Organizing

We finished tidying up our school space this week. All of our drawings and charts (we tracked the weather last year) came down. All of my painting stacked in a pile for scrap. All of  ds's stacked neatly in a box for keeping. I sorted through our painting supplies and bought two new brushes and sorted out too-short pencils and stubby crayons. The handwork basket was tidied up, too. And that spurred both of us into pulling out unfinished projects and completing them! I made a little bunny for a dear 1st grader and he finished a puppy that he knitted in the round. I do believe everything is in place to start the year!

And although I want to start right now (yes, I'm a choleric!) I am trying to slow down and enjoy the last few weeks of summer. I love to be outside on these gorgeous, sometimes sweltering, summer days. One reason I chose to do Botany as our first block was to keep us outside as much as possible. Here in Pennsylvania we have a long beautiful fall. Great for hiking and generally being out of doors.

I was a bit anxious regarding block rotations. It seems that there are lots of prescribed rotations out there. I was wondering if there was an Anthroposophical reason for it. I've come to the conclusion, after doing much research, that you need to do what's best for you and your student, weaving "out breath" blocks with "in breath" blocks. I think I we'll do:

• Botany
• Math
• North American Geography
• India/Persia
• Math
• Mesopotamia/Egypt
• Greek Myths
• Math
• North  American Geography
• Greek History

And since we are homeschooling and don't belong to a large Waldorf co-op, pulling off a Greek Olympics would be rather lonely. I think we're actually going to use it as a theme for ds's 11th birthday party. But, I'm way ahead of myself now!