The more I learn about waldorf parenting, the more I love it! Back in March I bought the book Beyond the Rainbow Bridge . It was recommended to me by our first parent/tot class at a nearby waldorf school. Ok...it wasn't neccessarily that "nearby". One hour away, but it the closest one to where we live! In this book I learned about rhythms of the day. "Of course!" I thought. It makes such perfect sense, and yet we've had somewhat of a struggle to get a morning rhythm down. Thank goodness, I came across a few waldorf homeschooling groups on Yahoo that were discussing this very same thing. I took a few notes and wrote down some of the routines that some of the other mama's have shared, which works for them.
Morning Rhythms
Rhythm 1
Creative play
snack
circle time
morning activity(M.baking, T.painting,W.modeling,TH.soup/salad, F.handwork)
outside-walk in forest and creative play
Rhythm 2
Morning:
Breakfast (one child helps me with clean up)
get dressed, make beds, brush teeth
Morning circle time (includes flute playing, bean bag math, rhythm games, singing, poetry recitation, singing, story telling)
Fee play and/or nature walk
Snack
Main lesson work (8 year old) / drawing (6 year old)
Free play
Lunch (the other child helps me with clean up)
Afternoon:
Wet on Wet Watercolor Painting (Monday), Baking and Spanish class (Tuesday), Handwork and Modeling (Wednesday), Homeschool Co-op (drama, circle games, art and other) and Yoga class (Thursday), Free day, play days scheduled with friends (Friday)
Again, these two morning rhythms are examples from two other families.
I am working on our daily rhythms and what works best for us on certain days. It's a process as I'm sure many of you know. I'll let you all know what type of routine/rhythm we end up with.
One thing we have just started is Baking-Wednesday afternoon. Today was our first and we really enjoyed it! We baked chocolate chip cookies from a recipe found in The Lakehouse Cookbook, written by Sting, his wife Trudie, along with their chef Joseph Sponzo. Lot's of yummy rustic recipes from their working organic farm. Great book!
It went a little something like this...
"Ooh Mama! What's this?" as he's pointing to the chocolate chips.
"That's chocolate chips for the cookies", says Mama.
"Oh, I like chocolate chips!", he says.
Then he points to the flour, "Ooh, what this?".
"That's flour for the cookies", Mama explains.
"Oh, I like flour!" Tyler says with such enthusiasm.
"Ooh, what's this?" he asks again, while pointing the the wheat flour.
"That's also flour, it's wheat. It's also for the cookies.", I say.
"Oh, I like also!", Tyler says with such conviction.
"Oh honey, you are just too cute!", Mama says with a chuckle.
It looks like it is working well! He is so engrossed in his work. A great moment.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I did not know that Sting had a working organic farm. Very cool!
ReplyDeleteHere's an interesting tidbit from the inside flap-
ReplyDelete"... she and her husband have lovingly transformed the property into a working organic farm, with more than sixty acres of fruits and vegetables, four types of livestock, and honey- and cheese-making facilities." Could you imagine? It sounds amazing!
Ahh, that description you just wrote about the working organic farm sounds so amazing! What a nice post, we are Waldorf homeschoolers our Waldorf school is also an hour away! I love the wholeness of Waldorf and the rhythms of the day! Your conversation with your son is completely adorable, your right he *is* too cute!!! : )
ReplyDelete