Grade One - Books and Lessons

This page contains a list of our Grade One books and lessons. Follow the links for more details.

Language Arts
Miss Hickory
Grade One Book List
Reading, Reading, Reading
A Prince of a Tale....And Then Some
Word-Family Town
Learning to Read

Math
Back to School
Math, Baby!
Logic
Math in May

Natural Science
Science (and other subjects)
What I Like About Homeschool
The Drawing Emerges
Making Lasagna
LA Story #2: Flowers, Flowers, Flowers
LA Story #3: The Huntington Botanical Gardens
LA Story #5: The Best Time Ever
All's Fair
Back to Nature
Book Learning
Lasagna Again
Nightowl in Love

Geography/Social Studies
LA Story #4: The Seaside
Flat Nightowl Returns

Wet-on-Wet Painting
Wednesday Watercolors
Family Arts Weekend

Drama/Art
What I Know Now
The Alien Under the Bed
Family Arts Weekend

Form Drawing
Buckeyes
Form Drawing Block 1

Handwork
Craft Log #2
Back to School
Craft Log #2
The New Craft

Music
Two Violins
The Only Subject

Cooking
Making Granola
At the End of the Day

Festivals/Holidays
Autumnal Equinox
Spirits and Lights
Solstice

Daily Rhythm/Schedules
Day One
What We're Studying This Year
What Type of Homeschooling Do You Practice?
Rage
Rhythm
The Most Important Things



Waldorf Books and Materials
Books by Barbara Dewey/Waldorf Without Walls
Waldorf Reading for Homeschoolers
Waldorf Math Grades 1-3
Form Drawing for the Homeschooling Parent
Science as Phenomena for Homeschoolers K-8
Handwork for Homeschoolers
Waldorf Inspired Watercolor Painting with Children

Form Drawing Grades One Through Four
Exploring the Forest with Grandforest Tree
The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Pantheon Edition
Cristopherus First Grade Syllabus
Oak Meadow First Grade Syllabus

Seasonal Festivals/Sprituality Books
Circle Round

Foreign Language Books and Resources
Rosetta Stone
Sing and Learn
Teach Me More

Learning to Read

During our final days of first grade we continued our language arts in two ways. The first was a return to the Grimm's Fairy Tales; we read a new tale everyday. The second was to continue our adventures in the Word Family Town.

Nightowl adored the Word-Family Town. She requested it every day during main lesson time. I found this challenging because in my mind we were done with the project and it was time to pack it up neatly in the Grade One portfolio. I'd forgotten many of my original ideas to continue the project. It was time for something new. How wrong I was.

Our revisit to the WFT began with my realization that Nightowl was having difficulty deciphering the consonant blends - th, sh, and ch. As part of our daily reading we had been working our way through McGuffy's Primer. These blends were presented but she just couldn't keep them straight. She needed something else but my very tired brain just couldn't think of something new. So one afternoon I pulled out our town and arranged it on the floor. I told myself that it wouldn't hurt to revisit this project - after all she did keep asking. Maybe Nightowl could find something new. So I stepped aside and let the unschooling take over.

The first thing I noticed is that Nightowl got really into the WFT - literally. She put herself into the town and began playing and interacting with it just like she would her dolls and fairy houses. Only this time her muttered narrative was peppered with spelling out words as the little letter people went through their daily chores of living.

She quietly continued this activity for several days during main lesson time. I held myself back and watched. Then, one evening, we were reading before bed. Nightowl, who likes to watch the pages as I read aloud, said suddenly - ch does not live in the Word Family Town. She seemed a bit sad about this. And then it hit me - really it was so obvious, what had I been thinking?

The next afternoon before getting out the town I sat down with the chalk board and told her the story of how three consonant blends came to the WFT. The story went like this:

One day a hot air balloon appeared above Word Family Town. In the basket were two women one named TH and the other named CH. Their little son SH was with them. All the people of the town came to see as the balloon landed. TH and CH got out and introduced their son. Then they described their sounds to the townspeople.

Short, sweet and it did the trick. Nightowl drew the picture in her book. Then quickly created the stick figures TH, CH and SH. Then the play continued.

The next day I grew curious about how Nightowl was incorporating all these sounds and letters. So I said: "Nightowl did you know that the little son SH could spell every word in the Word Family Town?"

She looked unconvinced.

"Really," I continued, "He had this amazing talent. He told the people that he would demonstrate this talent. He told them that tomorrow morning he would spell all the words from the town. The problem was that he needed someone to write the words as he spelled them." (The letter folk have no arms or hands, you see.) Nightowl considered this new piece of the story and then went off to play in the town.

As luck would have it Nightowl volunteered to be a scribe for SH and the next morning we went through the process of spelling all the words. It was a very test like situation. Me calling out the words.* Nightowl listening to an imaginary SH tell the spellings. Nightowl writing them down. To my delight she spelled all the family words correctly and even figured out a few more difficult words. Success!

Since then her reading has really taken off. She's working her way through all the picture books in the house and reading some simple chapter books. She is even volunteering to read to Bearcub - which is soooo lovely.

So with this I officially ended the final block of our first grade language arts. I put the letter people away and we've taken a break for summer. Of course Nightowl is still reading for pleasure and just a few days ago she looked up from a book and asked, quite hopefully, if the Word Family Town would be in second grade as well. I think the answer to that is quite obvious.

* To facilitate the creation of our town and to come up with our spelling list I used a nifty, and very affordable book/pamphlet from Oak Meadow: The Word Family Reader. This very small book is the only Oak Meadow book that I've used in its entirety and I highly recommend it for this type of activity.

Math in May

I've started putting up my May lessons. However, my attention is somewhat divided between my blog and the community blog I'm a part of: A Taste of Waldorf. So, I've posted our May math stuff there. Check it out: Math: Odd and Even Gnomes.

Nightowl in Love

Well, it's finally happened - in the most unexpected of places with the most unexpected of...um, creatures. Truth. Last Sunday Nightowl became entranced and then fell hard for the fluffy, feathered chicken.

Members from our congregation brought a small selection of animals to church last Sunday. All the kids classes got turns mixing it up with the goats, sheep, ducks, chickens etc. At the end of the service I went to pick up Nightowl from her classsroom. She wasn't there. I finally found her on the playground in a quiet space with a sweet Bantam hen nestled in her lap.

She'd been there since her class visit; she remained there throughout the coffee hour and into the beginnings of the second service. During this time her newfound chicken friend spent the entire time nuzzled in her arms sleeping, pooing (amazingly this didn't faze Nightowl at all), and finally laying an egg (this was quite amazing).

She was reluctant to part with the hen but we did finally make it home. Now we talk chickens, chickens, chickens morning till night. Nightowl wants chickens and (luckily??) our city code allows urban chicken farming - up to five hens on a city lot.

So we are now researching chickens, coops, chicks, safety, feeding, 4H and etc. Plus we've had a family talk about caring for animals and responsibility. Add this to our complete dedication in supporting our eldest - whatever direction her interests take - and you get the fact that we are considering chickens. We've decided that if Nightowl can show us that she can take some responsibility for the pets we currently have (two dogs and three cats) then maybe when she is 8 or 9 we'll consider getting a coop that will be her primary responsibility.

She's gung ho. She's taken over the cat care. She doing a daily cat box cleaning and is responsible for feeding and watering . So far she is quite cheery about it. This is good for me too as I am glad to shift that responsibility. So, we'll see if the romance lasts beyond the next few days or weeks. But for now she's pretty content with her dreams of future chickens. I keep overhearing the comments she makes to herself: "Won't it be great to have fresh eggs?" "Maybe the coop could go here." "In the winter I'll have to dig a path to the coop so that I can make sure my chickens get enough love and attention."

Ain't love grand?

The City Chicken
The Path to Freedom
Backyard Chickens
4-H USA
The Banty Chicken

Lasagna Again

Springtime now. Time for planting. True to the promise our layered lasagna garden has evolved into rich, black earth teaming with worms and other assorted creepy crawlers. The hay and mulch layers work wonders at retaining moisture.

This week we began planting with a few perennials - black-eyed susans, peonies, crazy daisies, coneflowers, and coreopsis. We are mostly interested in seeds and will begin planting those in May - once all fear of frost is gone.

Regarding our tree nursery - sadly we had no success. The seeds in cups did not work for us. But we are undaunted and will continue with other planting experiments.

The new craft

This Christmas Nightowl received a wooden-peg loom from Santa. On Tuesday she asked for a new craft; out came the loom.




Day one. Beginning the pouch-purse project.









Day three. It's been hard to put this project down. The work is frequently punctuated by comments of "Isn't it fun to watch me do this!"

Reading is also covered here as Nightowl is working on deciphering the directions. Lots of new vocab such as weft and warp.

Word-Family Town

Ok. We completely borrowed this idea from Sara over at Schooling From the Heart. The idea of creating a Word-Family Town to facilitate reading and spelling was just too delicious. It's been really great. Nightowl loves it so much that my two week project spiraled into four. I did not take into account Nightowl's capacity for detail - my mistake. So here it is.





It all started with a story and a house. The story of the "AD" house and all the consonant friends who come to visit. Nightowl made the house and I started making the friends. From there it blossomed.

Future plans include: directions through the town, a town-wide spelling bee, and a visit from the "Article Gang" (a, an, the...).

The only subject

It seems, despite our Waldorf blocks and unschooling meandering, that our one, main, true subject is music. We spend inordinate amounts of time on music. It permeates everything. Everyday Nightowl plays her two instruments: violin and piano. Her "pencil and paper work" often relates to music theory - intervals, note reading, music writing. She also makes up songs, sings, and dances.

We use tunes to remember math and use note values for simple addition and subtraction problems. We sing songs to remember reading skills and create simple words out of various notes. We play music games such as music note go-fish.

Music also helps her to forge relationships with other kids in group class and gives her a taste of the traditional classroom dynamic. But most of all she plays. And plays. And plays. She is now playing occasionally with with an accompanist. For this task we've asked for help from our lovely friend Bob, who is a wonderful piano player, loves the children, and loves to perform. Aside from a sweet little duet, this relationship has many other wonderful benefits - friendship, family-fun (our kids play with his kids etc. etc.) and the kudos of other great adults in our girl's life.

Here they are in their first recital. Awesome.

Flat Nightowl Returns

For geography we've jumped on-board the Flat Stanely train. Flat Stanley is a children's book about Stanley, a little boy made flat when a bulletin board falls on him. Other than being flat he is fine. As a flat person Stanley finds it is easy to travel via mail; he gets mailed on a vacation to California.




We liked the book and the idea. So Nightowl created a flat version of herself and we shipped Flat Nightowl off to Hawaii to visit her Aunty Kathy and Aunty Jane. She recently returned with souveniers, stories and pictures. The real, non-flat Nightowl is keeping a book of her travels as well as fun facts about the places visited.




At the moment, Flat Natalia is touring the Big Apple with our friends Margaret and Aliza. We've been studying up on NYC in preparation for her return as well as making travel plans for the future.






Photos top to bottom:
#1 Boogie boarding at Hapuna Beach
#2 Touring the volcanoes with Aunty Jane
#3 A narrow escape from the mighty Marlin
#4 Visiting the Orchid Market

Logic

During a recent trip to a neighboring town's childrens' museum Nightowl discovered a large scale chess set. That morning's chess massacre piqued her interest and we're now playing a at home. To help with the logic I've also introduced her to kid's sudoku. I found a nifty little website (Free Kid Sudoku Puzzles) with 4x4 sudoku that helps kids get a hang of the logic. We're doing a bit every day. Pretty cool.

Book Learning

We spent the end of February/beginning of March pursuing Natural Science. Among other things we: visited Nightowl's tree, collected and sorted seeds, started a tree seedling nursery, began a log of said nursery, and created a rotting log terrarium. Mild March days have drawn us out of doors and kept us there.

After four weeks of this (along with our other various activities such as music, reading, painting, cooking, learning to ride the two-wheeler and etc.) Nightowl came up to me and said, in all seriousness:

Mommy, we've been forgetting to do school. We haven't done school in weeks and weeks!
Incredulous I replied: We've been doing school - all this natural science plus our other activities - this is school.
It is?
Yes.
Silence.

Interestingly Nightowl has not considered most of our daily work to be school - school being the sit at a desk and raise your hand to speak type of thing she hears of from friends and reads about in books. The only work we do that she acquaints with school is when we sit down with paper and crayons/pencils and write words or work problems.

This whole notion made her a bit uncomfortable so we spent a couple of days book learning - I gave her materials and she designed, wrote, and illustrated a new Nightowl original book. Then we worked to plan out the flowers and herbs for our lasagna garden: we made lists and sketches for planting. All this writing and flipping of pages felt more schooly to her but I can tell that she's thinking things over.

For instance she now asks randomly during painting or the creation of our letter-family town or cooking or song writing: "So this is school?" When I reply: "Yes, honey it is." She chuckles and nods her head and says: "This is school."



1 - Planting, 2 - Seed cups, 3 - The found nest

Back to Nature

We've moved on, put the math books away - although the Gnomes still grace our shelves and our abacus still rattles daily - and have gone back to nature. Or, rather, Natural Science. It's our second natural science block and we're revisiting our old friend Grandforest Tree.

I think we'll spend two weeks here. Nightowl really enjoyed reviewing her work from our Fall Natural Science block (it's wonderful stuff). Now we're doing a few winter/early spring Natural science projects. The plan is to do an even larger SPRING natural science block in April. We've revisited her tree friend, read several stories about the forrest in Winter, gone on a nature walk, and have created a rotting log terrarium. We're also collecting tree seeds and next week we will plant them in small cups. Hopefully, we'll have a good start that we can transfer to our Lasagne Garden this spring. So far Nightowl has collected: apple seeds, buckeyes, acorns, and evergreen seeds (we removed these by warming up the pinecones).

However, our favorite project thus far has been tapping trees and collecting sap for maple syrup. We have a group that meets every other week. And last Thursday we went out to the woods, tapped trees, collected sap and learned how to make maple syrup. It was way cool. Sure we've all read about tapping trees and we all love syrup but these kids actually got to do it. Very nice. We ended our afternoon with a pancake and maple syrup lunch and long romp in the woody outdoors.

Now, we're feeling quite inspired and are planning, this, week to tap the maple tree in our front yard. Turns out there an entire culture of "in-town tree-tappers." All the gear and instruction kits are available at our local hardware store - who knew! We're not sure if we'll actually get any sap or any syrup, but then that's not really the point here is it? Updates on this later. In the meantime here's some images of our sappy adventure. Sweet!


Drilling the hole.


Choosing the tap. Tasting the sap.


Preparing the collection jug.


Boiling the sap.

Last Week

In a nutshell: Big Midwestern snowstorm. Our little enclave received: ICE (lots of it). Chillymamma was off from work for a couple of days. Our power was out for only about 8 hours (we we're luckier than many of our friends ). So we snuggled together and made the most of it:


Cookies!


Valentines!

Wednesday Watercolors

Nightowl has been watercolor painting every Wednesday since early September. We are using the wet-on-wet technique advocated by Waldorfers everywhere. This technique requires that a heavy weight of water color paper be submerged in water until nearly saturated. The artist then uses diluted watercolors to create art.

It's a tricky business this wet-on-wet painting. It's difficult to paint outlines - the concrete stuff of Nightowl's imagination. The painter needs to connect with the technique, working with the flow of the color from the brush. It requires patience, an open mind and a willingness to be flexible.

Truth be told - our painting hasn't gone so well. I had no idea (until recently) how to mix the colors. Some of our paintings were vibrant but most were washed out and barely visible when dry. Very frustrating. Nightowl was discouraged and I was sick of the whole business.

However, thanks to our recent workshop with Barbara Dewey and a cool "how to mix paint post" from Fairie School we are finally on our way.

I use several printed resources for painting but my favorite by far is How to Do Wet-on-wet Watercolor Painting and Teach It to Children by Rauld Russell. Unlike most other sources Russell recommends using 8 colors: Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Vermilion, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Lake, and Purple Lake. This is quite different from the usual three color recommendation but as we're colorful folk - we like it!

Although we had progressed to using more than one of the washed out colors we've opted to start over with single, better mixed colors. Nighowl is really taking to painting again. She's more relaxed and open to the process and pleased with her results.

We did cobalt with Barbara (See the above photo. Nightowls' painting is second to the bottom on the right).

We have done some work with Purple Lake.


Purple Mountains - by Nightowl and Aleisha


And today we tried Prussian Blue - Nightowl's favorite by far.


Ocean and Sky - by Nightowl













When we started painting I created a little story to go with the painting. We dropped as the painting became so unsatifying. We might go back to eventually though. It goes something like this:

At the beginning of time there was a beautiful Goddess. She sat on carved wooden thrown. At her side sat her companion the Imp - a prankster and joker.

One day she explained colors to the Imp. Red is a gift from the Red Fish of the Red Sea. One day the Red Fish gave me a shining red scale. From this comes red. Blue is a gift from the Blue Bird of the Blue Sky. One day the Blue Bird gave me a blue feather. From this comes Blue. Yellow is a gift from the Mainden who works in the Golden Field. One day she gave me the petal from a rare Daffodil. From this comes yellow. The Goddess carved a paint brush handle from the Tall Tree's limbs. The King Boar gave her a gift of bristles from his chin to make the brush. She gave the brush and the colors to the Imp: use them wisely and carefully, she told him. Take care to keep your colors clean and pure, your brush clean and soft.

One day the Goddess was creating the sky and the sun. She created a blue sky with a yelllow sun. Then she created a yellow sky with a blue sun. She thought about which combination she liked the best. All this painting made her very tired so she lay down to rest. Her companion, the Imp, smiled and laughed. He took his paint brush and mixed the sun and sky creating deep green. When the Goddess awoke she was startled but not angry. The Imp was quite pleased with trick.

Craft Log #2

We've been crafting away during the past few months; it feels like time to take stock of what's been completed by Nightowl thus far:

Completion of the fuzzy warm scarf and the fuzzy warm doll-scarf with fringe.










Festive door wreath. Nightowl collected these pine twigs during one of our walks. She wove it into a wreath and decorated it for the holidays. It still hangs on our door.











The puppets (A Prince of a Tale...)








Rosetta! (Back to school...)

A Grumpy Day

That's what it's been. Due to anxiety in other areas of my life I'm not sleeping so I'm exhausted and nervous. Nightowl, having been cooped up in-doors due to cold weather is fidgety and whiney. Bearcub is....well, she's nearly two, enough said.

This morning my kids kept poking me:

"Mommy, get up we want breakfast!" - Nightowl
"Eggs!" - Bearcub
"Mrrumph" - Me, pulling the pillow over my head.

Ok, I got up. We did our thing but overall it was a kinda grumpy, blah day. This morning Nightowl announced "Mommy, I need time to play today." She disappeared into her room aka the land of dolls and make believe. Bearcub would not allow herself to be dressed and spent much of the morning in a diaper, one snowboot (the right) and a frilly headband, all the while demanding:

"Mama! Coat! Cold!"
"How about clothing?" I'd suggest picking up the outfit for the 15-millionth time.
"Noooooo!"

And then she ran screaming the other way. Our house has a circular floor pattern so giving chase has all the makings of a cartoon adventure.

Eventually we pulled it together (sort of). Nightowl descended to help make the bread, play the violin, read some books, and do science experiments at the kitchen work table.

"What happens if I mix cornstarch, water AND potato starch...ooooh!"

Bearcub did eventually dress, this of course was only after she had removed her diaper and dumped it's contents which....well, let's just say it was pretty disgusting.

At the end of the day we headed outside for some snow play and driveway shoveling. In some ways, an hour outside cured everything. As we headed in for dinner ("Not leftovers again!" - Nightowl) we discussed the prospect of snow ice cream for dessert. This sweetness was wonderful and cheered us all. Of course, Bearcub did have quite a fit when, while trying to help make the ice-cream, she grabbed the bowl, dumped it's contents and was immediately removed from the area. But what can I say? She's nearly two. Heaven help us all.

Snow Ice Cream Variation #1
1 egg beaten
1 tbs vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups whole milk
Mix all ingredients, add clean snow, serve.

Snow Ice Cream Variation #2
2 cups full fat coconut milk
1 tbs vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
Mix all ingredients, add clean snow, serve.

All's Fair....

I completely forgot to post about our recent science fair - oops! Our local homeschool cooperative runs three learning fairs every year: biography, science, and international. Participation is optional, non-competitive and open to all ages.

Nightowl particpated in last year's science fair by creating a poster of the solar system. She was game this year as well. The topic she chose: shells. She had found a large cache of shells in a basket in our garage. She's been examining them for the past few months and was eager to share them with others.

In preparation we talked about what a science fair is, what she'd like to learn about the shells and what she'd like to present. Then we were off to the library for books, and the craft store for a display board.

We looked at the shell books together - but apart from that this was her thing. She decided she wanted to know:

1. What lives in a shell?
2. What color are shells?
3. What are shells called?

She discovered answers to these questions in our reading time together and created a display - on her own. I was called in to help with spelling but other than that I was hands off (the observer is never an easy role for me so I learned a little lesson too). As you can see she pulled it off and even felt comfortable taking questions from the audience:




Now she is excited about the International Fair. She's already selected her topic: The Philippines. She's into cooking right now so for her project she will be learning to make three different, traditional Filippino dishes. I suspect that I'll be called in to help decipher the recipes and handle the heat source. Sounds good.

At the End of the Day

Tuesdays are becoming bake and cook days. Stay at home, do the schooling, bake the bread and some other culinary delight requested by Nightowl.

Last Tuesday we began before breakfast - starting the bread sponge, putting the stock on for chicken soup. It was about fifteen degrees outside but we spent the day cozy and warm working in the kitchen. Nightowl helped to measure, stir, pick out ingredients. She is becoming very good at kneading and she's learning to handle a small knife for cutting. She always gets a small piece of dough to make her own creation as well. On this day she made a small cinnamon swirl loaf to share with Bearcub. In between the kneading, rising and adding soup ingredients we went about our business of lessons and learning. Even the Bearcub was remarkably unfussy.



By dinner time the kitchen was clean, the bread was was warm from the oven, the soup simmering and ready to be served. Chillymama came home. We had a lovely meal and discussed our enjoyable, busy day.

Chillymama opted to take care of the dinner clean up. As it was my night to work I went to my office to pack up my computer and files, getting ready to head out of the house. Then I heard the cry of "Oh no!"

Oh yes......


In our relaxed evening enjoyment we'd forgotten our beagle's odd and unnatural ability to leap from the floor to the counter-top. When I arrived downstairs I found Sunny, our 12-year-old hound, enjoying the last of the newly baked loaves.

Nightowl cried a little for the lost bread and I confess it made me very angry - all that work! But, after a few days I still had the great memory of our busy, cozy day. And as I remembered his swollen bread belly I kind of had to laugh. It's a good reminder that at the end of the day there is usually much to be greatful for - even if the dog does demolish the fruits of your labor.

Math, baby!

During the last couple of weeks we've been working on math: number sequence, the four processes (+,_, *, /), patterns, quality of numbers. Nightowl is really liking this subject. She asks for math every day. We are having a lot of fun with it. I'm trying to organize some dramatic math play with friends - hopefully this will evolve.

I have Nightowl here with me and I've asked her to share some of her thoughts about what we're doing these days.

Ok. I'll type whatever you want to say about what we've been doing lately.
We do Gnomes. Math Gnomes. How about you type their names?

You tell me their names and I'll type them.
Divide. Minus. Plus. Times.

What do they do?
They collect jewels.

Really? Where?
In the cave.

Why do they do that?
For the kind, kind, kind king who gives them nice homes.

So what do you do with these Gnomes?
They go on different math adventures. Like they help the squirrels find out how many nuts they have. Plus gives the squirrels more nuts if they need more. Minus takes away the nuts. And Times tells them how many times times makes...I guess. That one is tricky.

Hmm...what about Divide?
Divide divides nuts for the squirrels to share.

How do you have these adventures?
Sometimes we pretend to be the Gnomes. Sometimes you use a number grid. And you put down the numbers of all the steps they had to take. Like when they visited the Elf Queen. The squirrels in her kingdom needed help with their nuts. She asked the King if any of his gnomes knew how to count. He said yes. He said to his four Gnomes, when I saw this letter I thought of you, my funny little gnomes. So the Gnomes went to the Queen of the Elves. She said that the squirrles needed help because they have a lot of nuts and don't know how many they need.

What do you mean about the hundred steps?
The Gnomes asked the king how to get the Elf Queen. The King said that they needed to go 100 steps in any direction and once they went 100 steps the directions to the Elf Queen would magically appear in their hands. So the Gnomes went 100 steps.

Did you help?
Yes. I put down the numbers so that they would know how many steps they had gone.

Was it hard?
A little bit hard. It took me at least two days to get all 100 numbers.

So what do you do once the Gnomes are with the squirrels?
We pretend to be the Gnomes and the Squirrels. We help them figure out their nuts - they have a lot of nuts.

Which one are you?
I was all the Gnomes. Mommy was the Squirrles. Now I'm getting tired of talking.

Ok. Do you want to say anything else?
We made clay gnomes. That was fun. I made Divide and Plus. Mommy made Times and Minus.

Awesome. Anything else?
That's all I can think of. That's all for now.

Family Arts Weekend

Last Thursday Nightowl and I headed out on a mother-daughter adventure. We had signed up for the Family Arts Weekend at Taproot Farm in rural Ohio. We learned of this event via the Barbara Dewey newsletter (Waldorf Without Walls).

We started our trip with a side visit to our wonderful friends in Columbus. Nightowl got to play with her same age pal, Francie, and I got a late, late, late night chat with kindred spirit Nikki. We took the girls to see a production of the musical Annie and spent the rest of our time chilling and visiting and recollecting how much we all adore one another. It was a true love fest.

We arrived at Taproot Farm on Friday evening, unpacked our bags in the farmhouse (we got to stay in the Cinderella Room) and headed off to meet the six other families and play theater games. Over the next 24-plus hours we created original characters, built relationships between said characters, came up with a plot, created costumes, and staged a play. During our "free" time we learned how to wet-on-wet paint, make origami, participated in KP duty and creating communal meals, played theater games and sat around chatting and enjoying each others' company.

It was an amazing experience. Aside from what we created (which was pretty cool) the organic nature of the event is what I found most inspiring. All participants from aged 4 to much older, were able to be involved in all activites. The kids, and the adults, were included in the creation of their characters, which led to the creation of relationships, which led to the creation of the story, which led to the creation of the play. It was empowering. Everyone felt heard, and everyone seemed invested in the story.

Nightowl had a great time. In our final play her character was Carlos, the flying fairy. Working communally was very, very good for her. My character was Ref, the bashful newt. Working communally was very, very good for me.

I also came away with lots of wonderful new ideas for incorporating more dramatics into our everyday lessons - drama queens rule! I even learned to do wet-on-wet painting - a true miracle. Overall: a wonderful time had by all. (I've lots of photos from the weekend and plan to publish them somehow, sometime - when it's not nearly midnight.)

Flush right photos:
1 - View of the pond at Taproot Farm.
2 - Barbara demonstrates wet-on-wet painting
3 - My miracle painting.