Norse Mythology I: Week One

A favorite topic! We are excited to begin!

(All of my notes from teaching Norse Mythology are located on my website.)

Monday, January 6

• read "Introduction" and "The First Gods and Giants" in D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths
  

  This book has 30 myths, which I have divided into two sets of 15. It is perfect for two Waldorf main lesson blocks! If you only have time for one main lesson, I recommend Odin's Family by Neil Philip.

  

• do watercolor painting of Niflheim (blue), Muspelheim (red), and Ginungagap using Stockmar Circle Color Primary colors

  

• do Ice Cube Race, 2 trials, 5 minutes

Tuesday, January 7

• do The Great Backwards Ice Cube Melting Race, 2 trials, 10 minutes
• review "The First Gods and Giants"
• paint Muspelheim and Niflheim again using the warm red (vermillion) vs the cool red (carmine) suggestion in Painting in Waldorf Education by Dick Bruin and Attie Lichthart, page 83

  

  This book is available online completely for free as a PDF (from the Online Waldorf Library). I find it helps the children if you set out the primary yellow and primary blue and then set out the vermillion and carmine red beside them. The red which is closer to the yellow is warm; the red which is closer to the blue is cool. It also helps to ask each child which world they are going to paint first, and remind them that they will be beginning with either warm red or cool red. Our trick for remembering which world is which is that when you have a cold you get the sniffles (thus, the cold world is Niflheim).

• rough draft, edit, add to MLB "The First Gods and Giants"
• read "The Creation of the World" and "The Creation of Man"

Thursday, January 9

• demonstrate and allow students to practice mixing concentrated Stockmar watercolor paint
• do watercolor painting of the Sun from my 2016 workskhop with Gail McManus... with Golden Yellow, Vermillion, and Prussian
• rough draft, edit, add to MLB "The Creation of the World"

Friday, January 10

• examine and compare cold press and hot press watercolor paper
  
• demonstrate and allow students to practice stretching dry paper on painting boards
• do watercolor painting of the Moon from my 2016 workshop with Gail McManus... with Golden Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Violet, and Ultramarine

This group sat in on all of the Science Experiments of the Four Elements group this week as well. Everyone found them fascinating! We also did Lesson One in the IPA Shaving Cream Sensory Bin (Sibilant Consonants, Plosive Consonants). Our new read aloud for January is Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In chapter 3 on Thursday we talked about churning cream into butter, and I discovered that many students had never experienced this. So on Friday we used a large jar and a pint of heavy whipping cream to make homemade butter, spread it on bread, and had it alongside our Stone Soup.

Yum!

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