— Abraham
A few words along with some photos to helps us start our week on a strong foundation.
our friendship keeps me grounded
quieting all the chatter
remembering it is so much bigger than me
Parents often think that they are here to guide the little ones. When - in reality – the little ones come forth with clarity to guide you.
— Abraham
Wishing everyone a peaceful & blessed week.
Where’s that groundhog
My favorite NEW destination http://www.lettersfromladytown.com A town where I can be a my very best or worse and still fill loved:) Thanks ladies!
http://www.thewaldorfexchange.com Nicole has done an amazing job, her site is easy to use and very affordable. I plan on listing a stack of books this weekend/
No, I am not a doomsday prepper, this site is filled with tons of wonderful ideas and great at home healing recipes. http://www.thehomesteadsurvival.com
On my bedside table collecting dust:
The Talisman Italian Cookbook: This was my grandmother’s, still have not mustard up the nerve to try any of the recipes. She never used it of course but gave it to me( I guess she knew I need the help).
Heidi by Johanna Spyri: OK I know she adorable, but neither Sophia or I can get into this book. Any suggestion?
Wishing all of you a Happy Passover & Easter.
Love to you all
Andrea
I keep trying to write my Spring intention letter and I have to admit I am still struggling. I thought once Letters from Ladytown launched the fog would lift and the intention would come barreling out of me. (not so much)
In English, the word “intention” is defined as a course of action that one intends to follow, an aim that guides action, an objective. It’s a word from the Latin intendere meaning to direct attention or to stretch toward something.
In Sanskrit, the word for intention is Sankalpa, and it’s a representation of a desire or positive thought that you want to manifest in the world, a promise you make to yourself.
Now that I had clearly defined what the word” intention” meant surely I could come up with something; a short letter, even a line or two. Nope!
So, here is what I have decided to do: Allow myself time to let my intention evolve. If setting an intention is about reaching toward something, if it resides in the deepest part of my heart–then part of setting an intention involves listening carefully to what my heart wants. I have decided to allow my heart the time and space it needs to help me define my Spring intention.
To be blatantly honest I have never given myself permission to ask: What are my hopes? What do I need to let go of? What do I need to embrace? How do I want my days to feel? What is calling me? What makes me want to sing out loud? What takes my breath away?
I am anxious and eager to see what this meditative time will reveal. Letters from Ladytown gives me the courage to go deeper, my soul to fly higher & heart to sing louder.
That’s my WHY!
Happy Lady Day or is it Merry Lady Day? I am not really sure since Sheila recently shared this celebration with me. I am always up for a party and up until 1752 in England, Lady Day was used to mark the beginning of the New Year. I say lets bring it back and in honor of the holiday Sheila & I wanted share our new venture with everyone.
Our blog is dedicated to women’s inner work; so I encourage you to make a cup a of tea(in my case a strong cup of coffee), come on over and celebrate with us.
Happy Spring!
As the weekend draws near I begin to look inward. This is when I can take the time to ask what has this week brought and share what I have learned from it.
So much has happened in the past few weeks and I will share with you all soon. I have been trying to get back to my weekly cadence and I thought a great way to do that would be to start planning our Spring garden. A little hiccup today when we woke to a few inches of snow,but nothing wrong with a little sledding on a school day.
Choosing our seeds has been so much fun over at http://www.seedsofchange.com
Great way to get the kids involved in your planting http://www.bonzaiaphrodite.com/2009/03/how-to-make-newspaper-seed-pots/
When our veggies arrive I have found some wonderful recipes over at http://www.nourishedkitchen.com.
Food has really been shaping my week:) I loved this post about bone broth(sounded so gross before I read this,OK maybe still a little gross) http://www.littlepurplebarn.com/bone-broth/
What has shaped you this week?
Have a fun filled weekend friends:)
Andrea asked if I could guest post on her blog; she frequently comes to me with questions about the direction we would like to go with our homeschooling curriculum and thought that a father’s perspective may be valuable for this community.
There has been some discussions about “doubt” the past few weeks; doubt in “are we doing enough”, “are we doing the right thing”, are the kids going to respond to the content we are delivering, etc. I think that signs of these doubts are very positive things. We always do a “mirror check”. We check with each other often to insure we’re on track, feeding our children in the right way while they (hopefully) blossom under our approach. Constant adjustments should be the norm since as parents we are evolving as much as our children.
The coolest thing to me about homeschooling is being able to provide content that feeds their current passions. Sophia had recently expressed interest in the US Presidents and how much she enjoyed learning about them; we went online and found US President books for girls for her age group and let her explore that topic. She has also expressed interest in old cars and I plan to take her to an old car museum that they have at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. Every time we do these types of things I think back to how much I would have loved to have been taught this way! The style of learning imposed on me in public school was so constraining that it almost inspired dread that I had to learn about something I did not care about. Now we are feeding joy about an existing interest which we believe will inspire a love of learning instead of the indifference I experienced.
Another aspect I love with the freedom of homeschooling is taking our son Logan with me on business trips. I travel via car all around the Carolinas and I believe the learning opportunities that exist on these adventures are limitless. Not only do we get to spend quality “windshield time” with one another but he also gets to see what daddy does day in and day out. He gets to meet the people I talk about at home all of the time (one of my business associates calls him “Hulk Logan”) which helps with relevance for work stories I tell at home. In addition, he is learning business etiquette which sinks in more than I realize. Little things like how you greet people in a business setting, how you interact/engage with others and (most importantly) how to constantly ask questions to stimulate conversation and gather information. His natural inclination when he meets people is to talk about himself (perfectly normal) but these trips help reinforce a life-long lesson I try to make sure hits home: “Be interested, not interesting”. People want to be engaged, they want to share their feelings with you and feel like they are being heard. Too many people try to earn credibility by telling how much they know or tell interesting stories about what they have done. I tend to have a more favorable impression of people when they show genuine interest in what I am all about. Hopefully Logan is learning that valuable lesson.
The thing that has stood out to me the most is how challenging it is to home school a child. I think we were pretty close to terrible when we started but have just kept banging away each year and have made a marked improvement. The key has been to read and educate ourselves in different techniques or find out how others have made it fun and interesting. We consistently discuss with one another the direction we want to take, which continues to evolve. Most of all we have fun! Homeschooling is like having a child; they are both the most challenging yet rewarding thing you will ever experience. I love the art lessons, time outside, the exploration of nature, the museums and the music that is explored through Waldorf education and, unlike having a child; I don’t have to change poopy diapers!
Glad to be back after a week of healing!
A few words along with some photos to helps us start our week on a strong foundation.
getting my ducks in a row
preparing for the season
sharing great grandmother’s cookbook with her
Wishing everyone a peaceful week..
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” ~Mother Teresa
sharing my week
Friday revised: I decided to revise my initial idea for Friday’s posts; I hope you share what has shaped you this week.
As the weekend draws near I begin to look inward, this is when I can take the time to ask what has this week brought, and share what I have learned from it. Whenever we are engaged in something so much our heart responds to what lies in the lesson, we not only learn from it, we are forever changed.
First and foremost the women who I have met through this blog the past few weeks have brought so much to my table. I want to thank all of you for your emails, posts and comments.
Others that have shaped my week:
Sheila over at www.sureastheworld.com always gives me food for thought.
Amanda at www.soulemama.com is an inspiration, while her crafts intimidate me they also encourage me to stretch myself.
Sort of an addiction www.kellyraeroberts.com lock-up your credit cards before you visit.
A wonderful resource http://www.straightlineandcurve.co.uk
Books on my bed side table:
Lifeways Working with family questions by Gudrun Davy & Bons Voors
Child and the Machine by Alison Armstrong & Charles Casement
Have a sensational weekend my friends!
Flexible Approach
Kelley emailed after she read Alison’s post and shared her style of Waldorf homeschooling. I enjoyed reading it so much, I asked Kelley to share her approach with us. I hope you join in the converstaion. Blessings Andrea
A Flexible Approach to Waldorf
by Kelley Casey
There is so much I love about the Waldorf philosophy that I can get really excited about trying to create some sort of Waldorf ideal in our homeschool. I have had clear and specific ideas of what this would look like. I envisioned enthusiastic learners, wonderful stories and verses, cute little knitted creations, beautiful main lesson books full of artwork and writing, and lovely recorder music. Our real lives have unfolded a little differently than I imagined. As it turns out, my children do love a lot of what I love about Waldorf, but not all my children like music, not all have an interest in some of the main lesson blocks, no one (so far) loves yarn work and none of them want to produce the beautiful main lesson books I imagined. WHAT???? How can this be?
Well, I did have my moment of wanting to persist and insist (truthfully not just one moment, but several). Even when I won the battle, I had a kid on my hands that looked bored and was clearly not with me. So I told my perfectionistic, Waldorf-loving self to take a step back and reevaluate. Home education appealed to me because I understood that there is no one thing that works perfectly for all kids and above all else, I wanted my kids to maintain their curiosity and love of learning. Remember, the kids I imagined in our homeschool? They were enthusiastic learners! One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is flexibility, so if flexibility is what it takes to encourage enthusiastic learning, I can do flexibility.
One shift I made was to realize that I love learning about the Waldorf approach to learning. Waldorf is my thing. That learning gives me a framework for working with my kids. When I say framework, I am referring to the important principles: main lesson blocks, keeping a rhythm, keeping a simple schedule, going deep with a few subjects rather than a shallow learning of many subjects, preserving early childhood, nurturing creativity, etc. This learning also gives me a variety of skills and techniques: puppet shows, songs, drawing, painting, knitting, sewing, reading recommendations, etc. In our homeschool, the principles are essential. If I can be flexible about the subject matter, skills and techniques I use in response to what I know about each of my kids, then they are engaged, enthusiastic learners, which is what I hoped for in the beginning.
Here are some examples of what this flexibility looks like in our homeschool:
• Main lesson books: All of my children love to write, draw, paint, and are generally enthusiastic about all kinds of creative projects. Yet they are also completely resistant to being asked to write, draw or paint anything related to our main lessons. So, I provide the materials for all manner of creative projects. I am available to work with a child who is writing or creating. I do my own writing and creating along with them if they wish, or if they don’t wish, they at least have awareness that writing and creating are things that I do for myself. The kids and I can all agree that their writings and creations are important, so we keep them in a binder. Anything too large or bulky for binders we take pictures of and keep a memory of them that way. We have a lovely remembrance of the things each child did, what they were capable of, and who they were at that time. These binders are inspired by the idea of main lesson books, but we have taken that idea and really made it our own.
• Main lesson blocks: What absolutely works about the main lesson block for our family is taking the time to really focus on one thing for as long as we want to and not feeling rushed to move on to the next thing on our list for that day, week, or month. However, sometimes a particular subject or book has not been a good fit for one of the kids or else that child has had some other passion that particular year that they are driven to pursue. In second grade, my son got excited about the Little House on the Prairie series. We spent hours snuggled in front of the fire (if you can believe it, six hours on one particular day) reading those books and we read the entire series. During that time he wanted to learn some prairie/cowboy songs and make recipes from Laura’s time. Then we decided to make the trip to DeSmet, SD to see where Laura and Almonzo lived and also to Independence, KS to see the little cabin and museum they have there. In fourth grade, my son was completely wild about Greek and Egyptian mythology and not even remotely interested in Norse mythology. So we read Rick Riordan’s books, we read the original myths, we dove into Greek and Egyptian history, we read a lot about mummies, and we watched documentaries about ancient Egypt. For fifth grade, he was completely over the Greeks and Egyptians but passionate about war machinery and war history. So he built models and read about the history of these machines. He watched documentaries about planes and submarines. We took trips to see these machines, tour them and learn their history. The framework of the main lesson block was still useful, but flexibility about subject matter and timing allowed for some unforgettable learning experiences.
• Creativity: In my pursuit of knowledge about the Waldorf philosophy, I have developed a completely different understanding of creativity. I grew up in a public school where music and art were a less important addition to the real business of schooling. I have come to see art, music and other forms of creativity as absolutely essential to learning. I often think of art and music off the top of my head, but there is also building, yarn work, needlework, cooking, design…..so many ways to create. So while I see creativity as absolutely essential and important, I have flexibility about what creativity looks like more specifically for each of our children. I have one child that does not care about singing or music, but is truly passionate about art and also enjoys building. I have one child who is willing to draw and paint, but loves to sing, dance, play piano, and bake and is talented at fashion design. My two littlest girls also love to sing, dance, bake and will spend hours at the kitchen table painting or crafting. So while no one likes yarn work and there is no recorder music at our house, I can see that creativity does have an important place in our lives.
Rigidity in applying Waldorf principles in the homeschool cancels out one of the main benefits of homeschooling: the ability to tailor education to the learner. I can (and have) gotten stuck at times wanting to “do Waldorf right”, whatever that means. I have to confess that I love to plan and I like it best when life is unfolding according to my plan. It is more than a little difficult for me to set aside a book that I have carefully chosen or a main lesson plan that I put time and energy into when it becomes clear to me that it has flopped. One of the biggest lessons for me in this homeschooling journey has been if I can live the principles and be flexible about the details, the most important aspects of the dream I had for us when we started take shape in our real life.
Bio: Kelley Casey is a wife and mother of four children, ages 4-10, who has been reading and learning about the Waldorf philosophy and home education since she began homeschooling her children in 2007. She enjoys living and learning with her family through reading, adventuring, traveling and doing a variety of things (cooking, yarn work, sewing, building, gardening, crafting, etc.) Kelley is also a part-time clinical social worker who provides home-study services to families pursuing private or agency adoption.
