Snowflakes

This week was all about snowflakes.  We had fun investigating them.  We learned a lot mostly from a book called Snowflake Bentley.  Willie Bentley was a man who really knew his snowflakes!


On baking/cooking day we made snow ice cream.

Yes, we used real snow.

I didn't want them to eat too much... so we also made
snowflake cookies.

Painting day was devoted to snow pictures.

We used white paint, glitter and chalk to make the wintry scenes.



For snack, snowflake soft pretzles.

We spent our days looking for snowflakes, but we only found...


mountains to sled down

and snow caves to hide in.

Here are some of our favorite snow stories.  Snowmen at night is very sweet with hidden pictures.  We've been searching it all week.




  We spent a  big day skating with our Uncle this week too.  It has been a fun week, though short.  I am going on a vacation weekend!  I have not left my kiddos for 5 years!  Very exciting.

Have a good week everyone!

Next week it is about
Ice.
Until then...
~Blessings.

Animals in winter

We spent this week talking about animals in winter and what they do when the temps dip down.  We talked about wild animals.   We learned about winter activity and hibernation.  First, we learned who hibernates.. chipmunks, some insects, mostly we talked about bears.

We decided to craft our own bear dens they could hibernate in for the winter on our nature table.

Bear in den

Then we learned about the bear mama lily and baby hope that live in Ely MN.  

You can check them out here.  It is a very informative website.  Everything bear. 

We made a rice bin this week so Tillie could play too.

Turns out everyone loves the rice bin!! 

They played in it all day making the bears hide under the mountains.

We also talked about the animals that are still active in the winter... rabbits, squirrels, and mice.  We learned about tracks in the snow.  

on painting day we made our own tracks with potato stamps.

These are Matthew's dog prints

We went on a nature walk to find tracks down by the creek.

Here is our best find.
We think squirrel.

They pretended they were the wild animals making the tracks.

Bear hibernating.





We read great books that helped us all week

On modeling day we used our new clay to sculpt prints.

To break up our blustery winter more this week we went to underwater world.  They had a huge jellyfish collection that was fun.


We also, went to a home schoolers gym time.  It was at the community center.  We got to play with a lot of other kids and meet other home schooling parents!  It was great they had a good time and I think we will be going back.


This week I too started school.  I want to bring the family more music.  I do not want the music to come from a recording.  The problem is I am not musically inclined what so ever.  I decided to learn to read music and play an instrument.  The classes are held at a Waldorf school so, I can get a feel for how they teach.  It is great except I am really out of my element to say the least.




Next week it is about

snowflakes and tolerance

until then...
~Blessings

New year ~ New beginnings

This week we really tried to start fresh!  This is a whole new year!  We wanted to really delve in and un-clutter.  We spent the week cleaning and tossing.  Taking down the tree and finding homes for all our new gifts.  Tom also helped by seriously tackling our basement.  We had the children by us helping the whole time creating a family out with the old in with the new sort of start.



It has also been very cold this week.  Sometimes winter can get a little long.  When I was single and childless this is when I would vacation.  Somewhere sunny and steamy, just to remember what it can be like!  For posterity we boarded our airplane (car) and flew to the tropics (Como Zoo).

We got to see tropical fish

tropical plants every where

blooming gardens

Beautiful mini-vacation!!




Of course we saw animals too.

We made play dough this week too.
The recipe is easy and it turned out great.

PLAY DOUGH

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
1 cup water

mix it all together in a sauce pan
  cook until it forms a ball then need it.
voila! play dough


We made snow men

just do not let your daughter eat it, it tastes terrible!!!

We also, celebrated the Epiphany.

Epiphany is January 6th it marks the twelfth day of Christmas, or last day of seasonal celebration.  This is the day the three kings arrived in Bethlehem to bring gifts to the Christ child.  I acted out a figurine play of the three kings arrival and told other stories of the kings.  I like teaching the kids about what they do in other countries and we talked about Russia.  In Russia on the Epiphany the children tell stories of Mama Baboushka.  She is a woman who was invited to travel with the three kings to see Christ, but she declined and ever since she is trying to find him to bring him his gift.   The Russian children expect little gifts on this day from Mama Babouska mistaking them for the child.

The best part of celebrating Epiphany is making a cake!  One makes a cake with a bean baked inside.  Who ever has the piece with the bean is crowned king for the day!

Congratulations King Wesley!



We had a fun week slowly trying to get back into the swing of things:)

Next week it is about
what animals do in the winter and warmth.

until then...
~blessings

Happy New Year!!

We have had a busy couple of weeks.

Lots of family and celebrating.  I hope everyone had a wonderful season.  I am looking forward to getting back to school, back to rhythm!  I will be posting again at the end of next week with all our new winter adventures.

~Blessings

Saint Lucia * Evergreen tree

This week started off as the third week of Advent

We lit our candles and I told some of week threes stories.

Monday was Saint Lucy day. 

We celebrated by telling lots of Saint Lucy stories.  

Since it was too cold and record snow we didn't make it up to Scandia.  They have a very authentic celebration and candle light service with procession.  We watched a lot of processions on youtube so they could see what we were missing.  This was one of their favorites.

We made cinnamon cookies instead of saffron buns.
I knew cookies would go over a lot better.

Since my little girl is too young to wear the traditional garb, the boys became star boys.

Saint Lucia day is the start of the Christmas season in Sweden and it generally celebrates Swedish culture.

Of course we had Swedish meatballs for dinner! :)
Delicious!

We also spent time this week on the evergreen tree, conifer if you will.

We read many stories from the library about trees.  We learned why they are evergreen.  I told one of their favorite stories about the little bird with the broken wing needing shelter in the winter and only the pine tree could provide.  So, king winter and jack frost let them retain their needles to always shelter weary birds. 

 We finally got around to getting our Christmas tree.  which actually worked out great for our theme this week.  They went to the tree farm to see all the trees.  

We had a lot of fun decorating too.

We decided to help out all the birds that find shelter in our pine trees. 

We made them feeders

Painting and drawing pictures of pine trees and of course Christmas trees is always fun!

Next week is about the Winter solstice and of course

CHRISTMAS!

Happy Holidays everyone

Until then

~Blessings

Change of teeth!

My eldest lost his first tooth.

This is an ordinary occurrence, I know.  But, to a Waldorf educator wannabe it is monumental!  Please allow me to explain a bit about this form of education.  This is an entirely different way of learning from what I was brought up knowing.  I have been studying the fundamentals for four years now and still am only scratching the surface of its depths.  Waldorf strives to meet the child's needs at precisely the moment that they need to be met.  I look at it like a developmental education.  All milestones are intricately accounted for and fulfilled.  This I know.  That being said, baby teeth falling out is a big one.  This is a whole new era.  From the time of birth until teeth changing children are perfect mimics.  So much so that is has been said that if you never reprimanded once from age 0-to change of teeth your children would be perfectly modeled to you.  With no other direction what so ever.  The only guidance they need in this time is example.  Until the change of teeth, then there are a new set of rules.  The beginnings of formal education can slowly begin.  I am nervous because soon it is my time to begin.
I am not nearly as eloquent or articulate as the many others who have studied before me.  So, please read the following article for a clear understanding to the development of the child a la Waldorf...

Change of teeth article