Cinderella "Work"

Since Natalie is in a Montessori school, all her class activities are presented to her as different kinds of work. At her OT evaluation, they told me that she needs to improve her finger and wrist strength so that writing does not fatigue her and recommended that she be given the task of picking up pins with a pair of tweezers and dropping them down the neck of a small bottle. Also, she should be doing a lot of work with clay. So I filed these suggestions away and that evening we were reading Cinderella (as a follow up to the needle felted pumpkin) and lo and behold, Cinderella was given the task of picking lentils out of the ashes! And I thought aha, we have lentils! So I set out a tray for her filled with sand and lentils, along with a pair of tweezers and a small bowl, and she has been happily doing Cinderella work for days.

November for us so far has been a continuation of our fall themes in September and October. Pumpkins, with the needle felted pumpkin. Root Vegetables, with the story "The Turnip" which I did with the children and sent into school for them to do (Natalie helped set up the figures on the silk and tell the story) along with a whole turnip w/top and a pot of turnip stew. The children have been continuing to bury their bulbs deeper by adding layers of mulch to their garden beds (each child has a garden of her own). This week is full of doctor visits and other appointments so we won't be doing much, just getting ready for Leah's party on Saturday. Today we went out and bought six bottles of organic grass fed cow yogurt so that we can use the milk bottles in our party games. Right now I am thinking:

pin the tail on the cow
pig nose relay (put the pig nose on, run to the other post and back, take off the pig nose and hand to your teammate)
milk bottle magic (fill the bottle up with water, see how many pennies you can add -- one at a time -- before it overflows)
farm animal charades
moosical chairs

Then it will be time to hunker down and get serious about Christmas. I finished making my hand-stamped Christmas cards today and now have to find the names and addresses of everyone on my list, as well as organize all the piles of gifts I've bought and see what there is left to do. The plan was to get all the shopping done by November 1st and then have 2 months left to complete the handmade stuff at a leisurely rate. Ha! :-)

I've been invited into the classroom to do some lessons as part of their Pilgrim theme. Thursday I will be teaching the children about wool and doing a wet felting project -- probably felting a bar of soap -- and Monday I will be leading them in dipping candles.

In Sunday School, we began with finger knitting today (I also taught Natalie) and next week will be making our needles. To support Heifer Int. we will be knitting small chicks (from Knitted Animals) to sell for $20 each, the cost of a flock of chicks. Today during the finger knitting we did the story of Solomon Building the Temple, and his death and The Kingdom is Divided. Next it is on to some of the prophets.

I had a S.S. guest today who was so excited about the class that she begged to come back next week because, she said, "I want to see what you're going to do." That made me very happy. My supervisor filled in for me last week while we were in CO and wrote to me, "Fun story, happy children!" Their drawings of the two identical bouquets of flowers were beautiful. I did one myself, for my S.S. lesson portfolio, and it came out quite lovely. Watercolor pencils are really nice for this.