Thursday, July 26, 2018

Songs for Baking

Zac, age three, is by far the most musical of my four children.

My oldest two did Kindermusik, my third daughter did Music Together, and Zac has done Baby Suzuki. He loves the song Hot Cross Buns and is forever tapping things with sticks and telling me he is playing me Hot Cross Buns. Playground? Tapping the slide with a stick. Breakfast on the screen porch? Tapping the chair with a stick.

The other day when I was going through books and making notes for The 12 Professions, I found a simple recipe for Hot Cross Buns. It’s in A Child’s Seasonal Treasury on page 111. We cut the recipe in half — which will give you 8 buns — and joyfully made it. It was a lovely morning. Proof yeast, mix dry ingredients, mix remaining ingredients, knead dough, set it on the porch to rise on a pretty summer day. Have lunch and a bath. Check on the dough, see that it is doubled, punch it down, form it into rolls, and then Zac went off to have his nap while the rolls doubled, I baked them, and I made the glaze. When he wakes up, the rolls are cooled, the glaze is cooled, and he can help put the extra sweetness on top.

Tip: Although you measure and pour the wet and dry ingredients together with your child, it can be helpful if you get a few quiet moments to stir them together to form the dough. So, during this time let your child draw pictures in a little bit of flour which you’ve placed on the tabletop. (I got this tip from the Waldorf School of St. Louis.) Then sprinkle the tabletop with more flour and turn out the dough for kneading and let him get his hands in it!



Songs for Baking

    Before starting to bake,
    Hot Cross Buns (of course)
    The Singing Year, track 11

    While washing hands,
    It’s Time to Put Our Aprons On
    The Singing Day, track 21

    While proofing the yeast,
    Lovely Yeast Go to Bed
    The Singing Day, track 18

    While kneading the dough the first time,
    We Roll It, We Roll It
    (verses 1 and 2 and make up more motion words while kneading)
    The Singing Day, track 19

    While kneading the dough the second time,
    We Roll It, We Roll It (all 3 verses)
    The Singing Day, track 19


Graces

Of course, you have to have graces. Zac is fond of singing Welcome to Our Table, from Let Us Form a Ring (this song is on disc 2 of their CD set). I like the poem by Alice Henderson called “The Harvest” and it’s a good fit for bread baking day. Other favorites are


The more I use Candy Verney’s books the more pleased I am with them, especially since so many Waldorf books include sheet music but NOT CDs! She does, which I love since I am someone who can’t read sheet music. She also includes men, women, and children’s voices in the songs. And she includes lots of practical recommendations for how to fold the songs into your daily living. Lately I’ve been thinking of changing around my early childhood booklist to have The Singing Day and The Singing Year at the core, along with Festivals Family and Food.

You could absolutely stop there if you just want simplicity, help with rhythms and festivals, and you have a little one who is more Preschool than Kindy…

Or add Earthways, Around the World with Finger Puppet Animals, The Breathing Circle, Movement Journeys & Circle Adventures (1&2), and A Child’s Seasonal Treasury if you want to go full-on into Circle Time. For either list, I love the book Let’s Talk, Let’s Play: Helping Children Learn How to Learn from Life by Jane Winslow Eliot and it’s available FREE as a PDF from the Online Waldorf Library. (There are lots of other great books available there as well.) And, of course, subscribe to Suzanne Down’s wonderful FREE monthly newsletter with early childhood stories!


As of 06/26/18, these prices for these packages would be

child development, daily and seasonal rhythms, festivals


child development, daily and seasonal rhythms, festivals + lots of resources for Circle Time





If you don’t already have them, you will need to get toys such as play silks, craft supplies such as wool roving and pure wool felt, and art supplies such as watercolor paints and paper, clay, modeling beeswax, and block beeswax crayons.

There are more and more Waldorf resources available online. The Online Curriculum Project is something that I started for a client in India who wanted Waldorf resources for Early Childhood and, obviously, shipping books to India is expensive! So I made her a list of things she could access via the internet. Check it out... you may find a favorite new link! Or if I've missed something, feel free to make a suggestion and I'll update the page.


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

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