Writing a Waldorf Circle - Honeybees in Winter

It is so exciting to finally have clarity on what I want to write for my first Waldorf Circle! We will not do this until the last week of January but I want lots of time to get ready. If you're also looking for some help and inspiration with this, here are some complete Waldorf Circles available online as PDFs:

• Little Dawn Boy and the Rainbow Trail
  by JoAnne Dennee
• Cobbler Circle
  by Christina Assirati

I have a young student who is very interested in the Winter World of the Honeybee and, I have to admit, there are plenty of compelling images to be found here in terms of compassion and collaboration, loyalty and love... and with lots of fun bee movements to boot! Here is some background info:

• What Do Bees Do in Winter - Wonderopolis
• Little Bee Sunbeam by Jakob Streit (for younger children)
  available FREE as a PDF download from the Online Waldorf Library
• The Bee Book by Jakob Streit (for older children)
  available FREE as a PDF download from the Online Waldorf Library




• Spring volume, "May" section on Beekeeping, pages 82-91

First I'm just going to gather all the "bee stuff" I can find in my early childhood books and then I'm going to combine my ideas into a Circle:

Around the World with Finger Puppet Animals
by Suzanne Down
two bee poems with puppetry ideas, page 44
finger puppet pattern, page 115


Spring Tales
by Suzanne Down
Dandelion poem - traditional Scottish
Violet poem - Wordsworth
Crocus poem - Walter Crane
"Winter's gone" poem, lines 1 through 6


Rhymes for Fingers and Flannel Boards
by Louise Binder Scott and J.J. Thompson
"Five Little Busy Bees," page 97
"In Wintertime," page 120
"Yellow Daffodil," page 126
"The Flower," page 126
"Flowers," page 127


Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures, volume 2
by Nancy Blanning and Laurie Clark
"The Honey Bees Waggle Dance Circle," page 73
"Her Highness, Queen Beezus and Little Buttercup Bee," page 76


Gesture Games for Autumn and Winter book and CD
by Wilma Ellersiek
"Snowflakes So White," page 84, track 30
"It Snows," page 90
"Snowflake Song," page 138, track 37


Gesture Games for Spring and Summer book and CD
by Wilma Ellersiek
"Flower Grows," page 21
"Snowdrop Song," page 28, track 2
"Snowdrop Bells Ring in the Spring," page 32
"In the Shining Sun," page 36
"The Little Daisy," page 44
"Dandelion Song," page 46, track 8
"In My Garden," page 84, track 16
"Rain Song," page 96, track 17



by Nell Smyth
"The Sun Above is Bright," page 58
"Brr It's Cold!," page 66
"Pitter Patter Raindrops," page 67
"We are Little Lemon Trees," page 104



by Candy Verney
"Snowdrop Down," page 3, track 1
"Lady Spring," page 9, track 7
"In and Out the Dusky Bluebells," page 28, track 27
"Busy Bee," page 39, track 34
"Buttercups," page 45, track 40
"Little Flakes of Snow," page 111, track 93A



by Betty Jones
"Snowflakes," page 71
"Snowy Day," page 72
"Lady Spring," page 96
"Beehive," page 118



by Estelle Breyer
"The Sun is Everybody's Friend," page 93
"There's a Great Big Storm Around," page 98
"Now Up So High," page 109
"Wake Up," page 110



illustrated by Jane Dyer
"First Snowflake," page 74



"In the Winter garden," page 45
"Oh, where do you come from," page 46
"Whenever a snowflake leaves the sky," page 48
"Winter tells us little bulbs," page 60



"Snowdrops, snowdrops, little drops of snow," page 17
"The Coltsfoot," page 18



"Dear little violet, open your eye," page 24
"There was a little rose in a garden bed," verses 1 & 2, page 52
"I'm busy, busy, busy, said the bee," page 53
"Little bees work very hard," page 53
"Boom, bang, boom, bang!" page 59

Laurie Clark wrote a wonderful Springtime bee circle! She writes in the introduction that her circle "was inspired by Arthur Auer's bee story in his book entitled Learning About the World Through Modeling: Sculptural Ideas for School and Home." It starts from the hive splitting after the birth of the new Queen and the swarm looking for a new home. It would be perfect for the week after our Winter bee circle, when we celebrate Candlemas, since it talks about how bees make beeswax and how we make it into candles.


I'm going to follow her idea of using a story for inspiration and model my Winter circle on the first two chapters of Jakob Streit's Little Bee Sunbeam.

Once it has all come together, I'll be sure to share it here!

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