Brussells Sprouts and Strep

No, they're not related. :-) I'm just thinking about all the stuff I have to write about. Today in the grocery store we found B. Sprouts growing on the stalk! I've always tried to explain to my kids how they grow but with little luck. However the grocery store had great honking stalks which had just been whacked off at the bottom and the little sprouts were still hanging on to the sides. Adorable. The cashier looked at me like I was nuts but I was so excited to buy it and bring it home. Right now Leah and Rebecca are disassembling it and putting the sprouts in a bag.

To back up, things here have been exciting. Natalie began throwing up yesterday and was sporting a fever of around 102.7 for most of the weekend. However, in a hang-on-to-the-edge-of-your-seats twist yesterday afternoon it shot up to 104.5 and she began to have visual hallucinations. It freaked me out. She was sitting next to me and I was applying cool compresses to her forehead when she suddenly said, Mommy, the ceiling fan is turning pink and purple. And I said put on your coat. We are going to the hospital. While at CMH she came back with a positive strep test. Apparently strep can cause a very high fever and the vomiting is from the fever coming and going suddenly. Today while we were at the pediatrician he tested her temp and it was 104.9 whereupon I really freaked out. I didn't show it but I was so upset and worried. Then we went to the grocery store to get her prescription and were shopping for things like clear soups etc while we waited and Natalie asked me if she could have some orange juice and my eyes just welled up with tears and I choked up and said, "you can have whatever you want sweetheart." Because you just want to turn the world upside down and do whatever it takes to make them feel better, you know?

Anyway, so the younger two and I are making pizza with tomatoes and mozz. cheese and broccoli for dinner and Natalie'll be dining on things like applesauce and crackers. I did let her buy whatever she wanted and we will wait until she feels better to try some of them.

In school news I am getting my Montessori Lower Elem. teacher certification. However, I have the school's blessing when it comes to blending Mont. and Waldorf so here goes! It will be a great school year. Here is our schedule (this may be helpful to homeschoolers as well) for the three blocks of the day.

Head
8:30 am - 10 am

Heart
10 am - 11:30 am

Hands
1:30 pm - 3 pm


This is three 1 1/2 hour blocks. If you know Waldorf you know that Heart is painting, foreign language, music, etc. For Handwork the school director would like me to teach my class to knit so that's where we'll begin.

The class is a combined class and so children who aren't getting their main lesson can be moving around using the Montessori materials in a self directed way. I want to honor the strengths of the Montessori method (and the materials are lovely) but also bring in some of my own talents and the benefits of Waldorf!

So the way I usually recommend to homeschoolers to set up the year is Alan Whitehead's way (although an artificial constraint it helps to give variety and structure to your year). The MLBs go in the following order:

September - Language Arts
October - Mathematics
November - Social Studies

January - Science
February - Language Arts
March - Mathematics
April - Social Studies
May - Science


This is tweaked a bit; he actually does 3 week MLBs and gets in three sessions of each subject. But I find that a month is an easier way to think of it. I take out December completely since it is full of holidays to study and handwork projects to complete and travel and baking and so on, all of which has educational value and I don't see that there's any way to also add in a subject to study.

So for January we are heading into a Science month. My younger kids will be doing the Four Seasons, which will include (this is stretched quite a bit from what pure Waldorf would do for this block) a look at how the Earth rotates and how the Cosmos was formed and how it moves, writing seasonal poetry -- including introducing Noun, Verb, Adjective and Adverb grammar work and using it in our poems, making a calendar of the year to come and decorating it each month with a poem and seasonal watercolor painting.

The older group will be doing Animal Homes which is a 2nd grade MLB I wrote a while ago and will shortly be adding to the website under the subscription side. We will look at homes of the following animals: bird, beaver, spider, honeybee, prairie dog and ant lion. I will integrate (again, more content than trad. Waldorf) into this simple machines (lever, pulley, wheel), the animal life and biome of our region, natural resources of our area, hibernation and migration, and modeling work. I look forward to introducing this group to modeling beeswax! Look to Arthur Auer's book for wonderful modeling ideas for all ages.

The two topics should blend back and forth beautifully and I am looking forward to this month.

I also want to do The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as our read aloud book, and begin each child on a personal journal which they can write and draw in at the close of each day for reflection time.

Gotta go -- Natalie's fever is at 104.9 again.