Thursday, January 23, 2020

January - "Winter" Movement Journey

As with last week, we are working with eurythmy gestures in our storytelling in Early Childhood. I chose a dwarf story this week to go along with the gnomes and dwarves in the Norse Mythology block for the older children. This lively and fun movement journey is included in Estelle Breyer's book Eurythmy for the Young Child: A Guide for Teachers and Parents.

This book was also revised and later re-published under the title Movement for the Young Child: A Handbook for Eurythmists and Kindergarten Teachers and is available free as a PDF for download from the Online Waldorf Library. The "Winter" story is on pages 47-48 and "Trample Trip" is on page 100.


The story can be told as is without eurythmy movements. Eurythmy is the art of "speech made visible" and the gestures are meant to help enliven the story with deeper soul qualities. Small children can imitate the movements. This story calls for

    A (ah)
    D (deep / dream)
    B (rabbit / beetle / bear / baby / brown / bristly / bushy / bees / big)
    M (dream / mmmmm / mix / munch)
    P (hopping / sleep)
    L (flying / butterfly)
    T (eating / fat / tight)
    O (yawn)
    W (wing)
    SH (shhhh)


This story is about animals which are sleeping under the ground and the dwarves use a little magic to listen in on them describing their dreams. The animals are rabbit, beetle, bear, and caterpillar. As the story goes along, the children can also suggest other animals for us to describe and act out.

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


Circle Time


Monday, January 20

  • listen to chapter 3 of Heidi by Joanna Spyri
  • hear from Natalie about taking care of sheep and lambs at her dad's hobby farm, Fresh Pastures Neighborhood Farm in Milltown WI
  • hear from Ms. Anna about taking care of alpacas as a volunteer at Shambalah Alpaca Ranch in Franktown CO
  • enjoy tasting whole "cream top" cow milk and yogurt as well as various sheep milk yogurts and cheeses

Today one of the older groups was learning about professions which care for animals, and the younger children sat right in and listened (and tasted too). We also brought the rabbit cage downstairs so that they could sit cozily beside Chia and play their board games and build their marble mazes.


Tuesday, January 21

Another day with happy busy indoor play time (lots of block building and board games) and a brief outdoor play session (it was cold, cold, cold) filled with vigorously breaking up ice with sticks. They also enjoyed some colored pencil drawing time when we came back inside to warm up and relax.


Thursday, January 23

Warmer today! All of the ice outside had melted so it created opportunities for lots of new play. We spent much more time outdoors. Running, mud stomping, "fishing" in the now-thawed stream with sticks (catching sodden leaf "fish" to collect in their "aquarium") and playing in the fort were the order of the day. Of course we also made Stone Soup. Today's offering included chicken broth, yellow onion, apple, carrot, sweet potato, fresh sweet corn, and fennel. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

Today we mixed up and froze the Icy Paint Pops for next Tuesday's painting of the Winter Sky. I can't wait to see it. We will continue with the "Winter" movement journey next week too. The students are really enjoying it!


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