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! 

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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,

Our Little Waldorf Crafts Through the Year

I am in the thick of this upcoming year's home schooling planning. Last year we used Oak Meadow, but we won't be doing it again. I have learned so much from that process and about myself as a mother and teacher. While I think Oak Meadow is great for some, it was not the right fit for us. 

Primarily because as I was going through it I realized, I had already been doing what they were planning for us. None of it was new or innovative for me. I did not gain anything from it. Maybe that's because I am a trained teacher or that I have worked in pre-schools. However it wasn't worth the price, if I could just as easily do it myself. (As a side note, I do recommend Wee Folk Art's free curriculum guides for older preschoolers if you're new to doing school on your own at home. I also have used Little Acorn in the past- you do have to pay- and have liked it. Just don't try to do ALL of it. She packs a lot in there and you can get overwhelmed.)

My other issues was that it wasn't really Waldorf. Honestly I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to just re-read 'You Are Your Child's First Teacher' and saved my money! Now I can see myself when Deirdre is in the upper grades, and not a true Kindergartner, getting some help in the form of curriculum. But it won't be Oak Meadow. (Again this is not an attack on OM, I think they are a lovely company and school and great for some- just not us).

This year, armed with helpful guides, I will not be using a formal curriculum rather I will be making and using my own Waldorf one. I am very excited about it. It is very simple honestly because truly it will be just Jonas and Deirdre. Both of them would be in a Waldorf kindergarten class together (which has ages 3 1/2 to older 5s in them). Daily life is really all the learning they need at this age. We will be having fun, learning stories, rhymes, songs, and doing crafts. We'll be baking more and doing lessons less. For Deirdre as she shows interest we'll be working on reading and some math (Deirdre learned to read this year) but I won't be pushing either since in a true Waldorf school she would not be formally learning either for another year. 

It is more work in a way to make my own, but better in many many ways. Cost is one, confidence is another, as well as being able to really tailor it to what I think works well for us and trying to incorporate more rhythm into our days. We, myself included, could be more well rounded in our lives. In that way I end up wasting less time by re-tailoring it our needs like I was doing with OM. 

So I wanted to share with you some of what we ended up doing last year from January to May (when we gave up on Oak Meadow). These are mainly just kid crafts that I snapped a photo of in the middle of making them. They're not great photos but I was on the run! They also aren't overly Waldorf. We watercolor paint, model beeswax, finger knit weekly and do one big project once a month. The rest of the days we do little bitty fun crafts. Ones that I mostly find from pinterest. Here are a few:

January: Winter, Animals in the Winter (Epiphany)

February: Winter, Clouds (Candlemas/ St. Valentines)

March: Spring, Mushrooms (St. Patrick/ Lent)

April: Spring, Frogs (Lent/Easter)

May: Spring, Butterflies and Flowers (May Day)

What sorts of crafts do you do through the year? If you home school, what do you use and how do you plan it? I'd love to know!

Until next time-

Blessings,

Nicole


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! 

Fostering Block Play and Creating Waldorf Blocks

One of the things that first drew me to Waldorf Education were it's toys. I know I am not the only one either whose been drawn in this way. The beauty. The simplicity. The wonder. Ironically when I first discovered Waldorf,  I was in school finishing up my BA and Masters in Teaching! Waldorf Education had been mentioned in some of my courses, but it took a Nova Natural catalog from my friend Sarah L. to really begin a direction change. I also at the time had an almost 3 and 9 month old and felt a bit directionless in our home. Yes we had our faith. Yes we had a great parenting helpmate with Love and Logic. But something was missing. But again, I digress... Suffice to say, I am so thankful that Sarah gave me that catalog!

On the subject of toys, I continue to be reminded that less is really more. Now that we've been on our Waldorf journey for almost 3 years, we accumulated lots of lovely Waldorf fluff (fluff is a word that Melissa Nielsen of Waldorf Essentials uses to describe all the lovely enchanting toys and things that tends to draw us initially to Waldorf. While the 'fluff' is GREAT and oh so much fun, it is not the heart behind Steiner's work and educational philosophies). The fluff does points to the heart of Waldorf though, but it's important to not get too caught up in it and miss the true beauty of nurturing your children's head, heart, and hands. Ironically - or not so much- much of Waldorf's pedagogy (and why it really does work) was supported scientifically by what I was learning in my Teaching program. Whether it was or could be implemented in the public classroom is a whole different blog post and topic all together. I do however recommended the documentary "The American Teacher". It's great food for thought.

At any rate, that was a HUGE digression. As you can see I am digging reading Steiner, Melissa, and Rahima. But back to less is more. My kiddos are going through a neat block phase. They go through it from time to time but I was realizing that we don't have many blocks. Block play is a critical milestone in a baby and toddler's development. As they get older, the way in which they play with blocks as well as frequency significantly impacts their math skills later on in life- in a good way. Children who played with blocks often have significantly better math tests scores in 7th grade. I wonder if Steiner knew that? Ha! While I don't care so much about test scores, needless to say block play is important, fun, and super easy to encourage. 

Do you need more blocks? Do you live near a forest or a few trees? Well problem solved. Last week I went out and decided to make some Waldorf branch blocks. All you need are some nice dry branches, sand paper, a saw, rub on polyurethane, shellac or beeswax polish, and some elbow grease (LITERALLY if you are using a hand saw. Ouch!)

And here is my finished product!

Pretty nice, eh?

So next time you're tempted to buy more fluff check and see if you have any good blocks first. If not go make some. My kids helped me sand them and pick out the branch. 

Are your kids into blocks right now? What are their favorite blocks? What types of games do they play with them? Have you ever made blocks? Please comment and let me know- I am curious!

Until next time, 
Cheers!
-Nicole

Also Our $75 Nova Natural giveaway is still going on until 7/19!

Don't forget to enter!

http://dotingondeirdre.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-favorite-things-75-nova-natural-gift.html