Friday, January 15, 2021

My First Lazure Project aka Selling Extra Curriculum Materials on eBay

This slow-paced background story takes place over a span of fifteen years!


2006

    January - February
    long discussion in our Yahoo group about lazure how-to & links
    (Yahoo has now closed all groups but the notes are on my website)

    I'm determined to learn lazure so that I can be a real Waldorf mom



2018 (twelve years later)

    March
    do-it-yourself lazure kit from Charles & Karen Andrade is at my door

    ok! now I can check something off of my Waldorf bucket list!

    March - November
    I procrastinate because I'm scared I will mess it up

    in fact, for months I don't even open the box

    this turns out to be a big problem because packed in the little box the brushes are not being stored correctly and so the bristles get warped
    (they should be stored standing up on the bristles, not lying down)

    November
    I buy Dick Bruin and Attie Lichthart's new book, Painting at School: A Handbook for Elementary and Secondary Education in Waldorf Schools and discover that it has information about lazure in it, which gets me excited again. "Rudolf Steiner's color recommendations for school buildings," pp.67-71, explains how to do the technique and gives the color schemes recommended by Steiner for the Goethe School in Hamburg (1925), the Stuttgart barracks (1922-1923), and the London school (1925).


    Painting at School

    by Dick Bruin & Attie Lichthart


    I finally decide to move Zac out of his bedroom and lazure it
    (this is a safe project because it's the smallest room in the house; also it's my Winter Break so I have two weeks off from teaching and I'm confident I can get it done)

    Thursday, December 27
    patch hole in wall

    Saturday, December 28
    sand patch, wash walls, tape around windows, doors, and trim


2019

    for the month of January
    prime Zac's walls and the black marker scribbles... over and over

    lazure must be done on a background of ABSOLUTELY PURE white

    I'm frustrated because I'm not getting it done very swiftly and, meanwhile, Zac has no bedroom

    Thursday, January 31
    ultimately I take off painter's tape and just move Zac back into his pure white bedroom

    February - August
    Zac, who is three years old, writes on the walls of his primed pure white bedroom, so we paint it Orchid House (from Valspar) and turn it into the Science Room for our homeschool co-op, Little Bluestem. I move Zac into my bedroom so that I can monitor him. When he stops writing on the walls of rooms, he can have his own bedroom again!

    One day while I'm teaching, Zac (still three years old) gets into the lazure supplies, because I left them out in the hallway, and opens the little bottles. Much of the paint ends up on the floor and is wasted.

    Sunday, September 1
    I decide that a bedroom, even a tiny one, is too ambitious of a project since I'm apparently terrified of lazure. I go looking for something smaller. I choose the one odd partial wall in our downstairs stairwell. This will be easy to get to and needs painting anyway, since it is currently covered with muddy fingerprints.


2021

    Monday, January 4
    I decide that I am probably never going to lazure anything, so I add the paint (which is almost exactly like Stockmar concentrated watercolor paint) to the art room shelves and I put the brushes away in the attic. Just on the off chance that I will want them someday...




So, much of my life goes like this. I collect things eagerly -- like any other teacher and homeschooling mom -- and then there is a large discrepancy between what I own and what I actually use. Yet, many of the things I have would be useful to someone else! Lazure brushes are expensive and beautiful. They are not ever going in the trash. I feel the same way about the rest of my curriculum things, but there's a lot I don't use that I either bought, or someone donated to me, or I got several copies of it from back when the Lending Library was going strong (I have lots of duplicate books).

And therefore my New Year's Resolution is to spend January and February deep cleaning and organizing ALL of my teaching things and selling on eBay what I do not need. This includes my Library, all of my file cabinets, and my Art Room, Handwork Room, and Science Room.

It's a big job but COVID is the perfect time to do it. And, since I fall in the category of people who buy everything online that they possibly can, only pick up their groceries at the curb, and have not seen their family or had a haircut since last February, I will be shipping everything USPS Priority Mail in Flat Rate Shipping boxes that do not need to be weighed.

I can pack it all up neatly and carefully, pay for the shipping and schedule a pickup online, and set it out on my doorstep. Easy!

So my plan is to NOT write any blog posts until this job is done and to use this post as a place to update what I have listed on eBay in case anyone is interested in any of the auctions. I will put things together into lots, bundles, and kits, so even if you get a book you'll get a few bonus things with it that may be useful for a lesson. I will keep this list strictly up to date and if I know where something came from -- and it's still available -- I'll include the link to it. That way if you miss out on an auction you still know where to find it. And if I change my mind later and want to buy it again, I can! Enjoy!




My goal is to tidy & organize for 3 hours a day and list 3 auctions a day.
I used to be able to sell things on my Yahoo group but time marches on...


UPDATE:

After doing the math I have realized that because I was selling things so reasonably and because eBay's fees are so high, I have actually been losing money on these auctions the entire time. So, with deepest regret, I am no longer using eBay as a way to pass my teaching items on to other families.


PREVIOUS AUCTIONS

Early Childhood



    SOLD


    Making Peg Dolls

    by Margaret Bloom
    plus The Gigantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy, needle felted turnip, large felting sponge (8" x 10" x 2"), 2 felting needles, 3 packs of Ashford wool purchased from A Child's Dream: Corriedale Sliver Rainbow Brights, Corriedale Sliver Pastels, English Leicester Rainbow Brights


    SOLD


    Max Found Two Sticks

    by Brian Pinkney
    plus My Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray, a rainstick, three pairs of cymbals, three pairs of rhythm sticks, 12 pieces of driftwood and two pieces of sandpaper (100 and 220), a wood block, a train whistle, two flower whistles, a pair of Kindermusik shaker eggs, and four clean coconut shell halves for making horse sounds


    SOLD

    Allegro: Music for the Eurythmy Curriculum
    by Elisabeth Lebret
    plus Eurythmy: Balance of Body and Soul DVD, two pairs of Mercurius eurythmy slippers (white 27, black 40), and a hand-crocheted organic cotton eurythmy slipper bag






    SOLD


    250 mL bottles (half full) of Stockmar Circle Color watercolor paint (red, blue, yellow)
    plus cherry paint jar holder from Camden Rose (three small jars for paint, one large jar for rinse water) and 2 Mercurius brushes size 22


First Grade



First Grade and Higher
















Second Grade








    SOLD


    Trickiest! 19 Sneaky Animals

    by Steve Jenkins
    plus three more books of animal facts (Stinkiest!, Speediest!, Deadliest!), a 10-sided die, 100 glass gems in each Stamp Game color, 50 glass gems in each Decimal Stamp Game color, 9 peg dolls in each size (small, medium large) for Decurian and Centurian Division, silver Sharpie, and lots of math worksheets (Bead Stair, Teen Beads, Counting to 100, Place Value, Greater Than - Less Than)



Proof! The Fast Paced Game of Mental Math Magic!

plus Monster Sock Factory by Logic Roots, Square Up! The Fast and Furious Slide-Puzzle Game by Mindware, and a 10-sided die for playing the Dice Game


Third Grade








    SOLD


    A New Coat for Anna

    by Harrier Ziefert
    plus wool batting dyed with blueberries, four colors of wool roving, a drop spindle, alpaca/silk fiber, and a bag of raw wool for washing


    SOLD


    Vincent's Colors

    by Vincent van Gogh
    plus a wood Montessori Grammar Stencil from Waseca Biomes, 10 colored pencils from Nienhuis, Grammar nomenclature and Sentence Analysis materials printed from Montessori for Everyone, and two "Literature for Grammar" packets from Mandala Classroom Resources (Intermediate and Upper Level)




Fourth Grade




    SOLD


    Turtles

    by Wildrid Swancourt Bronson
    plus 10 fact cards about frogs & toads, and two sets each of 12 Montessori Animal Story cards -- full color and laminated -- for turtles & tortoises (Green Turtle Wood Turtle, Desert Tortoise, Western Pond Turtle, Spiny Softshell, Leatherback, Southern Painted Turtle, Spotted Turtle, Common Mud Turtle, Northern Diamondback Terrapin, Alligator Snapping Turtle, Yellow-blotched Sawback) and birds (Red-Tailed Hawk, Golden Eagle, Osprey, Northern Goshawk, Turkey Vulture, Bald Eagle, King Vulture, American Kestrel, Swallow-Tailed Kite, Crested Caracara, Peregrine Falcon, African Fish Eagle)




Fifth Grade







Sixth Grade









Seventh Grade

    SOLD


    Older Than the Stars

    by Karen C. Fox
    plus "Parts of the Atom" nomenclature, "First 20 Elements" three part cards, molecule kit, and assorted element cards for board games and classroom activities


Eighth Grade




High School



Montessori Only

    SOLD

    NAMC Upper Elementary Curriculum Montessori Checklists


    SOLD

    NAMC Botany, Matter & Astronomy, and Physical Geography binders Lower El (ages 6-9)



    SOLD

    NAMC Practical Life binder Lower El (ages 6-9) and homemade Practical Life binder for Upper El (ages 9-12)


    SOLD

    NAMC History and Cultural Geography binders Lower El (ages 6-9)


    SOLD

    NAMC Health Sciences, Art & Music binder Lower El (ages 6-9), homemade Music binder for Lower El (ages 6-9), and homemade Music and Art binders for Upper El (ages 9-12)


    SOLD

    NAMC Classroom Guide Elementary (ages 6-12), homemade Classroom Management binders for Lower El (ages 6-9) and Upper El (ages 9-12), articles and handouts for Montessori Philosophy and Educational Theory


    SOLD

    NAMC Zoology and Science Experiments binder Lower El (ages 6-9)



    SOLD

    NAMC Language Arts binder Lower El (ages 6-9) plus Grammar Stencil from Waseca Biomes, Sentence Analysis Stencil from Mandala Classroom Resources, 5 Sentence Analysis Charts from Mandala Classroom Resources, and some sample sentences for symbolizing


UPDATE:

As of March 1st, our homeschool co-op is resuming in-person school in our Outdoor Classroom. I have spent more time than I expected preparing for that transition and less time sorting through my rooms of teaching things... however, I will commit to posting new listings on eBay each Saturday. Please check back and see if there's something new that interests you! I'll keep this blog post always up to date.


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