The Homeschool Journey

Homemaking & Personal Development Study

2009-12-06T15:10:41-06:00

Beginning Monday 15 February 2010, I will lead a study on the Christopherus online discussion forum focused on personal development for homemakers.

I am excited to offer this opportunity because becoming conscious of one's personal development in relation to one's role as a homemaker is a key component to creating a calm, well ordered and healthy homelife for one's family.

Anthroposophy has much to offer seekers interested in their own spiritual development and I am pleased to have found a new book by Veronika van Duin which arises out of her own journey as an anthroposophist and homemaker. We now sell this book in our Bookstore - to join our study you need to have a copy!

This study is open to all with an interest in exploring how anthroposophy can help them on their path of self development as a homemaker.

A Watercolor Dip in the Ocean

2009-11-10T20:20:29-06:00

The following is written by Barbara Benson, one of our Christopherus consultants. I love this article because it gives a lovely picture of how differently children approach the same task. Sometimes people go into Waldorf lower grades classrooms and ask "why are the pictures all the same". If they had opened their eyes a bit further, they would clearly see that the pictures are never the same, even when the subject is the same!

Barbara has sent me photos of the paintings her class did - in the next month I will be undertaking a huge task of putting many many new pictures up in the Homeschoolers Work section of our website - most of the new pictures feature work from children from 4th grade and up. As soon as that task is finished, you'll be able to see the paintings Barbara is writing about - as well as other fine examples of work from homeschooled children!

As fall starts to merge into the cooler winter months in the Midwest, it is a good time to snuggle indoors with our children and appreciate some quiet activities together. One of my favorite things to do is spend more time on crafts and painting. I particularly like to do watercolor painting for we can create imaginative and colorful pictures indoors in spite of the grey weather outdoors.

This past week we have been studying sea creatures in 4^th grade in the Man and Animal main lesson. My small coop of 3 girls enjoyed the colorful jellyfish book we looked at and so I decided to do the sea painting that is in Donna’s 4^th grade syllabus. Early that morning, I had experimented with the colors and directions Donna gave, and learned from a few mistakes I made. I have found that I can’t just” wing it” with water color paintings for older children. If I do it myself beforehand I have a sense of how the painting sequence unfolds and also how long it will take.

I allotted a half an hour for this painting in our coop class and I even had a brief written outline that I made to remind me of the colors and step sequence I wanted to use. I made sure that the reverse color of the group of jelly fish was not later than step three since I found that if I waited longer, the ocean background had dried a bit too much to remove color easily.. For the girls, the important moment was their jellyfish. One child made her “jellies” at a real angle as if caught up in the ocean current. Another made hers placidly grouped together and more vertical as if the sea was calm. The last child made her jellies smaller and her seaweed quite large. I think the thought of a big gooey jellyfish did not appeal to her! Once the jellyfish were painted and each one had its shimmering highlights of lemon yellow, rose red and ultramarine blue, the girls turned to their vermilion starfish. The room was quiet and focused. Each girl worked slowly and carefully and even my one student who normally rushes with drawing really slowed down and approached each creature with relaxation and attention.

Our hermit crab was last and the girls knew that it would be hardest to paint. We talked about its two fighting claws, one bigger than the other; its eyes and its lovely rounded shell. We even looked at a few pictures of the hermit crab from our read-aloud book, PAGOO. By the end of the half an hour, each vermillion Pagoo was safe and snug in his golden and lemon yellow snail shell.

As the paintings were drying and the girls were cleaning up, each one appreciated the other’s work and all of them seemed renewed from their watercolor dip in the ocean.

Barbara

high school notes

2009-10-31T13:47:56-05:00

The following is written by Debbie G. in Canada. She bought our Comedy & Tragedy notes to use with her 9th grader and was very pleased. She sent us both a testimonial (the first paragraph) as well as a description of what she and her son did. I was especially interested to read of her son's experience with Electra: I taught a Comedy & Tragedy main lesson to several groups of 9th and 10 graders and had a similar experience with them. Each group complained bitterly about Electra and "couldn't understand it". Then, somewhere about half way through the play they all "got it" and could suddenly understand what was going on (of course, this didn't stop some of them continuing to complain bitterly....!). I think this is a very good example of where one has to be sensitive but firm in one's teaching, whether one is teaching a young child or a teen, groups or individuals. If you know in your gut that a lesson is the right lesson then you need to just persevere, no matter how much the child complains! Learning is not linear and its benefits are usually not immediately apparent (too bad the people who design most standardized tests don't seem to realize this and instead favor the "regurgitation method" of schooling). If material is well chosen and given at the right time, it will have the right effect on the child or teen. And one clear way to see this is when a child makes a breakthrough and "gets it". Those moments are wonderful and can make the otherwise hard slog of homeschooling worth it!

We are planning further high school and middle grades materials. We have plans for books on computers (8th/9th grade); poetry (9th/10th grade); the Middle East (a social studies block for general high school grades); and economics (11th or 12th grade). We will let you know when we have further details on these, whether they will be "high school notes" or "proper books" and when they are likely to appear. None will appear before the summer (2010).

This is what I really love about the "high school notes:" without being a full curriculum or detailed unit studies book, the Comedy and Tragedy booklet gives just enough background into the material and guidance through the different types of theatre and plays to enable one to put together their own block. A progression through a sort of "evolution of the theatre" is clearly laid out, with ideas for specific activities to tie into the different plays that are PRACTICAL for homeschoolers to do on their own, which is not usually the case in upper grades homeschooling materials. I thought that I knew a lot about the theatre before teaching this block, but I learned enormously about some kinds of theatre that I had never even heard of. The lists of background information and questions for discussion that Donna gives for each play stimulated lots of very interesting discussions between my son and I and really provoked thinking on his part that he wouldn't have otherwise have come to. Because Donna explains the reasons behind studying comedy and tragedy in the first place, and shows one how to approach and discuss some difficult material with teens, it was also possible for me to substitute a particular play or add on an extra play that we (okay, I..) really wanted to study and approach it in the same way as the rest. I loved using this booklet, and am hoping for more in the "high school notes" series.

I have loved doing this block. I knew that I would love it, because I love the theatre and was really involved in it when I was younger, but I wasn't sure about Zach. He really rose to the challenge, though. When we first started reading Electra, I thought he was not going to make it through. It was painful to read the play aloud together since he pronounced every second word wrong and at the end of each speaker we would have to stop and discuss what was said and basically "translate" it because he couldn't understand a word. I would give him small sections to read on his own for the next day and would also give him some of the questions for discussion for him to think about before we met again and we would talk about them together. He would always come back saying, "I'm really sorry....I read it a bunch of times but I just don't understand what is going on or what they are saying." It hurt me physically. Then, about halfway through the play, when we had been discussing the characters and their actions and motivations for about a week, he was reading a monologue out loud and in the middle of a line he broke off and shouted- "I'm getting it!!-" and then kept reading. It was the breakthrough moment where you forget that you are reading or listening to Shakespeare (for example) and you are suddenly understanding it like your own language. It was so wonderful and very exciting. After that he was very excited about the play and was very heated about some of the discussions about motivations of the characters, right and wrong, etc. It is funny how black and white teenagers are, isn't it? I suddenly found myself filling the role that my grade nine English teacher had filled - while all the rest of us in the class were sure about something being absolutely right or wrong, she would smilingly offer the alternative argument and act like she really believed it and it drove us insane. Finally one time near the end of the year during a particularly heated discussion (Merchant of Venice I think) she admitted that she was simply playing the devil's advocate because someone had to offer an alternative argument or their wouldn't be any discussion. We couldn't believe it.

I also added in Macbeth as an extra tragedy - I just couldn't resist. It is my favourite Shakespeare play (I actually played Lady Macbeth in high school) and there is a performance nearby that we are hoping to see next week so I wanted Zach to have read it. We did watch the Twelfth Night movie that you recommended and Zachary really loved reading the play and watching the movie.

I have been thinking as I used this book that these "high school notes" are perfect for someone like me. It doesn't have all of the background anthro stuff about the age group, the consciousness of the child at that age, what the curriculum as a whole is trying to do, etc. Just the info on what I am trying to accomplish in this block, what materials I need, the general progression of lessons, ideas for activities/student work, and a list of resources. Perfect! Please publish more like this!

Imagination and Discipline

2009-10-30T12:57:04-05:00

Today I had an opportunity to remember how one needs to develop one's own imagination so as to deal creatively with a potential discipline problem with young children. What happened was both typical and easily dealt with - so I thought I'd share it with you all!

I have a friend who lives near-by who runs a Waldorf-inspired day care out of her home. She phoned me and asked if she and her children could come by this morning to trick or treat. They do this every year- and before they come she brings round a basket of healthy treats that she has baked or gives me some little something to give them. This year it was a little strip of stickers for each child.

So at around 10:30 this morning a little band of 6 children dressed in their Halloween costumes came to my door with my friend. "Trick or treat" they chorused. I came out and exclaimed over their costumes (I was a bit sad to see that every one of them was store-bought. I guess parents who send their children to day care don't have time to make costumes with them) and we had a lovely little visit. I gave each a strip of stickers. My friend had supplied each child with a zip-lock baggie (printed with her name) to hold her treats. Before they came to my house they had visited another house and each child had received a little rubber mouse.

Suddenly one child said "I want to play with my mouse" - this was after she and several others had already dropped their mice a couple of times (these children were between about 2 1/2 and 3 1/2). My friend knelt down and gently said "We must put our mice in the bags". The child protested and I could hear in her voice that she was getting agitated. The others also looked set to take out their mice and a full scale rebellion was in the works!

So I jumped in: "You know, those little mice need nice little nests so that they can go to sleep, warm and snug in your bags." I bent down and picked up some leaves from my porch. I opened the little girl's bag and put the leaves inside. "Now you have a lovely nest for your mouse to sleep in". Hey presto! She was thrilled and immediately put her mouse in the nest and was happy for my friend to zip up her bag so she wouldn't lose her mouse. The other children were also interested so I said "Let's get some leaves for your mice, too!" We spent a few happy minutes gathering fallen leaves, putting them in their bags and nestling the mice in them. Everyone was happy, the children were cooperative because they had been "disciplined" (ie brought into form) in a way that was consistent with their developmental stage. And my friend was happy becasue the children were content - and she didn't have to cope with a temper tantrum or lost Halloween mice! It was a win-win situation.

Young children under 7 are in the imitative phase of life. What they see, they do. Their will forces need to be engaged, not their latent thinking processes - so we "do" with them. Verbal appeals or exhortations break little ice with very young children and this has nothing to do with them being contrary, difficult, strong willed etc etc. It has to do with the fact that they live primarily through the activity of their bodies - and addressing them through their will forces and imitative powers is the way to help them through the day. And....the third piece we must keep in mind is the power of imagination - by creating a scenario or an image, we can harness positive forces which are in every child by igniting their imaginations and being or doing at the same time. "Let's be lions getting into our den" as we get into the car. "Mama bird has to strap baby bird into his car seat so we can fly through the air together". "Mama bear is eating up all her good soup - let's see Little Bear eat hers!" And so on.

Need more help with this? Have a listen to my audio downloads on Talking Pictorially, Pre-K at Home and The Changing Face of Disciple, three of our audio downloads available in our Bookstore which address this subject in depth.

Autumn Field Trips

2009-10-19T12:26:22-05:00

Each month we will be featuring an article or two by Lisa Marshall and/or Barbara Benson, our Christopherus on-line forum moderators and consultants. To learn more about Barabara and Lisa and our consultation service, please click here! Here is the latest from Barbara....

This year my daughters are in 7^th and 4^th grade and we are in the middle of Indiana geography/history and the Renaissance. To honor these two main lessons in a living way we decided to do two field trips. The first was called Feast of the Hunters Moon, a reenactment of the French and Indian trading post lifestyle at Fort Ouiatenon in Lafayette, Indiana. The reenactment is right on the river, on the original trading post/ fort site and is set up just for one weekend each fall. The reenacters live on the site all weekend and try to live and cook as much as possible in an authentic way.

We first wandered around a Wea Indian village, watching a game of Indian lacrosse and listening to native speakers. We moved on to the block house trading post with furs on the wall and demonstrations of how the voyageurs carried their trade goods and protected them in their canoes. We went down to the voyageur camp and saw the colorful canoes and the encampment of the voyageurs. We watched French Canadian dances and munched on corn roasted in the husk. We moved over to the early colonial troop encampment with all the soldiers in military uniforms and looked at a variety of early colonial trades and crafts like the cooper, the blacksmith, the pewter and silversmith, the leather shop, the wood carver, the milliner, the paper maker and lots more. My daughters were fascinated by some crafts that were new to them like tatting but knowledgeable on others like making pine needle baskets. They talked to the traditional craftswomen with ease and really enjoyed watching the spinning and dyeing of wools in the big kettles and feeling soft alpaca wool. We nibbled on free samples of warm water bread and walked until we were truly tired. We came home a bit smoky from all the open fires in the encampment but feeling as if we had experienced a colorful and living slice of Indiana history.

Our second field trip was to the Ohio Renaissance Fair with a time period of Elizabethan England. This was a more commercial set up with thirty acres of buildings and open spaces that stay up from year to year but it was well done. We began by watching a hilarious comedy team of two swordsmen that were quite talented with their blades and got the audience very involved. Everyone that either entertained or ran a shop stayed in character and was dressed in period costume.

We moved on to watch a marvelous stone cutter who did beautiful designs in limestone and then the girls got their hair braided in a French type braid using long leather strips woven into their hair. We then watched a joust with knights in full armor on marvelous big horses and huzzahed for our champion (who happened to lose). This was a friendly joust of course but the men were really breaking their long wooden lances when they clashed. We continued on to watch some country dancing near the maypole and then we all had a chance to weave the ribbons of the maypole—there were at least 20 people weaving amidst some laughter as 6 foot tall men ducked under the ribbons of 8 year olds! We wandered through Renaissance type arcades like archery shooting and throwing knives at targets and boys being spun around in large barrels by a burly man. We saw a talented stunt man/acrobat performing on the Gloriana Stage and we laughed at another comedy routine called Washing Wenches set in a field in front of a small pond where the ladies had lots of country humor and made several audience males do silly things. We watched a glass blower working on a large vase for about 20 minutes and were reminded again of what a difficult craft it is. We poked into dress shops and heraldry shops and saw the latest Renaissance jewelry fashions. We watched an improvisational story teller with a very funny take on Sinbad the Sailor and my husband was one of the people picked to shout out “plot twist,” which would require the story teller to change his story’s direction. The girls really appreciated his improvisation abilities. The girls tried on a short vest of chain mail that weighed ten pounds and learned how the craftsman did his work. We saw jugglers and fools and listened to tavern sailor singers and bought some incense sticks that were fragrant with natural amber and other exotic smells. We took lots of costume photographs since many of the people that came as visitors were also dressed in period costume and some were quite amazing. Perhaps this Fair was not quite as historically authentic but I appreciated the Elizabethan humor and the efforts everyone made to stay in character.

I think the whole family came away with some wonderful memories and a real sense of living history. It also helped that the weather cooperated, especially for the Renaissance Fair, so we could comfortably walk in the crisp autumn sunshine. These field trips take some advance planning and the Renaissance trip was a three hour car ride one way, but it was well worth the effort. Both of our field trips have enhanced my daughters understanding and helped to create living pictures of their main lessons. Enjoy your autumn journeys!

5th Grade Mathematics

2009-10-12T14:20:56-05:00

Now available! Click here for more details and to order yours!

Free Shipping from Bella Luna Toys!

2009-10-12T10:01:32-05:00

My name is Sarah Baldwin and I am delighted to introduce myself as the new owner of Bella Luna Toys, which recently moved operations to the beautiful midcoast area of Maine. As a Waldorf early childhood educator with many years of experience and former homeschooler, I am committed to providing you with the highest quality natural products and playthings inspired by Waldorf education.

Fall is definitely in the air here in northern New England! This past weekend, my two boys and I packed away the summer clothes, and pulled out our sweaters and woolens. A fire is crackling in the woodstove as I write, and the first nips of frost and brilliant foliage remind us that Halloween will soon be here!

Costumes from Sarah's Silks

If you are looking for a costume for your young child, please be sure to check out our full line of costumes from Sarah's Silks.

See our coupon below for Free Shipping in October

Fun Fact: Sarah Lee of Sarah's Silks, a company based in northern California, grew up just a bit north of me in Belfast, Maine. No wonder I am so fond of her beautiful products!

Great Watercolor Paper!

I am very pleased to announce that Bella Luna Toys now carries the very best paper for wet-on-wet watercolor that I have ever come across.

As an early childhood teacher, I experimented with many brands of watercolor paper over the years. It was often a frustrating experience. Some paper was thin, others would pill after a short while; edges would curl; or the paper would dry crinkly or wavy.

My frustration ended one day when a colleague, who was also an artist, introduced me to this high quality, heavy-weight, artist-grade paper. This company has been manufacturing watercolor paper for over 60 years to exacting specifications using the highest quality materials. This paper holds up to the sometimes rough painting techniques of preschoolers, and will not pill or curl.

The end result is always beautiful, and paintings can be cut to make beautiful cards and gift tags. The 11x15 size is perfect for wet-on-wet watercolor painting with young children.

From the Classroom

Speaking of watercolor painting, one of my favorite activities to do with the children in my class during this time of year was to make "Leaf Masks" with a sheet of watercolor paper, brightly painted with shades of red, yellow and orange.

1) Have an 11x15 dry, watercolor painting, painted with fall colors, ready to use.

2) Choose a beautiful oak or maple leaf.

3) Trace the leaf onto a plain piece of paper.

4) Enlarge the drawing on a photocopy machine to roughly 10x14 inches. This will become your pattern. Cut out the pattern.

4) Trace the pattern onto the backside of the watercolor painting with a pencil, and cut out the outline (5- to 7-year-olds can do this themselves!).

5) Holding the cut out leaf up to your child's face, mark with a pencil the placement of their eyes.

6) Cut out two eye holes (adults should do this part).

7) Attach a stick to the bottom of the cut-out leaf (I used clear packing tape) to make a mask which the child can hold up over his or her face.

After all the children in my class had finished his or her mask, we would proudly march in a procession, wearing red, yellow and gold silk playcloths for autumn capes, hiding our faces behind our beautiful leaf masks!

You may notice that many items are still listed as "out of stock" on the website. Well, please know that I am now on a first-name basis with the UPS man, whose truck seems to have become a permanent fixture in the driveway here on Buttermilk Lane. He is delivering new inventory daily and I am working on updating the site as quickly as I can. If the item you are looking for appears to be unavailable, please feel free to e-mail me at info@bellalunatoys.com to inquire as to its status. And keep checking back for new product updates and additional features!

Miaja Rocciola, Bella Luna's founder, started a company in 2002 based on excellent and personal customer service. I am fully committed to continuing that tradition. Your feedback, comments and suggestions are always welcome. Please let me know how I can best serve you and your family.

Happy Fall!

Warmly,

Sarah Baldwin

Bella Luna Toys

The Free Shipping offer below is valid in the US and Canada only for ground shipments. Additional shipping charges apply to overseas shipments and expedited or air freight. Please contact me for more information.

Free Shipping	To celebrate Bella Luna's new ownership and move to Maine, we are offering free shipping for the month of October! On the checkout page, simply enter the code FREESHIP1009 through 10/31/09 for free shipping on any size order!
Offer Expires: October 31, 2009