February 11-17, 2013- Valentine's Week!

We had a lovely Valentine's week. 

The week before, I reconnected with (via Girl Scouts) a homeschooling mama who I had met before. She has a wonderful homeschooling co op that embraces many of the values I try to incorporate in our learning adventure. We attended the co op over a year ago- but Rainbow Girl was too young to really appreciate it. Now however, is perfect timing!

They are very active and have many different groups branched off. The first one that we attended was Playgarden! Playgarden is a wonderful group of children and mamas getting together to have a Waldorf morning with each other. The tuition is one fruit per child. The host of playgarden has a Waldorf dream home. Walking inside a Nova Natural catalog was what came to mind. First, we sat together for circle time to greet the day. 

Good Morning Dear Earth, Good Morning Dear Sun,

Good Morning Dear Trees, and the Flowers, Everyone.

Good Morning Dear Beasts and the Birds in the Trees,

Good Morning to You, and Good Morning to Me

After a few more verses and poems in circle time, the children went off to play and the mamas worked on a craft together. Many of the children are quite young, but some are old enough to help. This week, we made angels out of wool roving.

After craft time was snack time. The children gatherd in the kitchen around a glorious wooden table where they take turns washing their hands in a basin.

After everyone was clean, the mamas and the children prepared snack.

After snack time was story time. The children gathered in front of a playstand where the host mama told a lovely story.

This being my children's first playgarden, they did not know the rhythm and did not participate too well. I am hopeful that they will adapt and do well as we make this a regular outing for us. 

Valentine's Extravaganza!! 

Rainbow Girl and I love Valentine's Day. Okay, we like any excuse to do an excess of crafts to give to people. If you can't tell by our other blogs, we also love the author Gail Gibbons. Just like many other topics, she wrote a book on Valentine's Day!                                    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

We did a ton of crafts. 

Here, we made heart candle holders. We used fancy jars, two colors of tissue paper, homemade Modge Podge (half water- half Elmer's glue) and a paintbrush. 

FYI, gluey tissue paper stains lighter surfaces. Put it on a tray or something that can't be harmed. Thankfully, Magic Eraser took it off the table with a little work. 

Sure! Take a crafting break to invent a game with the discovery bottles! 

Next, we did lacing hearts. First, I cut fun foam into hearts and punched holes (with a heart hole punch!). Then I made a point at the end of her yarn with a piece of painter's tape. I pulled the length of yarn through and taped the end on the back of the heart- then handed it over to Rainbow Girl. She loved  "sewing" the hearts- and was very good at it, making fourteen in around twenty minutes.

Then sweet Sugar Bear woke up. I hooked him up with some Valentine's Day stamps and his big ol' stamp pad set.

So, we had made the few Valentines to give to special family and friends- but what to give to Girl Scout friends and Spanish class friends? What should one do when one refuses to buy premade cards but needs a few dozen cards made? Did you answer coffee filters? Right!

I wet all the coffee filters and put them on trays for the kids to watercolor paint.

Princess Goober

Then of course, free crafting time with doilies and heart shapes.

Here are our coffee filters drying.

Here they are the next day.

I cut them out into heart shapes,

and Rainbow Girl stamped them.

That night, after the wee ones were in bed, I made their Valentines. I took some scrap fleece and rainbow thread and made these adorable envelopes. I wrote little notes to each of them and presented them Valentine's morning. Rainbow Girl was thrilled.

On Valentine's Day, I made a fabulous bean bag toss. I got the idea from our lovely Daisy leader's epic blog.

Although I have made bean bags in the past, I wanted to make a set for each child of identifying fabrics so we could keep score easier.

Sugar Bear enjoyed lining up the bean bags.

That night was Girl's Sports night at Girl Scouts! It was a wonderful time- and Rainbow Girl discovered that she really likes basketball!

*Whew. That was a busy day.*

A few days later, we attended the first birthday party of the youngest child in out favorite family of friends. We love them. :)

See you next week dear readers. <3