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!

Starting 5th Grade

So, a new year is upon us. I've spent the last week reading over materials I've downloaded. I'm on a very tight budget, and I like creating my "own" curriculum. Because of this, I haven't bought a structured curriculum, although there are several out there. 

This year, I mainly relied on Marsha Johnson's Waldorf Home EducatorsWaldorf Home Educators group in Yahoo groups and Meredith Floyd Preston over at A Waldorf Journey  Marsha has an incredible files section in the yahoo group. Plus, I get the daily email list with all kinds of suggestions. Meredith is selling her curriculum guides on her website, and they are very budget friendly. Between these two resources I've put together my year.

I also made a few purchases this year. I bought two of Kovac's books: Botany and Ancient Civilizations. I'm just starting to read through them now. I also bought Dorothy Harrer's English and Math books for the elementary grades. I think my favorite item I bought this year was a tin of Mecurius pencils. Pamela at Meadowsweet Naturals had them on sale. It felt like Christmas when I opened the package!

This year we'll be studying Botany; Ancient Civs: India, Persia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece; North American Geography; Math: fractions review, decimals, metric system, and freehand geometry. We'll include modeling (beeswax and clay), form drawing (taken from ancient civs and feehand geometry, music (piano and flute), and maybe...if I can handle it, French. Whew! I'm tired already!

Michaelmas

Michaelmas was different for us this year, since we are home rather than in a classroom setting. On Monday I told the story of St. George and the Dragon. Baby boy knows the story by heart, as one would after a few celebrations. We started St. George's salve and made beeswax models for our nature table. On Tuesday we made Dragon Bread. He was so pleased with how it turned out! Wednesday was our last day for the week and he painted a beautiful scene from the story. We changed over our nature table to a fall theme, brought out some candles, and made a hearty winter meal for our dinner.

Our recipe for St. George's salve:

1 cup marigolds,  2 cups olive oil. Place in a jar and set in the sunshine for 4 weeks. Strain marigolds, warm oil on stove. Add 1 oz beeswax. Stir. Let cool. If it is too runny, you can add more beeswax. We haven't gotten to that part yet. Ours is still in jars in the sunshine!