like to start our year on Plough Monday. It’s a nice time for Papa to resume his work for the year and symbolically I think it’s a lovely time to return to our school work as well. Summer is still in it’s height here at the moment, but I try to balance some enjoyment of the outdoor delights amongst the resuming of our school year. This year, inspired by a friend on the Facebook Oak Meadow Southern Hemisphere Community Group, I have decided to work a 3 week on – 1 week off rhythm for our schooling. Before I can relax into Advent and the Festive season, I always need to have what I call our ‘skeleton plan’ worked out for the year ahead. I use the Waldorf Essentials Ultimate Planner and with the monthly sheets, I go through and map out our year. Starting with Festivals, birthdays and times I know we will need to take holidays from school – I can then mark out our year with school blocks. I also wanted to finish up at the beginning of Advent this year. Last year we were still schooling through the beginning of Advent and I found it all too much for myself and the children. There were some important culmination and rounding out lessons for Grade 1 that I felt were important to finish with Chilli and subsequently it meant Advent activities got missed and the time was rather busy.

Starting at this time of year, we are able to work our new 3 on – 1 off rhythm and still finish up at the beginning of Advent. We will have the odd 4 week block in amongst the year but I really think the shorter ‘bursts’ of school will be nourishing for us all. When new Mums ask after a rhythm for early childhood in the home, I often suggest to sit back and just look at the rhythm that you see naturally emerging in the home through your days. After I heard of this idea mid last year, it was interesting, because as I watched the cycle that was in our home in regards to school, I really saw that this 3 on – 1 off was really what was naturally happening, or needing to happen, anyway. To keep myself fresh and inspired in the lessons and at my best to present the material as well as keeping both the children fresh for their school time as well as allowing Marlin and Chilli to have a nice balance of free time, I see that this 3 on – 1 off rhythm is what was ultimately happening if we didn’t try to ‘push through’ on a 10 or 12 week term program – which was exhausting everyone. By the end of these longer stints I really found that we were often just ‘going through the motions’ with little enthusiasm or enjoyment. Everyone was tired and unmotivated and just needed some ‘breathing out’ time. When we would do a few weeks of school and take just a short break, we would return to our work refreshed and inspired again. Even with the benefit and convenience of doing school at home, lessons can be exhausting mentally and physically – time to breath out and let lessons as well as school in general, ‘sleep’ is so important. It also gives a nice balance in the home for Chilli and I as time when I am ‘just Mum’ and time when I am also her teacher. This I have seen over the past year since we have started more formal lessons, is really important to both be mindful of and to keep in balance, so as to keep our relationship healthy.

As is our tradition, we started our year with a Rose Ceremony for the children. This was Marlin’s first Rose Ceremony and he planted a yellow ‘Banksia Rose’ which is a climbing thornless rose that is often planted in Waldorf Kindergarten gardens. Chilli chooses a rose to plant for the year to come during the previous Winter. We purchase her rose for the year ahead as ‘bare root’ during that dormant time and it sits there patiently waiting for the year to come. This idea came from the traditional Waldorf ‘Rose Ceremony’ where the Kindergarten children are ‘handed over’ to their class teacher at the end of their Kindergarten years and presented with a rose.

The year Chilli was 5 years old and had to be officially registered to homeschool in Tasmania, many of her early childhood friends from our hometown were heading off to Steiner schools. I wanted to do something special for Chilli to acknowledge that she was now ‘officially’ homeschooling and the idea of the Rose Ceremony grew from both this traditional Waldorf school ceremony and the starting school ceremony in Shea Darian’s book Living Passages for the Whole Family. The first year when Chilli was 5 years old and still in early childhood years, we just presented her with a rose from the gorgeous rose gardens on the property we lived at, in that time. The year she was 6 and started Kindergarten we were here at our little cottage home, so we created a Children’s Garden area and began the tradition of planting a rose for each school year.

It is so lovely to watch the rose after it is planted. I find it so symbolic of the journey the child takes in the year through that grade. At first it struggles a little while it finds it’s feet and plants down roots. Then as the year goes on, it grows and matures and then in the latter part of the school year as spring rolls around, the little green shoots appear and spring forth ‘jumping up to live again’. And then of course as the school year and that grade concludes – the rose blossoms and sends forth her very first bloom. We collect these petals after the flower has finished her spectacular show and we dry them to be used in very special crafts, teas and herbal preparations. In our ceremony to mark the beginning of each school year, we come together in a space at the top of our orchard. We light each of the children’s life candles, sing a song, talk about where the child has come from and what they have ahead of them, we bless them for the year ahead and they receive a small keepsake gift. Chilli always receives a small turtle trinket as this represents the Native American story we tell of how the world that was dreamt into being by the Creator was placed upon the Turtle’s back. This was Marlin’s first year of receiving a gift as our program this year includes a very gentle ‘nursery school’ rhythm for him; a few verses, songs, stories, finger plays, early childhood movement and gesture games as well as some various activities like baking and painting, sprinkled amongst our week. He received a little owl as we just marvel constantly at how wise he is! After receiving their gifts, the children walk over to a ring of stones that stands in front of the archway into the Children’s Garden and they wait to pass through the threshold into their new class, where they are welcomed by their ‘teachers’. We listen to our story, plant their roses and then head into our school room where there is a welcoming chalkboard for the year and some school supplies that each child will need in their grade for the coming lessons.

We started our Grade 2 year with an opening lesson from ‘The Journey of Analise‘ from Earthschooling. I have long been waiting to bring this story and these lessons to Chilli and I felt that Grade 2 was going to be the perfect time. The Grade 2 Oak Meadow program which still in my opinion draws strong parallels at this stage to a Waldorf program, has a strong theme this year of giving thought to what is happening underneath the surface of what we see on first impression. With the fables and with the art we do with the Grade 2 child, we are encouraged to explore how we ‘see’ certain characters when we close our eyes. Things no longer have to be painted true to real life colourings as an example – when we close our eyes, what colour do we ‘see’ that wolf, lion, mouse or person in the story being. All of this tied in perfectly I felt, with starting to take a little venture into the study of temperaments and what is ‘under the surface’ of people. I think these lessons will be really therapeutic for both Chilli and myself and I could tell Chilli was at a nice age and stage to start to explore the topic of temperaments, in this wonderfully age appropriate way through the story Kristie has written of Analise. Our welcoming chalkboard for the year was kindly drawn by Papa and is the opening chalkboard image for The Journey of Analise story. We modified it a little to represent Chilli and Marlin in our own home.

I’d also long been wanting to come up with a name for our homeschool – something that gave us an identity in terms of what we strive to do with our education of the children. Whilst we do use a program for our schooling and we do have ‘lessons’ through our day, so much of what we do is natural learning that happens through the course of our everyday. Having the children by my side, immersed in our daily home rhythm there is so much learning that happens naturally through experience and through the flow of the regular happenings in our day; cooking, cleaning, washing, folding, homemaking, growing food, tending animals, collecting eggs, making compost, preserving the harvest and everything else in the way we live our lives which educates our children with the skills they need for their lives. The program we create for our children draws on several curriculum resources, to provide an enriching ‘lifeschooling’ experience that won’t just merely fill their heads with facts. Instead with the program we create, we hope to place them steadfastly into existence with the most valuable life skills that we can possibly provide them to live the best and most enriching lives they can as they walk their path and live their purpose here in this life. This year we are using a yoga program by Kira Willey and amongst this she mentions Fireflies at some point. When I heard this I thought – “That’s it!” Fireflies and Dragonflies have long fascinated me – not only with their beauty but with their spiritual message they carry as well. The Firefly brings messages of remembering that the light that is within us is what will shine brightest, illuminating us from the inside out. The firefly is symbolic of spreading your wings and flying, holding hope, cultivating patience, living with aspiration, inspiration and illumination, seeking new ideas, being creative, having passion for what you do and living with the heart of a child – holding the magic of believing. Therefore, rather magically and serendipitously – ‘Fireflies Lifeschool’ was born. Chilli and Marlin love being little fireflies through our day and enjoy spreading their wings to fly through our program, being illuminated by our life schooling lessons.

I have been quite amazed at Chilli in the way her Grade 1 lessons seem to have just blossomed in her through our short Summer holiday. Concepts and work that she was still not 100% with at the end of the year, she deeply understands now as we work through some Grade 1 revision, heading into our Grade 2 year. I’ve also been amazed at this seemingly more mature student in front of me in our lessons. Something has really just blossomed inside her and within her own self during our Summer holiday – it is so beautiful to see. As I mentioned, our first lesson for Grade 2 was The Journey of Analise. The following day we then worked on the Waldorf Essentials Grade 1 ‘closing story’ of A New Land. We hadn’t gotten to finishing our Grade 1 year with this story last year, so I wanted to make sure we still used it as I thought the revision it provided was fantastic. I decided then that it would be a nice way to open our Grade 2 year, by gently reviewing some Grade 1 maths concepts. Chilli amazed me in this project and worked wonderfully well with the equations and situations that were presented in the story. This year we are also moving onto Volume 2 of the Living Music from the Heart program and Chilli is really growing beautifully in her music playing from this program. The lessons in this also provide creative elements that allow Marlin to live into the music lessons in his own early childhood way.

Inner Work is something that like so many of us, I have often not prioritised under the notion of just being too busy and not having the time. As I grow a little older and a little wiser, I realise that really Inner Work is something that you never do not have the time for. When we make the time to nurture the nurturer then everything else seems that little bit more effortless, time just magically opens up. I have compiled an Inner Work book to carry me through the year. It contains Kristie’s 2 weekly rhythm focus for each day that comes amongst the Earthschooling material, Steiner’s daily exercises from Melisa Nielson’s planner and the weekly caregiver meditations from the Little Acorn Enrichment Guides. Rising before the children each day and having time to centre myself, practise a little yoga and bring attention to my inner focus for the day, I have found to be so nourishing to myself, our family and our days. The front of my Inner Work book has a beautiful hand lettered piece by Amber Hellewell who illustrates for Waldorf Essentials. The piece is in the Ultimate Planner and it carries my favourite inspiring Steiner quote regarding Inner Work; “You will not be good teachers if you focus only on what you do and not upon who you are!”

Has your 2016 school year started as yet? What grade are you launching into and how do you plan to start the year with purpose and meaning?

Summer :: Arriving

December 8, 2015 | Leave a Comment

When Chilli was Marlin’s age, I would have the seasons ‘arrive’ by setting up an enchanting scene with the toys of the season that were ‘coming to play’. Marlin is now at a lovely age to enjoy similar ‘invitation to play’ creations and so I’ve been making a mindful effort to create these special little scenes for him. On the first of December, I set up a little ‘Summer Cave’ for the children to discover. I used the two play stands either side of their ‘Pumpkin House’ table and covered across the ‘roof’ with silkscapes. The centre table had a sea scene on it and around on the ledges of the play stands were various little ‘Summer scenes’ with some of their Summer books.

I covered the front in another silkscape and invited the children into the space. They sat in front of the ‘cave’ and Marlin’s marionette doll came to tell him about the turning of the seasons. The silkscape then came down and the children could go in to explore. The thing that captivated them most? A pile of native cherries placed in front of the Strawberry Lady! My food loving children – always ‘starving’ apparently!

Along with Summer arriving, so did our December crystal – Pearl. These little pearls that we are using for our focus this month are quite special. They are the few left over pearl beads from the strings my Aunt hand stitched onto the bodice of my wedding dress. They are so beautiful in their appearance and their meaning, as well as the properties they hold. Pearls are omens of happy relationships and love. Quite nice to have worn them on my wedding day, especially when each one was loving hand stitched on by my dear Aunt.

The angel of pearl is Archangel Gabrielle – so for us here in our Summer Christmas it is quite lovely to be able to weave in the story of this angel, through this way to bring our seasons and the season of Christmas together.

I started out by giving the children a small shell filled with about 1/2t of golden sand we have from a recent holiday to where beaches have real sand! We spread out a little sprinkle on the table and then I asked them to pick up just one grain of sand on the tip of their finger. They both marvelled at how tiny it was and how many grains were in that little pile they’d sprinkled across the table. We then spoke about how that one tiny grain would feel in the big wide ocean and how many grains of sand they think are on a beach and on the ocean floor. They were in awe – and so was I as we spoke together about it. It’s also a really nice way to creatively talk about that Nine Year Change that is starting to stir within Chilli – the awareness of one tiny being which she is, in such a vast, wide world.

Here is a simple, short story I wrote to bring this month’s crystal to the children.

:: A Cosy Home for Sand Friend ::
Written by Elke at Another Day

The ocean can be a wild and busy place. Beautiful fish, seals, whales and seahorses – corals, seaweeds, algae and moss – molluscs, oysters, muscles and prawns – selkies and mermaids .. They all dance around – and hence the world of the underwaters can be quite frantic.

All of the little sand children gather together to keep each other safe and protected from all this hustle and bustle.

Well once upon a time, there was a tiny grain of sand who was altogether a very shy little friend. Right from the beginning of her days she’d snuggled waaaaayyyy down, deep under all her other sand brothers and sisters. But then one day, it was quite busy on the shores of the ocean. Father sun was shining closer to Sand Friend’s side of the world and there was so much activity around the ocean. Things were being splashed about, stirred up and swam through. Sand Friend smelt a sweet scent coming into the ocean from above on the shore – mmmmm “strawberries” she thought – she always liked how sweet they smelt in the Summer when the children ate them in their picnics at the beach. She always thought how happy the children sounded as they ate those strawberries. She knew they must have been a healthy snack for the children. One day she’d even heard the sounds of two people being married up on the beach. They had strawberries dipped in chocolate at the party on the beach that day. Her friend the mermaid had told her all about those when she came back down into the ocean from swimming around amongst the rocks, watching all the marvellous dancing at the party.

Well, somehow in a big hustle and bustle that happened this particular day, on the eve of the full moon – in a whirlwind of passing sea traffic – the current swirled up our little shy Sand Friend. Well, she was quite frazzled, all a-fuss trying to find somewhere to hide – all on her own she floated, turned, twirled and spun being danced all around in the current of the ocean. Sand Friend didn’t like this at all! She was quite unsure… She looked here, there and everywhere. Tears began to well in her eyes and just as she was about to call out ‘heeeelllpppp please – someone’ …. she landed; floating – softly, gently, down to rest in a beautiful, dimly lit little cave….

How calm and peaceful it was here. It was warm and cosy as well. “Hello” whispered a kind voice. “h…h-elllll…o” managed a rather dazed but bright eyed Sand Friend. “Welcome to my home” said the kind voice. “Thank you” said Sand Friend, somewhat recovering as she looked around the cosy little chamber. “You look weary” said the kind voice. “I am” said Sand Friend. “Why don’t you stay a while” said the kind voice. “Thank you” said Sand Friend again, and she snuggled herself down into the cosy bed she’d landed in. “Here” said the kind voice, let me wrap you a little to keep you nice and safe. And with that, the kind voice laid a fine veil of silky softness around Sand Friend. How shimmery and soft it felt. “Thank you” Sand Friend said again, so polite she was. (yawnnnn) “I think I might… just… close … my……. “ Sand Friend didn’t even finish her sentence, she was so tired and exhausted after her wild little ride. Down she nestled, for a long, long sleep.

Whenever Sand Friend would stir – the kind voice would wrap another veil of softness around her. One day when Sand Friend woke up, she found that there was a wonderful new friend all soft and shimmery cuddling her. Such soft, beautiful arms she had wrapped around Sand Friend. “Hello, I am a friend of the Great Mother – she’s sent me to keep you safe.” “The Great Mother?” asked Sand Friend. “Yes, our Great Mother” said the new friend “my name is Pearl and Mother has said we can stay together forever. I am going to wrap around you and protect you, cuddled in my silky arms. For Mother tells me how scared you get out in that big wide seaworld.” “I do” replied Sand Friend “Thank you” she whispered again as she sank back into a cosy sleep.

And so it was that the two little ones – Sand and Pearl, became the very best of friends. From that day onward they were together always and they became so entwined with each other that the Great Mother whose home they lived in, just started to refer to them as one name ‘Nacre’ she would call them, she said it meant “Mother-of-Pearl”, which didn’t really seem to make much sense because she was in fact the Mother of Pearl – but the two friends didn’t complain, they loved their cosy little home so much and the kind voice was forever gentle and loving with them. They just stayed together, cosy as anything – snug as a bug in a rug and anyone who passed by did marvel at how beautiful and shiny the new friends were together.

What are your favourite ways to have the seasons ‘arrive’ in your home?

Happy Summer – or Winter, depending on which side of the world you dwell in….

Field Trip :: Japanese Culture

February 7, 2015 | 3 Comments

One of my favourite aspects of Waldorf Education and something I think can be so deeply and wholly honoured in homeschooling, is the immersion in a particular topic. As homeschoolers, we have the benefit to permeate our ‘immersion’ topics into so many aspects of not only our schooling, but our everyday and family life.

The last story of our first Grade 1 block (which was of course Form Drawing) was from the Earthschooling curriculum – ‘Moon Flower’. We used this story for bringing the form of a circle to life and the opportunity presented amongst the theme of not only this story, but also the continual story of a family’s journey that carries us through our year – to immerse in the Japanese culture. The story of Moonbeam is a traditional Japanese Tale. It is a gentle, sweet and inspiring story.

I am using a ‘base’ or ‘foundational’ story through the year of a family that is on a journey together. Through this journey, many opportunities and experiences arise that ‘meet’ the little girl ‘Anna’ in our ‘family’ with her lessons for the year. This ‘base’ story idea comes from the Waldorf Essentials curriculum and I also think it is mentioned in Eric Fairman’s Grade guide. As we approached the tale of Moonbeam, our ‘family’ met a Japanese Lady. The children enjoyed talking to her about the culture, what foods she liked and used to cook with her mother as a child, as well as the lady’s name and the meaning/origin of her name. ‘Sakura’, the lady our ‘family’ ‘met’, told the ‘family’ the story of Moonbeam, as it was one of her favourite stories when she was younger.

Following on from this part of our Form Drawing for circles, we concluded this first Grade 1 block with what I like to call an ‘immersion’ – really diving deeply into a topic or theme and having it permeate as much of our daily/family life as is possible. On Saturday morning, Chilli and I went shopping together – just a Mumma and Daughter shopping adventure. We purchased the ingredients we needed to cook a special ‘Japanese Feast’. That afternoon we set about preparing the foods we needed to bring together the Japanese Fare that Sakura had mentioned were her favourite meals when she was younger. It was nice that Sakura had reminisced about cooking these dishes with her mother when she was younger – as Chilli and I were now cooking them together! During our cooking and dining time, we listened to a beautiful collection of Traditional Japanese Music. Amidst our cooking and preparing, Chilli also relished in the opportunity to get out her cuisenaire rods to work out certain measurements along the way.

The dishes we made were; Yudofu, Tempura with sweet rice, Anko to put into Dorayaki for dessert and then of course Green Tea. We found a really wonderful Japanese Cooking site with handy videos and clear instructions. The green tea was actually a gift from a Japanese friend who visited and stayed with us last year. It was in a really sweet little metal tin with the gorgeous Japanese paper labels and fancy Japanese writing that many special Japanese products have. I often think that certain Japanese products look so pretty the way they are presented. Whenever we receive a gift from our Japanese friend, it comes wrapped in the most gorgeous natural packaging and then gift wrapped by the store it was purchased in. Everything is mindful and beautiful.

Chilli delighted in going about setting up her very own ‘Japanese Restaurant’ to serve Daddy and Marlin in for dinner that evening. We set the table together, made a menu board and then Chilli put on her ballet ‘Character Shoes’ as her ‘high heels’ because “All waitress’ in restaurants always have high heels on Mummy!” We chose our Japanese names for the evening (we actually just used the two lady’s names from the Japanese Cooking 101 videos!), lit the candle, and invited our guests to dine. Our guests came dressed very well to the restaurant as well!

The next day we ventured out to our favourite Tea House! (Any excuse – I know!) This time there was guidelines around what we could order – we were there for tea, and this in my opinion is the best place in Hobart to go for tea. The tea menu is extensive without being exhausting. Mathew and Shae know their tea – that’s for sure and they’ve recently put together a retail range of teas, so we were eager to try some of these. Between us we selected 4 of their different teas, and conveniently Shae had made a Matcha Cashew Cream Cake for the sweets that day – so of course we had to try a piece of that! It was all delicious.

Following on from our tea adventure, we went on to another of our favourite Hobart destinations – The Japanese Gardens in the Royal Hobart Botanical Gardens. At any time of year this space within the Botanical Gardens is breathtaking, and this Summertime trip was no exception.

Experiencing :: Number Three

November 22, 2014 | Leave a Comment

Since Chilli turned 7 recently, we’ve been doing a very gentle introduction to numbers in this final Kindergarten term. We’ve had so much fun with the Earthschooling ‘Sixth Sense Maths’ program – exploring the numbers in different ways through their Physical, Mental and Spiritual dimensions. Once we’ve finished the numbers 1 – 10, I’ll try and find the time to photograph Chilli’s number book and do a post about how we explored each number. In the meantime, I wanted to put together this brief post to share our experiences with Learning the number Three this week.

This year, Chilli just learnt the letters of her name, however since turning 7, she has been copying some very basic sentences from my writing, relating to her lessons. She is very excited about learning all her letters next year.

In the traditional Waldorf way, we’ve been exploring each number through;

Laying out ‘twistys’ on the floor and walking – forwards, backwards and eyes closed along the form
Drawing the form with our ‘finger pencil’ both in the air and on each other’s backs
I lay out the twisty somewhere hidden for Chilli and Marlin to go on a ‘number hunt’ with their homemade toilet paper roll binoculars
Shaping the form with either bread or play dough
Drawing the form with sticks on unsealed ground when we’re out on nature walk
Finding the form in nature
Discovering that number through our daily lives – in writing, signs and clusters of items both in the home and in nature

When I feel Chilli is ready to try writing the number, we first take our chalk boards to write the form a few times in a ‘semi-permanent’ way. I think this step is really important as it’s a gentle ‘easing into’ the written form for the child. I actually remember as a younger child, feeling a lot of pressure as I went to take pencil to paper learning to write. It’s a very permanent ‘no mistakes’ kind of medium. That’s definitely not to say I expect no mistakes of Chilli when she does take crayon to paper, but I think there’s a nice gentle ‘easing into it’ when the first written form is in a casual space. Whenever we come to the chalkboard or the paper, we always ‘practice’ first – in the air with our finger pencil and then on the board or paper with our finger pencil, before we put the chalk to the board or crayon to the paper. I think this step is also really important. The air practice re-inforces the form and the finger pencil practice on the platform before the medium meets it, helps to bring a spacial relationship between the form and the page. I’ve watched Chilli many times with her finger pencil get to the bottom of the platform only halfway through the letter or number and say “Oh, hang on”, starting again. I find 3-5 times of finding the form on the platform with the finger pencil really brings that spacial relationship nicely before actually writing the number or letter. When we are drawing the form on the chalkboard, we often will turn the number or letter form into a picture for fun.

This week with the Number Three we have been discussing objects around us that have the word ‘tri’ in them – meaning ‘three’. The triangle we ring each day for start of school, the tripod Daddy uses for the camera occasionally and the trinity on Mummy’s wedding ring. It’s so empowering when children remember, realise and make connections with things mentally on their own. Chilli was excited to think about how the clover has three petals and remember the story about Saint Patrick plucking a clover from the grass to speak about the Holy Trinity. It’s said many times through Waldorf literature how important this early childhood foundation of story and verse is that we lay in those first seven years. Watching this all blossom, unfold and live so deeply in Chilli is really magical. I have a friend who often says to me how blessed we are to be the ones bringing this curriculum to our children – to not only share the experience with them, tailor a program that meets our child exactly where they are, but also to see the magic that lives in them and the connection, realisation and neural pathway spark just ‘light up’. What an immense blessing and phenomenal privilege homeschooling truly is. We also spoke about the three horned dinosaur – ‘triceratops’ and the name for three babies born at once – ‘triplets’. We haven’t done a lot of reading on dinosaurs as yet so Chilli found this concept of a three horned dinosaur really bizarre and surreal.

The main reason I wanted to post here however was to share a really wonderful resource for Learning Three. The Spiritual discussion on Three in our Earthschooling Curriculum mentions Goldilocks and The Three Bears. Today I asked Chilli if she could think of a Fairytale or Story she remembered that had something about the Number Three in it. After a few moments of thinking, she said “Goldilocks and The Three Bears!” Again, that connection of story in the early years that makes concepts ‘Jump up and Live’ in the child. We sat together and read this book – I really love Gerda Muller’s works. Her stories are beautiful and her pictures just gorgeous – classic illustration at its best. Now most often in Waldorf Lessons, we will tell a story through either puppet scenes or in a Grades Lesson, by bringing the story to life via illustration on the chalkboard. However what I LOVE about using this book for the Number Three is the thoughtfulness of Three throughout the book’s illustrations. Each page, after we read the story, we would count the things we could see in threes. And there is a bounty of items grouped in three through this book – it’s brilliant! Three tree trunks together, three branches coming out of a cluster together on the tree, three squirrels running up the trunk, three snails together on the ground, three butterflies flying around – and of course then once you’re inside the bear’s cottage there is a whole new world of three: bowls on the table, brooms in the kitchen, umbrellas by the door, chairs, beds, money boxes and dressing gowns. We had such fun counting all the threes in this book.

In essence, this is what Waldorf Education is all about for me – especially in these early years and elementary grades. Making the lesson really Live in the child and not having a concept that stands separate to them as a foreign ‘thing’ to be ‘learnt’. In bringing the lesson as an ‘experience’ so that the information lives within them, we make this knowledge a part of their being. Education should not be something that is separate to a child, it should be something that is integrated into every aspect of their being, something that has a life of it’s own that the child experiences rather than has to ‘learn’ as a foreign concept.

:: We giggled to realise that even what Goldilocks did once she saw the Bears was in three – jumping out of bed, grabbing her shoes and running outside! ::

This introduction to numbers 1 – 10 is very gentle and basic. We will of course be revising the numbers next year through a formal Grade 1 block and bringing together the number forms with a very gentle introduction to the matching Roman Numeral form as well as the written word for each number. We’re all wonderfully excited about the program we’ll be doing next year. Marlin is at a really beautiful age that harmonises wonderfully well with being able to bring deeper, more focussed lessons to Chilli. I’ve said many times that even if we’d sat down and mapped out ahead of time exactly when we’d have our children, considering their correlating ages along the way, we couldn’t have planned more perfectly the age Marlin would be as Chilli was starting the Grades. Today while we immersed ourselves in Three, he immersed himself (by our side) in his latest obsession. A little bowl of water in the sink of ‘Pumpkin House’ to tend to the daily washing up. I can’t even begin to count and tell you how many changes of clothes we’re going through on a daily basis at the moment. A hand wash bowl, a small cup of water, a sink if someone stands with him and allows him to indulge in that privilege or the hose if he is close by when the gardens are watered or a can is being filled. He’s definitely our water boy little Marlin!

How is your planning for the coming school year going? I’ve just laid the foundation of blocks, rotation and concepts on how each lesson subject will be brought to Chilli. There’s still lots of work to be done, but it feels exciting to have that foundational direction laid. Hopefully I’ll have the time at some point to put together a little post about the planning I’ve been working on and the concepts we’ll be using for Grade 1 lessons.