Galapagos George
by Jean Craighead George
597.9
Worldwide Endangered Species List
A valuable resource for the classroom! But make sure you have several large binders and several boxes of page protectors.
This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!
I don't feel comfortable having it be a new post, that will go into everyone's inboxes who subscribes, so I went back and found an old post that could be combined with something else (Galápagos George by Jean Craighead George moved to the Worldwide Endangered Species List post).
Ironically, a book about extinction is a story about death.
This, however, is about world religions. I have a student in the 2022-2023 school year who has requested a block on religions of the world and how they care for their dead. I think it will be really interesting! I'm not entirely sure why I don't feel comfortable writing about it more publicly, but there you go. There's just something about death. We don't really talk about it in school -- or in society, for that matter -- except the Holocaust and 9/11. And for both of those things you have to get parent permission in advance.
So as I wrap my mind around this topic, I'm going to keep a list of resources here:
Design for Death: The Last Stone
Urn for Memorial Ceremony on Water
Design for Death: Mushroom Death Suit
Turning the dead into beads: South Korea's 'odd' new trend
The Week - January 10, 2015
Death in the Holy Land: Coronavirus changes burial for Jews, Muslims
Reuters - April 2, 2020
Coronavirus Is Changing the Rituals of Death for Many Religions
NPR - April 7, 2020
How the World Has Learned to Grieve in a Pandemic
Council on Foreign Relations - May 19, 2020
They lost their loved ones to Covid. Then they heard from them again
CNN - June 20, 2021
How We Mourn Covid's Victims
The New York Times - August 9, 2022
I also wrote a previous post on picture books about death and dying.
This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!
November 2006
Well, my oldest daughter, Natalie, is turning 12 tomorrow. And tonight she is setting up her ring. She took the basket of ornaments and candles and wooden pieces and turned to me and said, "Didn't you tell me once that there is a ring that goes up to 16?" And I said yes. The girls all clustered round the laptop as I went to Nova Natural and brought it up on the screen. They agreed, "We like our family's traditions."
So a 16 Hole Cherry Birthday Ring went in my cart.
If you have a little one, and you are thinking of starting this tradition, forewarned is forearmed. Go for the 16 hole one!
She shares lots of details about the stories she told her girls, pictures of their MLB pages, and the beautiful nature layouts that accompanied the story as it developed.
Update:
I wrote this post back in 2014 to help me remember the best resources for this block. Now that I've taught Quality of Numbers a few times (most recently in 2021), I have written a Ruzuku course sharing ALL of my notes (bullet point, day by day) including the stories we used, photos and videos, riddles, art ideas, field trips, etc. The Ruzuku courses are fabulous because they are limited to families who are planning for -- or teaching -- this exact same block, so you can share your creative ideas, get feedback as you plan, and celebrate your favorite teaching moments with a cohort of people who are doing this topic right alongside you! Join us!
Quality of Numbers Ruzuku Course
$30.00
Lifetime Access!
I have great eurythmy books including
Eurythmy for the Young Child: A Guide for Teachers and Parents
Leaving Room for the Angels: Eurythmy and the Art of Teaching
Come Unto These Yellow Sands: Eurythmy, Movement and Classroom Experience
Bob & Nancy's Bookshop has a great selection in homeschool/curriculum resources (and make sure you look at the Eurythmy page in the anthroposophy section as well). They also carry a eurythmy DVD.
I love reading about the theory and participating when I go to Waldorf conferences but I find it very reassuring to see it in action at home as well.
With all of that said, how can Youtube help us, especially when homeschoolers want to use eurythmy (the art of speech made visible) to support the teaching of the letters?
Some suggestions... and feel free to use the comment box to share your favorites!
Update 04/19/16:
My Pinterest page of Eurythmy links
And this beautiful deck of Eurythmy Figures Cards
This is a personal list of resources
I have found which are related to each Grimm's fairy tale. Please share other resources which you find; suggestions are always welcome! Page numbers refer
to The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales (Pantheon Ed.)
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press includes a song and a verse to begin story time (p. 66).
The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids
The Poor Miller's Boy and the Cat
One-Eye, Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes
The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces
The Spindle, the Shuttle, and the Needle
Magic Wool: Creative Activites with Natural Sheep's Wool by Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke, page 39 -- wool picture
Let's Dance and Sing: Story Games for Children by Kundry Willwerth, page 16 -- circle game
Hansel and Gretel (page 86)
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, pages 88 & 89 -- two songs
Magic Wool: Creative Activites with Natural Sheep's Wool by Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke, page 32 -- wool picture
Let's Dance and Sing: Story Games for Children by Kundry Willwerth, page 24 -- circle game
Making Magical Fairy-Tale Puppets by Christel Dhom, page 69 -- mobile
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, pages 72 & 73 -- two songs
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, page 83 -- song
Making Magical Fairy-Tale Puppets by Christel Dhom, page 43 -- mobile
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, pages 82 & 83 -- verse
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, pages 68 & 69 -- two songs and a verse
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, page 67 -- verse
Magic Wool: Creative Activites with Natural Sheep's Wool by Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke, page 22 -- wool picture
Come Unto These Yellow Sands: Eurythmy, Movement and Classroom Experience by Molly von Heider, pages 14 to 17 -- story and eurythmy gestures
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, pages 80 & 81 -- two songs
A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 23, has a verse to begin crayon drawing which uses the characters from Snow White
Making Magical Fairy-Tale Puppets by Christel Dhom, page 59 -- mobile
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, pages 76 & 77 -- song
Magic Wool: Creative Activites with Natural Sheep's Wool by Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke, page 28 -- wool picture
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, pages 92 & 93 -- two songs
Come Unto These Yellow Sands: Eurythmy, Movement and Classroom Experience by Molly von Heider, page 57 -- song
Come Unto These Yellow Sands: Eurythmy, Movement and Classroom Experience by Molly von Heider, page 57 -- verse
Magic Wool: Creative Activites with Natural Sheep's Wool by Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke, page 38 -- wool picture
by Helga Meyerbroeker and Polly Lawson, page 54 -- tissue paper transparency
MAKING MAGICAL FAIRY-TALE PUPPETS
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, page 67 -- song
Magic Wool: Creative Pictures and Tableaux with Natural Sheep's Wool
Making Magical Fairy-Tale Puppets by Christel Dhom, page 65 -- mobile
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children by Wynstones Press, pages 84 & 85 -- two songs and a verse
Magic Wool: Creative Activites with Natural Sheep's Wool by Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke, page 31 -- wool picture
Come Unto These Yellow Sands: Eurythmy, Movement and Classroom Experience by Molly von Heider, pages 8 to 13 -- story and eurythmy gestures
NOTES
Gateways: A Collection of Poems, Songs and Stories for Young Children
by Wynstones Press also includes
Let's Dance and Sing: Story Games for Children by Kundry Willwerth
also includes
Roy Wilkinson's book The Interpretation
of Fairy Tales includes notes on the meaning and lesson of many of these stories; click on the link for the Table of Contents.
My hands-down favorite was Sharron Parker, an absolutely incredible fiber artist from Wake Forest, NC. Her speciality is handmade felt. She has developed a technique for making wet felted geodes, which I will share with you here!
Her materials immediately drew us in...
The person before us made one, and then we got to try!
Sharron told Becca that felt requires moisture, heat, and pressure, which was interesting because I always thought that you needed friction (rubbing). But she said that pressure is enough and the technique that she used was very effective. Here's Becca's finished geode:
You will need:
Choose your outer color and set it aside. Choose seven small pieces to comprise the inner colors. Lay them in a stack, alternating the directions of the fiber (one color with fibers going horizontally, the next with fibers going vertically). Either roll the stack into a tube and then crumple it to make a ball, or bring each of the four corners of your stack into the center and then crumble to make a ball. This is what gives you the swirls and designs in the finished geode.
Wrap your outer color completely around the inner swirled ball. Lightly needle felt it in place if desired. Place in an old sock and dip in a bowl full of hot water. Squeeze firmly for several minutes or until the ball begins to felt. Remove from the sock. Squirt with liquid soap (she placed the soap in a diner-style ketchup bottle) and keep squeezing firmly. The total time is 10-15 minutes.
Rinse all the soap bubbles out under cool running running and squeeze as much water out of the ball as you can with a towel. Decide where to cut it (this is the fun part because the inside will be a surprise) and cut it in half. Lay the two halves out to dry.
Sharron had some beautiful artwork made of pieces of geode-style felting laid onto wool batting and felted further to create tapestries. She also had some cylinders of wet felting that she was using as pincushions, which I thought was a great gift idea! She had some wedges of the geode work that were meant to be hung as Christmas tree ornaments, as well as some geode slices that were embellished with sewn glass beads.
Her work was absolutely lovely!
I've been keeping a list of all Zac's bedtime chapter books from age 3 up. They're at the bottom of the Kindy & Bridge p...
Grades 1 - 8
How to Teach Spelling:
SWI in the Waldorf Environment
Grade 1
Immersive Experience
Grade 2
Immersive Experience
Grade 3
Immersive Experience
Grade 4
Grade 8
