Creating Our Waldorf & Reggio Inspired Atelier

From time to time, I pick up a book that really really resonates with me. Playful Learning by Mariah Bruel is one of those books. I read it cover to cover in a day. I was so inspired by it that I decided to re-do our dining room so that the kids would have a better learning and creating space apart from their playroom. 

I used to have all of their art supplies out in the playroom but we kept having accidents with them. The dining room is more central and therefore it is easy for them to be more self directed yet closer to me, when they want to create and do while I am about my mommy work- ie chasing Brynna.

The dining room is now I bit more cluttered but I like it. It's more colorful and fun. It was like Christmas day at our house when I unveiled the atelier. Both kids, 3 and 5, sat for house coloring, painting, stamping, cutting, gluing...

Everything has its own place too so when crafting is done, they themselves put it up and clean up. It really is true that if you buy them nice things and show them respect, they will reflect it back to you and treat their toys and art supplies with respect too. 

There are still more little tweaks that I'd like to make to the room. I'd love to replace the plastic shelves with nicer ones. I'd like to add more field guides and binoculars to our nature area. But it will come to us when it is supposed to. Bit by bit. 

Until then, I am happy with our atelier. The kids are ecstatic. And we are learning so much together and having lots of fun too. 

Linking up with Nicole at Frontier Dreams this week as well as Crafty Moms Share and Natural Suburbia! 

Until next time, 

xoxo

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,

::Right Now & Homeschool Planning::

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! 

Right now I am...

...wishing we were still phone and internet free on vacation in Hatteras. While I love this place and our home, it was divine to be so untethered for a week. Also on our first day home, I broke my right pinky toe in 2 places and now have to wear a boot for 8 weeks. OUCH!
...planning our home school year. I am almost done and there is still more to be done along the way but I feel good about where I am right now. I finished our home school year calender- pictured above. It's a nice visual reminder of our overall yearly rhythm using watercolor paper and folding it into the 12 months.
...digging up my summer garden and getting a late start on my Autumn garden. I hope I still do have time to get it right! Bring on the broccoli, spinach, and potatoes!
...pondering our school room this year. I just finished reading "Playful Learning" by Mariah Bruehl and am loving her Reggio Emilia 'atelier' station.
...trying to not buy more school supplies than I really need. It's hard. The good thing is that most of the supplies I need are art ones and the ones I bought last year- Stockmar crayons, paints, and Lyra colored pencils- have all held up super well and I don't need to get new ones!
...learning to finger knit. I can knit fine but I've never finger knitted. And I need to teach Deirdre this year, so here I go!
...drinking lots of coffee. I feel as if I have lots to do. I know I don't. But it feels like a mountain. Coffee for me is like giving me a rope to help me climb that mountain!
...thanking the Lord for our lovely family time together. Sometimes I get all tangled up in the 'stuff' I need to do instead of looking back on our vacation and just praising him for our sweet moments together.

Thank You. 

Until next time,

{this moment}

A Friday ritual birthed by Soulemama. 

A single photo - few words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Blackberry picking in the mountains

Family Time :: Holding onto Both the Good and the Bad

Sometimes, some days, are just beautiful. 

They might have though beginnings, they might be heavy days. But they're still beautiful. 

A moment here, a smile there, a gift in between those times helps center me. 

It helps to slow me down. 

It allows me to recenter myself on the long narrative of my life and what I am doing here, versus being caught up in the little heavy moments-which are fleeting at best. 

Not to escape the hard parts of my life, rather to hold them in both hands and acknowledge the good with the bad. 

This blog, this place, these photos helps me to hold onto the good. 

They allow to me to come to this place during the bad and see both when I need it the most. 

I've had a few tough bouts this week and last. Going to the beach with the kids and Craig helped me to recenter.

So as I look back on those moments and share them here with you, I felt led to write about what goes thorough my head when I look at them versus what we did at the beach. 

It was a lovely time. A bright spot in that day. 

And I thank the Lord for sending me that gift in the midst of darkness. 

Blessings,

{this moment}

A Friday ritual birthed by Soulemama. 

A single photo - few words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Brynna was just so happy that I let her splash away!

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,