At Last!

At long last King Winter paid us a frosty visit and left us with a few inches of lovely snow. It's a rare treat here to have snow period, but as it stands (4 days later) we still have some! The temperatures here have been very frigid and windy- which is not something we are used to. However we've still made it outside everyday this week- go Waldorf and my stubbornness- even if only for a little while. On the first day it snowed, we were out for five hours total. Let's just say I am one tired Mama. 

On the school front we have been having fun with the snow and birds. We painted snowflakes and made lots of snow cream. We also made the birds some millet treats the day it snowed (because Deirdre was so worried about them). One book that we're really enjoying right now is Susan Jeffers' rendition of Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening". It is just a beautifully illustrated book period, not to mention Frost's poem is one of my personal favorites. I am using it to introduce the kids to poetry and how to experience stillness in nature and our lives. "Be Still" is one of our seasonal verses as well, so it fits in well. We even all painted our versions of 'stillness' together. I am loving our art times all together (not just them with me hovering). 

Last weekend on our Saturday hike we got to do some birdwatching and saw a male and female pileated woodpecker! The kids were thrilled. It was a lovely hike. So beautiful and peaceful. Halfway through the hike it randomly started to snow. We all just stood there in silence with big grins on our faces. It was truly magical. 

Male

Female

Other than that we have spent lots of time indoors. Since I set up our artelier, the kids have been making ample use of it. Many afternoons, while Jonas and Brynna are napping, all Deirdre will do is quietly make art for 2 1/2 hours. This is what she did just today! I am really impressed with the doll crown and paper cut outs she's been doing. 

So all in all we've been having fun. Thank you all again for the support and continued concern and love. Your emails and messages really brighten my day! Life is good and I feel like we're in a good place despite the many gray areas looming in our future or my life. Oddly enough for me (since I am very black & white as well as a super planner) I am OK with that. Incredibly, happily, peacefully OK with it in fact. I have felt this past week very much at peace, calm, and warm. Kinda like a week long surf session. My mind keeps trying to talk me out of feeling this way, but I have just been ignoring it (which is not easy to do). I guess I also feel a bit free and empowered to deal with some of the junk in my life, grow from it, and revisit what it is I am doing and want to do. It's led to some great realizations (things I sadly died to long ago) as well as fun rabbit holes. Plus it can't hurt to take a long hard look at all the ugly bits, right? :)

Until next time!

Love & Light,

Snow Play...well sorta!

 

So after my last post I tailored my monthly plans a bit. If you're new, I have written a few posts about how we 'do' our Waldorf homeschooling (I think at this point we end up being more like Waldorf unschoolers though). This year I wrote my own curriculum of sorts. You can find more about it here. While I am sure that we'll get snow at some point (we keep just missing it but not the frigid temps), I am going to stick with it this month and combine it with February's theme, winter animals. Not only does it make my life easier but there are so many rabbits holes to go down. Arctic animals, migration, hibernation vs. turgor, survival, winter fairy tales, weather, what makes it cold, ect.

Our larger science theme for Winter is birds. All Autumn we focused on trees and I am happy to say that we can walk anywhere in our neighborhood and tell you all about every tree. It's neat now that when we drive places, even though the foliage is gone- the kids can point out different trees just by their shape. By far though my kids love willow and beech trees the best. Anywho, I'll share more about birds later on but we got 2 new feeders, a guide, and window feeder, and a bird log- so we're ready! I LOVE our window feeder. Our local cardinal couple love it too, so it's nice to sit with them and eat breakfast together. They don't seem to mind us bouncing around inside either :)

So in keeping with snow, we are making our own snow today with the kits above. I also made a little sensory bin for the kids to play with and some 'snow' dough. It was a big hit today. So much so, they dragged their new fairytale cottage down to make the ice palace from "The Story of the Snow Children". Two years ago I made peg people to go along with the book, you can how to do it here. It amazes me how well they've held up and how much the kids both still love to play with them.

Our nature table and house are now fully in January mode. I continue to struggle to do chalkboard drawings though, ha! I was never good at drawing, but thankfully my audience it forgiving. Hopefully Deirdre will surpass me soon and can take over, ha!

I also on a whim got to take some really lovely photos of the kids during lunch today. Their eyes are starting to turn from blue to green (Deirdre's are already green like mine and my brother). It was a sweet surprise. On the downside, my paperwhites are beginning to die. Alas, Christmas really is over!

Until Next Time,

Gray January Adventures

Winter comes with ice and snow

Covers over the seeds below

Stark the trees and cold the air

King Winter rules the land, beware!

-Betty Jones from "A Child's Seasonal Treasury"

This one is getting adventurous. She wants to be leader.

Picking out the perfect picnic spot!

"Please Mommy take a picture of us and then show me!"

On their animal hunt...

My big strong boy who is refusing to let me cut his hair!

Jonas helped Brynna climb up. She was thrilled. 

Story time!!

Firstly, THANK YOU. All of you. From the blog, to facebook, to email, to even pinterest- thank you. The love you've injected into my life since my last post, before and after, continues to just BLOW me away. In some of my darker moments, I feigned from sharing because I feared judgment and that no one would care. You all have proved this wrong over and over again. I really need to stop over thinking the impulses of my heart and learn to share freely more. You all have given me a lot more courage to do so, so once again thank you...

Now on to the happy stuff :) 

So far this year, we've had no snow. Some ice and cold temperatures, but there has also been many unseasonably warm days. Two weeks ago I actually broke out my favorite summer dress because it was in the 70s. Regardless, it's a bit chiller now and my body is full on into hibernation and soup mode.

We're back from our holiday break and onto our January. This month our theme is snow and our book is Ollie's Ski Trip. However, like last year, focusing on snow is proving hard when there is none. This week were also studying stars in honor of Epiphany. Ultimately though, I think I am going to blend in snow with winter animals, because we keep finding lots of them- or at least evidence of them. I never thought wide open fields would have so many little critters in them!

Today we took a filed trip back to the kids' new favorite place, the Yorktown battlefield earthworks. I explained to them what earthworks were, why they were there, ect... but the kids call this place their 'earth playground' and are fairly convinced that dwarves made the hills and the holes we see all over are the entrances to their mines. Ha! Needless to say I haven't pushed it.

So off we went. We had a picnic and then circle time. We read the Mitten and brought along the mitten Jonas and I made (he surprisingly really likes to sew). Then we hid the animals all over the hills and took turns finding them. Lastly, and this is my favorite part, we went on an adventure. And boy was it an adventure today.

Look what we found in the woods!!! 

Bits of nature we found. I take photos and then we all look it up later in our books or on the "puter" as Jonas calls it. 

Needless to say the kids were overjoyed. I have no idea who built it. The kids added to it and we played with that little shelter for over an hour. I could not get them to leave. They wanted to camp there. I was tempted to at least let them nap there. But then we meandered about some more and saw neat bits of nature. By the end of our adventure all of our pockets were full of moss, rocks, twigs, and leaves.

I could just go on and on about what I 'taught' today or what they 'learned' but the more and more I think about it, the more and more I believe that's not really the point. I don't think that's the point of Waldorf anymore either- but then again I never thought that was the point anyway (which is why I was so drawn to it). This process, this journey, that all of us are on together- myself included- is the goal. I'm sure I could wax eloquent more on that, but I will leave you all here with this photo. I am not sure why it warms my heart so, but oh it does.

Love & Light,

The Second Week of Advent :: Plant Kingdom

The second week of Advent is the light of plants-

Plants that reach up to the sun and breezes that dance. 

This holiday season is just chugging along. The days are long gone in my life when it seemed like Christmas took FOREVER to get here. Now it is a blink and then BAM... it's New Years already! Maybe after my children leave home, it will slow back down- but probably not! I don't mind really. I just am trying to be more intentional about slowing down and being engaged with the kids versus doing lots of 'things' and becoming harried. My children really amplify my joy during this season. My days with them are brighter and being able to see the world with new eyes as they do is oh so precious. 

This week in order to celebrate the plant kingdom, we're decking the halls with our greenery and planting plants!(You can read more about how Waldorf schools and families celebrate the Advent season here and here). We planted paperwhites and amaryllis yesterday, and we also hung up our fresh wreath, mistletoe, and pine roping. It actually smells like Christmas. We've already have a multitude of plants books to read this week since we spent the Autumn studying trees. Mainly I am going to focus on evergreens and tell them the story of how and why we started celebrating with Christmas trees. 

Lastly, yesterday also happened to be Deirdre's 6th birthday. Since last December she has requested a Fox party. So fox party it was. It rained, so we had to have the party indoors but boy was it fun. I will post more on that later. Our dear friends the Luptons gifted Deirdre their game Wildcraft. I have wanted to get this game for a long time but the cost held me back. We're all so excited to play it this week and it will fit in perfectly with our plant kingdom theme, so thank you!!

I hope this find you all well. Thank you for all the well wishes. I am feeling much better physically and emotionally. Your love and support warms my heart!

Love & Light,