Candlemas Celebration ECE

On the Waldorf calendar, February 2 is Candlemas. Here are a few notes from our week of Candlemaking Fun!

For more on Candlemas, check out these posts:

5 Easy Ways to Celebrate the Halfway Days
More than Mudpies

Glorious Candlemas
The Parenting Passageway

We continued with our Songs, Verses & Movement for classroom routines.

Circle Time

#1 - "Good Morning, Dear Earth" verse

#2 - "Morning Verse"
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 13

#3 - "We Stretch Right Up to the Star of Our Birth" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 56

#4 - "Bear Has a Snout" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 93

#5 - "Wintertime" verse
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 70

#6 - "Beehive" verse
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 118

#7 - NEW - "Snowdrop Down" song
from The Singing Year, page 3, track 1

#8 - "Ten Bright Candles" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 84

Monday

• "Candle Dipping" from Earthways by Carol Petrash, page 98
• UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings by Douglas Florian

Today the kids went out to play first thing in the morning while I carefully prepared for candlemaking, melting our wax pieces in an old Juicy Juice can set in a pan of hot water. When the wax was ready, I got the wooden dipping boards and pieces of wick ready. It works best to use a piece of masking tape across the wick to keep it in place. Write the child's name on the tape.

When that child is done dipping, move the masking tape piece from the wooden dipping board to the clean length of wick between the two candles and fold it in half, thus neatly labeling the child's work.

Each person got to dip as long as he or she wanted. Some of the candles were slender; some of the candles were very wide!

After our inside play time we snuggled on the couch and read all of Douglas Florian's book of honeybee poetry.

Tuesday

• "Floating Candles" (walnut shells) from All Year Round, page 28
• Ice Candle design & freeze
• Little Brown Bulb puppetry generously adapted from Spring Tales by Suzanne Down

Today we made beautiful little floating candles in walnut shell halves and floated them in a large bowl of water in the center of the table at Snack. The older students also gathered evergreen materials from outside and we packed a Bundt pan full, then filled it with water and set it in the freezer to freeze over the next few days. On Thursday we will unmold the ice ring and place a candle in the center. I can't wait to see it all lit up! This Ice Candle idea was shared with me by a teacher from the Waldorf School of St. Louis.

After our Circle time movement I shared Suzanne Down's "Little Brown Bulb" as a table puppet show with needle felted figures. Many years ago this was the first puppetry workshop I ever took with Suzanne, at the Washington Waldorf School. She adapted her own story from her Spring Tales book to be a puppet show; these are my notes from that workshop.

After the story we set brown and white silks on the Nature table along with our characters (Little Brown Bulb, Lady Spring, Ladybug, and Snowdrop). The children are excited to keep their eyes out for snowdrops; our story last week said they are one of the first flowers which bees visit in the Spring.

After our outside play time we played a new indoor game: Step to It. This is a fun and active early mathematics game which requires you to estimate.

Thursday

• "The Honey Bees Waggle Dance Circle" by Laurie Clark
  from page 73 of Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures: Therapeutic Support for Early Childhood
• Ice Candle light & observe

Today was extremely rainy with pelting rain, thunder, and lightning. The children watched the rain rushing down the street into the storm drain for a while, then wrapped themselves up in silken beds of playsilks for cozy play.

Next we enjoyed Snack time, complete with our beautiful Ice Candle centerpiece. The ice ring was sooo lovely (turn upside down and run hot water over the Bundt pan for 15 seconds to release), and we placed it on a silver tray with a golden rolled beeswax pillar candle in the center. By this point in the morning the children were ready to move more vigorously. They enjoyed moving like bees in "The Honey Bees Waggle Dance Circle." Still in the mood for busy active play, they designed a variation of basketball which used our space pod and a bunch of crumpled paper snowballs.

And, of course, today was also Stone Soup Day! Here was our list of group contributions this week:

onion
garlic
celery
carrot
bok choy
parsnip
butternut squash noodles
venison bone broth

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