Friday, August 30, 2019

Starting the School Year with Form Drawing

We have had a lovely and gentle start to the school year, with half of the children in our homeschool group planning on joining us next week after Labor Day. Our combined topic for the Grades in the month of September is Geography: Landforms & Water Features. This week of August was a transition into the school year as well as a transition into this topic, laying the foundation for it with Freehand Geometric Drawing (aka Form Drawing).

Form Drawing is always the first subject done in first grade in a Waldorf School as it helps the children develop fine motor skills as well as the hand strength and concentration that will be required when they begin to write.

The classic lesson in the Montessori Lower Elementary (age 6-9) classroom on the first day of school is the Big Bang. The classic lesson in the Waldorf grade 1 (age 6-7) on the first day of school is the straight line and curve.

In both methods, you start things out right away with a BIG IDEA which will be referred back to over and over throughout all of their learning.

Everything that the first graders see in the world around them is made up of the straight line and curve. So, too, are all of the letters that they will be expected to begin to write. Steiner also talks about doing a lot of painting of color stories, developing visual discrimination with children before they begin to write (you can read more about the Language Arts curriculum in Waldorf education in Teaching Language Arts in the Waldorf School, Roberto Trostli's wonderful FREE book of collected quotes painstakingly collected from Steiner's work). These color stories require the children to work with two colors of paint, bringing them closer and closer to each other but not allowing them to touch. The children also notice whether painting the two colors in different combinations results in a painting with a different feeling.


Handwork, particularly the teaching of knitting, is also done at the very start of grade 1 in Waldorf to help further strengthen the neural pathways connecting both hemispheres of the brain prior to the teaching of reading.

Even though the older children in our group will be doing more advanced form drawing this school year, they did the first few introductory forms of this week together with the younger children. These activities also call for students to focus on following directions, working slowly and carefully, and practicing care of the materials and care of the environment: things which are good for all ages! Next week the older children will move into complex mirrored forms as well as beginning their MLBs for the study of Geography.

The archetypal images of straight line and curve, mirrored forms and metamorphosis forms, also make up all of our landforms & water features.

It is wonderful that Geometry and Geography go so well together! Etymologically, they are translated as Earth-measuring and Earth-describing. What a pair.

~ ~ ~

With all of that in mind, we began with Form Drawing, Handwork, and Watercolor Painting in the afternoons. Here are some quick notes:


Monday, August 26

  • Form Drawing - straight line and curve
    walk the lines on the floor, feel in your body the sense of uprightness with the straight line compared to the gesture of giving and receiving with the curved line, draw in air, draw on paper with yellow
  • Rolled Beeswax Candles (straight line and curve)
  • Handwork - spinning roving with fingers, wrapping on stick
    (fiber: 50% camel / 50% silk)
  • Watercolor Painting - yellow circle in center, blue all around
    "Little Blue is curious about Little Yellow," as one child put it


Tuesday, August 27

  • Form Drawing - read A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston
    compare the gesture of the vertical with the horizontal "resting line,"
    lie down on floor, draw with toes, draw in air, find horizontal lines around the room to trace with your finger, draw on paper with blue
  • Plant seeds and place pots on Nature Table (resting line)
  • Handwork - feel and compare raw fleeces from my brother's sheep
    Stuart - full Blue Face Leicester
    Shadow - 50/50 Clun Forest / Shetland cross
    practice winding a ball of yarn (fiber: wool)
  • Watercolor Painting - blue circle in center, yellow all around
    "Little Yellow is curious about Little Blue"


Thursday, August 29

  • Form Drawing - read How Thunder and Lightning Came to Be: A Choctaw Tale retold by Beatrice O. Harrell, diagonal lines have a quality of movement, draw Figures 3a, 3b, 3c, 4, and 5 (from page 3) in shaving cream, draw in air, draw Figure 5 on paper with red
  • Sand and polish Game of Graces sticks (diagonal line)
  • Handwork - story of cotton plant, feel cotton boll, finger knitting
    (fiber: cotton)
  • Watercolor Painting - blue circle in center, red all around
    "I think some other colors should come to play on the playground"


Friday, August 30


This is the progression for the first four days of Form Drawing as described and illustrated in Form Drawing: Grades One through Four by Laura Embrey-Stine and Ernst Schuberth. This week we also had educational games and one-on-one introductions to the Montessori materials in the morning and, of course, lunch and recess (the vintage Game of Graces is the new favorite activity at recess, besides tree climbing and the mud kitchen). We also began Abel's Island by William Steig as a read aloud and started our Recitation exercises with memorizing "A Promise" from Whittle Your Ears by Barbara Dawson Betteridge. This lovely Waldorf book of poetry and plays is also available for FREE at the Online Waldorf Library.


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Thursday, August 29, 2019

Pics from Camp

We had a busy two weeks! It was impossible for me to capture everything, but here are a few highlights:


our practice archaeological dig experience

uncovering the pieces of a broken pot
hidden in the salt

drawing the items we find in their location
on the grid

trying to assemble the pieces

success!

watercolor painting map of India

Zac's impressionistic painting of the World Egg
from the Creation Story of Ancient India

aluminum foil fish collage for
"The Fishermen's Catch"
from Ancient Mythologies by Charles Kovacs

watercolor painting of a field of wheat
as the Ancient Persians develop the plow

the Stockmar colors are so beautiful!
prussian blue, sap green, burnt sienna, golden yellow

feeling a sheep hide (stiff and untanned)

building a fire in the copper fire pit

we begin to test our designs

finally, we have a fire and can grill the meat

it smells delicious!

Talib comes by to help after the fire goes out

the tangle of flax plants
from our Fibers & Clothing block
(which we never expected to germinate)

using a torch to melt glass

spooning salt on our cucumber slices
in preparation for Ancient Egypt

visiting the General John A. Logan Museum

the Native Tallgrass Prairie planting is so lovely

Director Mike Jones takes us to the dig site

our real archaeological dig experience

he digs some dirt for us to screen

we use blocks to protect our hands from possible glass

he shows us how a line level is used in archaeology

we screen dirt from two different locations

when we get back home
the cucumbers are standing in pools of water

we can see how the salt has pulled the liquid out

oil pastel and watercolor resist
painting of Ancient Egypt, the Red Sea, and the Nile

Queen Nefertrouti is prepared for mummification

papermaking with cookie cutters

laying out the Timeline of Written Language

Ancient Mesopotamian Bread

painting the Fertile Crescent

building an Egyptian shaduf

dyeing wool yarn in our study of Ancient Phoenicia
pokeberries

blackberries

the resulting wool

Becca's knucklebones report from 5th grade
we followed her directions to play the games

building an Archimedes Screw

it works!

wrapping Queen Nefertrouti
we filled her with salt inside and surrounded
her with salt outside, replacing the salt daily
(3 lb box of salt each day Mon - Fri)

No pictures of the Roman Feast which wrapped up camp on the last day but it was absolutely wonderful. Thank you to everyone who was a part, and a special thank you to our two field trip hosts, Chad and Mike, and to Talib and Flora for providing supplies and support throughout the two weeks of camp.


This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!