Wise Old Owl Crafting

The wise old owl sat on the oak
The more he heard, the less he spoke
The less he spoke, the more he heard
Why aren't we more like that wise bird?

These are very easy to make. The only thing I did was hot glue the wood disk to the base of the pinecone and the kids did the rest! Watering down your glue and using paint brushes for it helped get in all the pinecone crevices. We also had toothpicks on hand to stuff the fluff in.

I highly recommend all of these owl books for ages 3-6!

We've had a fun week here in the Kleemann household! Despite more tummy bugs and still some job stress, things keep on going. I find during these more uncertain times that sticking to our family rhythm helps keep stress down and promotes peace. At least it does for me. I also find that when I am more at peace, so are the children. So it's a win-win! 

We're getting close to the end of October, so we're about to switch our monthly animal from owls to bats. Since Halloween is this month the kids asked to do an extra spooky animal. I was happy to comply and we settled on bats, however I did gently remind them that bats aren't really spooky at all! 

Primarily this week we focused on Owls during circle time, versus pumpkins and trees. I read and told lots of owl stories (I have had them all month in our school book bin, but this was the first time I introduced them to circle time).  Our crafts this week were also owl themed. I have been trying to use more 'found' materials in our crafts, so owl pinecones fit in perfectly. The kids then were able to use their owls during circle time to help act out our littlest owl play and an owl paid a visit to Sylvie from "Pumpkin Moonshine"- our monthly book. 

We also made toilet paper roll owls and of course carved - or drilled- an owl pumpkin! I was pretty proud of how our pumpkin turned out. It was a neat way to combine both of our monthly themes. (If you're new or curious about how we homeschool and use monthly themes as well as project based learning- there posts here, here, and here might help fill you in a bit!)

Since the beginning of the month, we have visited the Virginia Living Museum 2 times a week to go observe their Eastern Screech Owl and write about him in our main lesson book. For circle time this month we have a Screech Owl puppet too (the kids named him 'Woodsy') so Woodsy tags along on these trips too. 

I will be back in this place tomorrow for the other half to this post. We also took a special field trip to go see some more owls up close and personal. I can't wait to share!

If you want to see more owl and pumpkin crafty goodness, I have 2 Pinterest boards dedicated to them here and here. I use Pinterest a lot to help me organize homeschool ideas, project based learning plans, and themes. They might be helpful for you too, so feel free to use them. I am happy to share.

PS: I am linking up with Linda at Natural Suburbia  Nicole S at Frontier Dreams, and Carrie at Crafty Moms Share. These are also some of my favorite blogs so hop over for a look! 

To trace the outline on I used a toothpick and poked small holes into the outline. Then I drilled! 

Miss B thought she was hot stuff climbing up to the big table and making her own craft!

Do you have any owl crafts of your own? Please comment and share for the rest of us to see!

Cheers!

Family Time :: The Peninsula Fine Arts Center (& Why Art Matters)

Mister J and I had some Mommy one on one time the other Saturday. Our wonderful local Arts Center, PFAC, has free weekends once a month so I had pre-planned on going.

PFAC has rotating themed exhibits. The one we saw was "Aquatic" which was perfect for Jonas since he is such an ocean and shark lover. Then in the back of the center the have their "Hands on Art" kids center.

It is chock full of art books, manipulatives, art games, art puzzles, craft materials (that you're free to use), and more.

As you can see from above we made full use of all of their goodies. Jonas is a block and puzzle lover so he gravitated toward those first. Then he spied the art supplies and was off. He pulled out various pieces and decided he'd make a dinosaur puppet. All on his own. No prompting. I love how they just stock lots of open ended materials and let the kids decide what to make.

I also loved it because I could just be one on one with him. My older kids have to share me a lot because of Miss B. Which is fine and is just the life stage we're in but I still try to make a point to have Mommy dates.

Another reason why I enjoyed this trip so much was that Jonas got to be totally immersed in art. His creativity was unhindered. There was no agenda. He was able to freely express himself and had multiple mediums to do so.

I've been reading and researching a bit more on child development and more specifically differences between boys and girls.

In particular earlier on boys tend to be weaker when it comes to fine motor skills, which seems be related to how boy's parietal lobes process sensitive tactile data. At times this can deter them from certain art mediums. Boys also learn best experientially at a young age due to the amount of grey matter boys have in their brains which makes their brains less able to multitask. Having lots of manipulatives out and keeping verbal instructions to a minimum are best. (Gurian 124)

So with that in mind art matters quite a bit. No only does it encourage boys to use fine motor skills in fun and engaging ways, which then helps build up their parietal lobe, but it also allows them to learn experientially and hands on. I think most importantly is that- for both boys and girls- art is a whole brain activity, like music. All hemispheres are being stimulated when kids are allowed to make art in an open ended environment with minimal direction. Plus since our brain is a muscle, when little ones are using all of it- their brains are getting a workout, in a good way.

So all in all it was a great day. We had fun. We slowed down and enjoyed one another. Moreover Jonas got to do something he loves and that consequently gave his little brain a  workout, and he didn't even know it!

If you're ever in Newport News, check out PFAC! Admission is cheap and it's worth it just on the money you'll save on art supplies. Plus there's a gorgeous park and trail nearby and a neat wooden playground right next door.

Ps: Linking up this week with my dear friend Nicole at Frontier Dreams for Keep Calm and Craft On!

Love & Light,

Autumn Good Morning, Summer Good Night

Yellow the bracken, golden the sheaves.
Rosy the apple, crimson the leaves.
Mist on the hillside, clouds grey and white,
Autumn good morning, summer good night.

~Our verse for September

We've been busy here the past week and half. Happily we began our school year last week. It was a bit early but we are planning on going out of town with our family next week so I wanted to have a bit of flexibility in whether we do school on vacation. 

Our circle time theme this month- which for us is September- will is apples. Stories about them, songs, verses, Johnny Appleseed, and a bit of how they grow and what they're used for. We also will overarchingly be talking about Autumn and saying goodbye to Summer. Our puppet "Squirrely" is helping us do that and is the center of many of our stories and plays about apples and Autumn.

During the 3rd week of the month we'll take a break form Apples to celebrate Michaelmas. I am so excited for it this year. Jonas is really into dragons, so I am sure he'll be rapt with attention for it all.

Later this week I will go into more detail on how our circle times flow and I use them in our daily rhythm. They really are the linchpin of my teaching. 

We use puppets a lot and books. Sometimes I read them, sometime I tell my own version of them and sometimes the kids retell their version of the story and act it out. 

I hope this finds all of you well! Thank you for all the toe love. It's healing- slowly- but I do feel much better. I also am so glad that you all liked my home school planning calender. I hope it is helpful! I will get back on in the morning to answer your questions about it. 

PS: Linking up with Linda at http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/ this week! 

Until then!

Blessings,

Our Lammas Lady and Festival

Our Lammas lady made by Armadillo Dreams

Lammas Verse

Bless the growing of the grain,

Bless the falling of the rain,

Bless the flower and fruit and tree,

Bless the sun that shines down on me!

Taken from All Year Round

Our story book for the month of August

Our Festival Table

Our circle time books for all of August 

Our Lammas Verse

Our circle time for today

Making Wheat dolls

Jonas preferred to make 2 wheat trees for his train tracks! 

Deirdre's wheat dolly! 

Using the cut off stems to make a picture and drawing on the wheat stalks

This is the best bread to make with kids! 

Linking up this week with Frontier Dreams, Magic Onions, Natural Suburbia, and Crafty Moms Share and a few others! Please check out my 'where I party' page! 

Today we celebrated our first Lammas! Lammas was one of the last festivals I have incorporated into our yearly rhythm. For the past 2 out of 3 summers, we've been moving in August so I really had no time to do one before now. 

I love harvest time and Lammas seemed pretty natural for us to celebrate. Our garden is bursting and we spent the last month picking tons of our own fruit and berries. We've been canning and baking up a storm. It just fits in so well. 

So to celebrate we made wheat dolls using yarn, wheat, raffia, felt, and glue. We also made a harvest loaf- which was very easy and fun- it just took various step through the morning to do.

We also had a special circle time and festival table set up. We talked about being thankful to God for our bounty and I told them about how Lammas was celebrated before we could just go to the grocery store for our bread! It was a neat way to start of August. So for this month, even though Lammas is over tomorrow, we will be talking about harvests as well as reading 'The Sun Egg'. Our Lammas lady will be going on little adventures with us and we learn more about how farmers harvest their crops and how we use that food in different ways. 

I hope you all had a lovely day too! Do you celebrate Lammas? If so I;d love to hear how you do it!

Harvest Blessings,

Crafting Waldorf Daily Color and Grain Gnomes (Plus a Tutorial)

We've been quite busy here this week! It seems like we've been bogged down with chores and the like, with a few good play dates thrown in there! Last week the kids and I traveled a bit, to Charlottesville (to pick peaches) and Dumfries (to visit my best friend). So I am a bit, how do I sat it?- oh yes- EXHAUSTED.

In a about a week and a half, we will all go on vacation to Hatteras North Carolina too. I am very excited, but as many of you know vacation with little ones is also work. Work to pack and ready the house as well as work when we get there. But I consider it good fun work. 

When I get tired and boxy, I find it very therapeutic to work on a craft project. This project has been bouncing around in my head for some time now. I have been meaning to incorporate more Waldorf rhythm in out lives the more we learn about Steiner's daily grains and colors. With the new school year only a month or so away for us, I thought it might be a good idea to get together some more materials that we'll be using- like these gnomes!

I plan on using these little guys on the children's breakfast and snack table. Each morning I will have the pull out and set in the center the gnome of the day. I plan on using the grains in their breakfasts and snacks- or if it's bread baking day then we'll use a recipe that includes the grain of that day. I wrote a tutorial for them as well below so you can make your own! 

I find Steiner's ideas on grains and diet as well as bio-dynamic farming fascinating! I could go into more of that here but Carrie at Parenting Passageway has done a better job at not only explaining Steiner's grains but also how she uses them as well as her thoughts surrounding gluten and diet. 

I would also like to temper this with a bit of advice for those new to Waldorf. Don't feel as if you have to begin to do the grains/colors/rhythm/ect all at once. I have know about grains and colors for awhile now and it's something I have been building up to gradually.  At first I stared incorporating more of the grains into my recipes and diet. I did not grow up in a family of healthy eaters. I must confess that I had no idea what barley and millet were until 3 years ago- among many other things! I was raised on fast food. So have heart! This has been a fun journey for me. I am learning to love cooking and baking more and more thanks to Waldorf. It warms my heart to know that my children will have lots of memories of cooking with me in our kitchen.

Now here is the tutorial!

These little guys were very easy to make. No stitching. My daughter helped me paint them. I painted and wood burned the lettering. I used fabric and hot glue for the hats. We collected the acorn caps ourselves.  

So here are the steps on how to make these little guys!

Materials Needed:

I included links to the supplies I use and where you can get them. I have also found wooden peg dolls and pots at AC Moore and Michaels. A few weeks ago I even saw some thicker wool felt there. However when possible I love to support smaller businesses on ETSY. I also have had a hard time finding a natural non toxic fabric glue- but now I found one!

• 7 small wooden peg dolls 
• I get mine here
• 7 small wooden pots 
• I get mine here
• Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and white wool felt 
• I get mine here
• Fabric glue 
• We use this non-toxic kind, so the kids can help!
• 7 medium sized acorn caps 
• We got our own but if you happen to not live near an oak tree you can get caps on ETSY here
• A wooden burning tool
• We use this one
• Beeswax polish or Shellac (optional)
• We use this kind and this kind.
• Watercolor paints
• I highly recommend either stockmar or lyra paints, which are a lot more affordable. All other watercolors I have tried when crafting pale in comparison. 

Directions: 

1. Collect 7 small wood peg dolls and 7 wood pots. 

• You can get these at your local craft store or on ETSY. Make sure to get the little pegs dolls, not the regular or large size. 

2. Break out your watercolor paints and paint 6 gnomes and 6 pots each one the color of the rainbow (ROYGBV). 

3. 1 gnome should be left blank (for white!). 

4. (optional)  Seal your gnomes and pots with with beeswax polish or  finish them with shellac.

• I used shellac since I like them to shine a bit. Shellac is non-toxic and natural. 

5. Using the base of one of your pots as template, cut 7 felt circle using all you colors. 

6. Set out all your 7 gnomes, pots, felt circle, and acorn caps. 

• The gnomes and pots should be dry an finished at this point.

7. Glue your acorn cap to the center of the felt circle. Then dap some glue onto the top of your gnome's head and place the felt circle and cap on top of his head. 

• It should be like a glue sandwich: Acorn cap-glue-felt circle-glue-gnome's head.

8. Repeat this step with all 7 gnomes. 

9. Once they are all dry, paint and/or wood burn the days of the week onto your gnome's body. I just used the abbreviations. 

10. Then paint or wood burn the coordinating grains on to the gnome's pot. For the white pot, I left it natural and added glitter to it and then sealed it with shellac. 

• Feel free to paint it white if you have white paint. I only have stockmar at home right now so I didn't have white on hand, ha! 

Sunday-White- Wheat

Monday- Purple- Rice

Tuesday-Red-Barley

Wednesday- Yellow-Millet

Thursday- Orange- Rye

Friday- Green- Oat

Saturday- Blue- Corn

11. Then enjoy them! As you can see they're easy and your child of almost any age can help. Those are the crafts I love the best. 

Linking up this week with Frontier Dreams, Magic Onions, Natural Suburbia, and Crafty Moms Share and a few others! Please check out my 'where I party' page! 

~~~

If you would like to find more recipe using these grains I highly recommend the The Waldorf Kindergarten Snack Book.

  Also check out Carrie's article above! 

Also if you make these little guys, please come back and share your creations with me! I would love to share them on my blog or if you already do grains and daily colors, I'd love to know how you incorporate them into your home and rhythm!

Until next time!

Love and Light,