We have become more and more an unschooling family as the year has progressed. We still get inspiration from our Oak Meadow book, but a lot of the time, I look at the week to come and the activities are things that we have already done!
We go down to the school room, do our morning verse and exercises, they each select a medium for creating with, and they go off on their own artistic adventures- rarely without any assistance from me. A lot of the time, their creations are abstract and undefined. I love abstract.
Other times, they go about their creations with purpose. Rainbow Girl especially thrives on letting her mind be the guide. She may start by drawing a person. Then that person needs clothes, so she will add clothes on the person, or draw many articles of clothing on the same page. Why not name the person, and write his or her name on the page? Then she may want to turn that drawing into a paper doll or a puppet. Of course that person needs a house as well. She will either build the creation a home out of blocks, or create one with another medium of art. A lot of the time, she enjoys cutting and pasting shapes out to create a roof, doors, windows, the house, bushes, trees, clouds, the sun, birds, bees...the list goes on. Let's count the windows and the clouds...in English and Spanish. Oh, and now the creation needs a mom and a dad- and maybe a baby brother too.
There we have it. Storytelling, writing, life skills, science, math, motor skills, social studies, Spanish, and art. All with little or no direction what so ever from me- and so enjoyed.
 |
| Doing our Morning Verse and exercises. |
This year, I set the goal to celebrate many of the wonderful festivals that are celebrated in Waldorf Schools. We celebrated Michaelmas in September, and this month, briefly celebrated Martinmas. St. Martin was said to have drawn his sword and cut his cloak in half and giving half to a beggar to save his life in the cold. Children make paper lanterns to symbolize the little light they can shine in a dark world. It is a holiday of compassion.
We made some beautiful watercolor paintings to turn into lanterns next week. (Martinmas was officially November 11th. Better late than never.)
Sugar Bear loves painting. We use to paint with tempra paint, but this fall switched to primarily using water color paint. Water color paining, especially wet on wet painting, is so much more calming. Watching the colors slowly bleed together, the translucence of the paint- it's all very organic. Sugar Bear enjoys painting on paper, but prefers to paint on his body. Hey, why not? Art is art. ^_^
And now the time has come to make pom pom snowmen!
 |
| Visual color mixing is super fun. |
 |
| Remember that sweet boy that I witnessed the birth of? He's a week old already! |
 |
| My sweet Daisy at her meeting. |
The Daisy's have been learning about the different parts of the Girl Scout Law and what they mean by talking about each line, one by one, and then doing an activity to help them remember.
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.
This past week, they worked on "Respect Myself and Others". The girls went through old magazines and cut out images that represented the line. Some examples were: pictures of exercising, healthy foods, toothpaste and even laundry soap. This week, the girls went on stage in front of the entire troop to present their poster.
This is the moment that I realized that Rainbow Girl has stage fright.
She has always wanted to go up on that stage, and the moment she got up there, I saw her face drop. The leader was wonderful about not pressuring anyone to speak if they did not want to. Most of the girls (even the very shy ones) did speak. Rainbow Girl was a deer in headlights. She stayed up for most of the presentation, until she looked right at me (I was standing right in front of the stage) and mouthed silently "I need to get down." She turned around, and calmly walked off the stage.
I am proud of her for the amount of time that she was on stage, and for having the self control to calmly walk away from a situation that made her uncomfortable.
The next day was my birthday! My mom, Sugar Bear and I went to my favorite winery to celebrate. Fridays, Rainbow Girl is in Spanish class. So that we did not have to rush back, my dear friend, and mommy to one of Rainbow Girl's classmates, offered to take RG home with her after class for lunch and play. Mucho thanks to her! <3
My mom, Sugar Bear and I had a fabulous time. It was just us in the tasting room, and our favorite pourer was working. We had a lovely tasting and bought a bottle to drink while we had a picnic! They have a small playground area there, so Sugar Bear also had a wonderful time.
After picking up Rainbow Girl, we all went to my mom's house to have dinner. While waiting for dinner, Rainbow Girl found a long box and decided to make a see saw out of it. That goal transformed into making a balance. She placed different toys and objects on either side and tried to balance it out.
When my mom was in labor with me, she made a special chocolate cake. Many of my birthdays, she has made me the very same cake to celebrate. This year, because of my recent transition to being vegan, the recipe had to change if I wanted the special birthday cake. My mom replaced the sour cream and butter with vegan alternatives, the egg with banana, and the milk with almond milk. It did not taste the same, but it was very good!
Fancy Tea Party Time!
Rainbow Girl went to my sewing area, got a handful of polyfill, and brought it back to the tea party. It was fun to fill up the pot and cups with "bits of fluff" and pretend it was "fluffy tea".
On Sunday, Rainbow Girl was in a Christmas parade with her Girl Scout troop. Once the parade started, she put on a frown and would not wave to anyone. After the parade, when I asked her what was wrong, she said "I was shy because I did not know anyone and did not want to wave at strangers, but I had fun!!"
Sugar Bear and my mom met us at the end of the parade route. I am told that he had a great time watching the parade go by- until a clown tried to talk to him. Once the clown was gone, he was having a fun once again. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment