Second week of Advent

On Monday this week it was Saint Nicholas day.  All the build up last week brought us to the actual day.  The children awoke with chocolate coins from around the world in their shoes.  Then, we went to the Saint Nicholas exhibit at the landmark center in St. Paul.  

 They did craft projects of the life of St.Nick

and  puzzles

We saw works from all around the world.

Of course I came home with two fabulous Saint Nicholas's :)

We also did our gingerbread house this week.

We added it to our nature table. 

Slowly we will have it be complete to reflect the goings on we see out our door :)

Matthew was sick again on Wednesday.  

So, trying to appease the natives we made our living room into forts

We told stories with coordinating attire...

Generally anything to try and keep them a little quiet.

Mostly, this week was devoted to colds and making things more festive.

We made a very easy snow man out of cotton balls.

we dressed him out of felt pieces.

The boys put ice skates on him. :)

Of course, like really being outside it turned into ....

A SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!

Next week we will hopefully all be healthy and learning about

Saint Lucia and Swedish tradition. 

along with the evergreen tree. 

until then...

~Blessings

First week of Advent

Advent began this week and this made for a more reverent time at our school.
We started sharing a lot of stories about Mary and Joseph.  I have a wonderful book that a dear friend got for us.  Everyday of Advent there is a story to share about the miracles of Mary and Joseph's travels to Bethlehem. Matthew loves the stories and it has been a really beautiful introduction to the advent season.

We made our Advent wreath and lit our first candle

On Baking day we made dozens of sugar cookie cutouts.
We made them for our holiday party this weekend with plenty of taste testing!

On painting day we made and painted the stars.

I made the largest star of Bethlehem out of tissue paper.

On Wednesday, December 1st we began the count down to Christmas with our Advent calendar.

I spent the last part of the week really focusing on Saint Nicholas.  The are so many great stories and I think I told them all.  Saint Nicholas day is December 6th and I wanted them to really understand him before I ask them to put their shoes outside of their door on Sunday night :)  I found an excellent resource online with stories and ideas for celebrating Saint Nick. 

Here they colored Saint Nicholas figures for the nature table. 




 Friday is chore day with our rhythm and we had plenty to do!  On Saturday we are having our annual party and the kids just love to help get everything ready.  So, I'm off we have work to do!!!



Have a great weekend everyone!

Until next week...

~Blessings

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

What is it to be thankful?


I tried to convey the answer to this deeper question this week.
Sort of tricky with such youngin's:)

Although, they had the sweetest responses.  We made a thankful tree.  First, we collected a lot of sticks from our nature hikes.  Then, we put them together and cut out leaves to hang from our "tree".  On the leaves we wrote what we were most thankful for.

Matthew said,  "the way my sister smells so sweet and she is so cute" and "for our home" and "candy"

Wesley said, "light" and "food"and "candy"

We used the tree for the center piece of our thanksgiving table.

Cranberries,
cranberry sauce,
quintessential holiday food.



on baking day we made cranberry sauce to share on Thursday.
  We also, made a loaf of cranberry bread.

On painting day we used Indian corn to create a colorful mosaic

Matthew chose just to paint the corn itself.

We also crafted a turkey using traces of their hands and feet.

They turned out pretty cute.

On Wednesday we made these hats to share on our Thanksgiving day

Grandfather turkey

Grandmother turkey

Happy 
Thanksgiving! 




Friday is chore day with our curriculum. 
We spent the day cleaning and replacing all the autumn with our winter.
Welcoming in the winter was easy with all the snow and cold temps!



I hope everyone had a good holiday.


we will see you next week.

until then...
~Blessings 

Weaving

 

This week was about weaving.  

We talked about people weaving on a loom and other weaving arts. 

We also expanded it to nature and talked about natures greatest weavers, spiders.

On baking day we read stories and baked bread together.

We made a weaved loaf for our dinner.

Then, we did another weaving project. 

We used construction paper and made weaved cards.

This really demonstrated the fundamentals of weaving to the kids.

The kids decorated them and we mailed off a letter to Grandma Judy!

We collected Y shaped sticks on our nature walks and other pieces to use for weaving.  Then, we weaved with our finds.

We also read a tremendous amount of great books about spiders and weaving.

 

We also used our new found skills and tried our hand at making a God's eye weave.

On Thursday this week for snack we made baked apples.  I thought I would share since the kids enjoyed them so much.

Baked Apples

Core apples and fill them with butter and brown sugar.  

Place them into a shallow baking dish.  

Add a little water, a pinch of nutmeg and a teaspoon vanilla

sprinkle cinnamon and chopped peacans over the top.

cover and bake at 350 for about an hour.  

Then I took the foil off for about ten minutes. 

top with a little cream or better yet ice cream!

Phy ed this week we skated, but we also played BASKETBALL :)  

The boys informed me they are also going to be basketball players!

We finished off this week by modeling spiders.

Matthew did a great job making sure all the body parts were there.

(eight legs, two body parts, spinnerets, pedipalps)

His is hanging from a web.  

Wesley's is the colorful one :) He hung his off a book.

We also went on a spider scavenger hunt.  Not for a real spider though, I still think they are creepy.  I hid a spider sticker in the house and they tried to find it with only a couple hints.  

Next week is about 

Gratitude

and Thanksgiving

Until then...

~Blessings

The Wind

This week started off pretty bad.
Matthew woke up Monday with a temperature of 101 and a sore throat!

So,  we cuddled up in bed and read stories about the wind, drank lots of tea, and Wesley colored.

Then, EVERYONE took a nap!  That has not happened simultaneously ever.





We all started feeling a bit better the next day and continued on with our week.



We made a kite to fly in the sky to feel the wind.

All in all we made three.

Our first kite.  We couldn't get it off the ground!

Kite number 2.  
It flew!
I forgot to tie the kite string to the spool and it flew right over the whole neighborhood!

Kite number 3!

Even though there was a lot of trial and error it was really fun flying our kites.



Sticking with our theme we also made wind chimes

On Thursday it was Martinmas.  This is a day to celebrate Saint Martin.  I told a lot of stories about him, his most famous being that he cut his cloak in half to clothe a freezing beggar.  Then, later learning said beggar was really Jesus.  There is more information about him here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Martin's_Day


Like the children of the Netherlands and elsewhere we commemorated the day by crafting lanterns.

We had grand plans of taking our lanterns to a huge Martinmas celebration at firefly farm.  The farm owners are a Waldorf homeschooling family and they have a huge bonfire, act out Saint Martins story with real horses the kids can also ride, a pot luck and finally ending it all with a lantern walk.  We were very much looking forward to this, but it was cancelled due to the snow.  Maybe next year.


Next week we talk about spiders and weaving

until then...
~Blessings

Fire and Deceased

On Monday it was All Saints Day and on Tuesday it was All Souls Day.  We observed these two important days by talking about the passage of our loved ones and Saints.  I told stories about my Grandparents, and Great-grandmother (Tillie).  We looked at pictures and we read stories about people passing.  We also went out to the cemetery to visit my Grandparents.  It was a hard topic, but it was harder for me than for the kiddos.

One story I really liked was called Lifetimes: The beautiful way to explain death to children by:Bryan Mellonie and Robert Ingpen.

We baked soul cakes on Monday/baking day.  This is customary for some areas of Europe like Bavaria and Belgium.  All week we set a place at the dinner table for our passed family members.  Wesley asked when they were going to come over :).

We also talked about fires this week.


On painting day we made our own bonfire with paints and sticks.

The boys collected sticks and 
Dad made a real big bonfire for us one day.

We had the boys make their own fires.

They had to do it all themselves.
  They learned that you have to use various sized items and you have to baby it at first.

How to build a fire.

 You can't get more important than that:)

We also crafted candle holders this week.

Pretty and very easy.

Glue pieces of tissue paper to mason jars.
  Add votive.
(I love mason jars so much.)




Remember, remember the 5th of November

November 5th is bonfire night in the United Kingdom.  To commemorate the foiled plot to blow up the House of Parliament in Westminster in 1605.  I like this holiday for political reasons that I did not share with the children.  We did share in a lot of bonfires though!  It's fun to explore other cultures and countries holidays.  I like to show the kids what the rest of the world celebrates too.



Next week it is about
The Wind and
Martinmas (the celebration of Saint Martin)

Until then...
~Blessings