Okay, so I just made a spreadsheet of the Sundays in the S S year and there are 37. The last Sunday (the week before Memorial Day weekend) is always the end of year class play. So that leaves 36. I can do the alphabet plus time for preparing for the play very comfortably in there. Yes, you may be saying, but what about the 2-day cycle? What about the forgetting and remembering? Well, so I can do some of the alphabet or all of the alphabet. Probably just some. I love the 2-day cycle. Next question. Do I do the alphabet in order from A to Z or do the stories in the order they appear in the Bible? And if I do the stories in the order they appear in the Bible, do I leave space in between them so that they will be in A to Z order in the MLB at the end of the year? I think we will do them in the order they appear in the Bible but NOT leave spaces in our main lesson books. I don't see any reason to recreate a traditional alphabet book, especially since we already know we'll be leaving some letters out.
Next...
What letters do I do and what stories do they accompany?
S - Snake - The Story of a Beautiful Garden
O - Ocean (porthole) - The Great Ship That Saved Eight People
T - Tower - The Tower That Was Never Finished
N - Needle - The Rich Man's Son Who Was Sold as a Slave
B - Baby - The Beautiful Baby Who Was Found in a River
R - River - The River That Ran Blood
V - Valley - How Moses Looked Upon the Promised Land
K - King - The Wise Young King
Z - Zigzag - this story "The Wise Man and the Little Bee" is from another book
W - Wave - Jonah and Nineveh
L - Lion - Daniel in the Den of Lions
Q - Queen - The Beautiful Queen of Persia
H - Horse - The Nobleman Who Built the Wall of Jerusalem
A - Angel - The Angel by the Altar
M - Manger - The Manger of Bethlehem
Ideally, I would like to get in C is for Cave and P is for Prince somewhere in there, because I know it would be easy to find stories for them, but we need 8 weeks at the end to get ready for the play. I'd have also loved to do Proverbs 23:5 with E is for Eagle. But looking at this as a whole, I love that the birth of Jesus comes right at Easter time so it goes full circle.
Anyway, this is just a brainstorm and we may find that instead of a 2-week cycle we do each story on its own day. In which case, I'll have to come back and think up some more.
This is very cool: you can also look inside this book with Google Reader.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Sunday School Planning
I just got the call from the new S S Superintendent that I have been given the combined class of 1st through 5th graders.
Previously my class was 3rd/4th/5th grade and we used the Waldorf Old Testament Stories content. However, if I have first and second graders now (the church is diminishing in size) in my class, I will need to rethink.
Time to trot out the Bible Alphabet curriculum! I had an idea some time ago about, if I got handed the 1st and 2nd grade class, doing the Waldorf way of presenting the alphabet with Bible stories instead of fairy tales. So, for example, W is for Wave would come from Noah and the Ark. A larger class means more money for supplies so now I have to plan the Alphabet (I'll use Hurlbut's Story of the Bible -- available free from The Baldwin Project to guide my storytelling) and purchase lots of supplies. I'll be shopping for main lesson books, beeswax candle kits, modeling beeswax, and beeswax block and stick crayons. Good thing I just bought Coloring with Block Crayons Empahsizing the Primary Colors: A Manual of Coloring Techniques for Teaching to Children . I'd like to incorporate more Form Drawing this year as well. I have already chosen the end of year class play which will be a puppet show (using needle felted puppets) of Noah and the Flood. You can find this play by Eugene Schwartz free online in the Waldorf Clearing House Newsletter - Fall 1984 edition. This means felting needles and wool roving must be purchased as well. Sounds like a job for A Child's Dream Come True!
Previously my class was 3rd/4th/5th grade and we used the Waldorf Old Testament Stories content. However, if I have first and second graders now (the church is diminishing in size) in my class, I will need to rethink.
Time to trot out the Bible Alphabet curriculum! I had an idea some time ago about, if I got handed the 1st and 2nd grade class, doing the Waldorf way of presenting the alphabet with Bible stories instead of fairy tales. So, for example, W is for Wave would come from Noah and the Ark. A larger class means more money for supplies so now I have to plan the Alphabet (I'll use Hurlbut's Story of the Bible -- available free from The Baldwin Project to guide my storytelling) and purchase lots of supplies. I'll be shopping for main lesson books, beeswax candle kits, modeling beeswax, and beeswax block and stick crayons. Good thing I just bought Coloring with Block Crayons Empahsizing the Primary Colors: A Manual of Coloring Techniques for Teaching to Children . I'd like to incorporate more Form Drawing this year as well. I have already chosen the end of year class play which will be a puppet show (using needle felted puppets) of Noah and the Flood. You can find this play by Eugene Schwartz free online in the Waldorf Clearing House Newsletter - Fall 1984 edition. This means felting needles and wool roving must be purchased as well. Sounds like a job for A Child's Dream Come True!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Bob & Nancy's Order
I was the winner at the Bringing Waldorf Home silent auction of the $50.00 gift certificate to Bob & Nancy's Bookshop, waldorfbooks.com. Here is my tasty basket of literary delights:
Basic Sculptural Modeling: Developing the Will by Working with Pure Forms in the First Three Grades by Hella Loewe
Animal Legends: 2nd Grade Language Arts Block by Donna Simmons
Making Picture Books with Movable Figures by Brunhild Müller
“IT IS EASY TO DESPISE WHAT YOU CANNOT GET.”
Basic Sculptural Modeling: Developing the Will by Working with Pure Forms in the First Three Grades by Hella Loewe
Animal Legends: 2nd Grade Language Arts Block by Donna Simmons
Making Picture Books with Movable Figures by Brunhild Müller
I'm eager to see Donna's book. I quite like her Saints block and I am hoping to get a lot of use out of this one as well. The movable pictures book comes at a great time for me as well. Last time I taught the Fables, which was in a summer camp, I had wanted the students to each make a moving picture of The Fox and the Grapes. I wasn't able to think it through enough in advance to try it with the group, but it has always been in the back of my mind. Isn't this story just perfect for a moving picture?
Æsop. (Sixth century B.C.) Fables.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
The Fox and the Grapes
ONE hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the things to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”
“IT IS EASY TO DESPISE WHAT YOU CANNOT GET.”
Monday, August 10, 2009
Organic Cotton String Bags
Making my list of supplies to buy for the classroom. I wanted to find a place that sold organic cotton string bags (similar to those I saw used in the Boulder Waldorf Kindergarten for children's extra clothing). Great idea! We ask families to send in extra clothing for emergencies, and then the teachers are stuck sorting through two large plastic bins of gallon sized Ziploc bags each time we need to help a child get their extra clothing. I loved the idea of string bags which are simply hung on the hooks in the coat room. We have plenty of extra hooks and vertical storage is always preferable!
Here is a link to reusablebags.com where you can buy these lovely bags.
String bags. Art supplies (modeling beeswax, watercolor paper, 3/4 inch brushes, watercolor paints). The teaching clock. The prepared slides for the microscope. There goes my annual budget.
Here is a link to reusablebags.com where you can buy these lovely bags.
String bags. Art supplies (modeling beeswax, watercolor paper, 3/4 inch brushes, watercolor paints). The teaching clock. The prepared slides for the microscope. There goes my annual budget.
Trolls in the Garden
My to-do list today including weeding the garden and, bearing in mind Gene Campbell's advice that we should all stop wearing out our jaws talking in an endless stream of jibber-jabber to our children using abstract terms about topics that they couldn't care less about (next Tuesday we are going to go to spend the night at Grandma's house so we will need to remember to pack your pajamas), I introduced it with a story.
After naps and snack and playtime, we all went outside to sit at the picnic table and I began the story with Once Upon a Time. Here it is in brief.
Once Upon a Time there was a kingdom which was ruled by a very wise and good king. The whole kingdom was surrounded by a high stone wall and no harm could ever get inside those walls. For many years, the people who lived there were safe and happy. But one day the Trolls who lived in the woods outside the walls discovered that if they dug tunnels under the walls in the dark of night, they could creep through the tunnels and into the kingdom and no one would see them. So they began to dig tunnels under the walls and come into the kingdom. These Trolls were mean. They were big and green and they had many heads. But the Trolls weren't very smart and when daytime came, they would just freeze and stand completely still in the streets, thinking that this meant that no one could see them. (And we froze our bodies completely still and then looked at each other and yes, the girls could still see their sisters even when they were motionless. Someone should tell this to the bunnies, by the way.) One morning the king woke up and looked out his window and saw that his kingdom was full of green many-headed Trolls! He called the guards and they picked the Trolls up and threw them over the walls and told them to never come back. And so the kingdom was safe from Trolls once more.
So we went through this whole story and then we went to get the Trolls out of our garden/kingdom. The children LOVED the story and I have never in my life seen anyone weed with such enthusiasm. They begged me to be allowed to weed again after dinner and Natalie announced at bedtime that when she got up in the morning she was going to change straight into her clothes and go outside and do some weeding.
:-)
After naps and snack and playtime, we all went outside to sit at the picnic table and I began the story with Once Upon a Time. Here it is in brief.
Once Upon a Time there was a kingdom which was ruled by a very wise and good king. The whole kingdom was surrounded by a high stone wall and no harm could ever get inside those walls. For many years, the people who lived there were safe and happy. But one day the Trolls who lived in the woods outside the walls discovered that if they dug tunnels under the walls in the dark of night, they could creep through the tunnels and into the kingdom and no one would see them. So they began to dig tunnels under the walls and come into the kingdom. These Trolls were mean. They were big and green and they had many heads. But the Trolls weren't very smart and when daytime came, they would just freeze and stand completely still in the streets, thinking that this meant that no one could see them. (And we froze our bodies completely still and then looked at each other and yes, the girls could still see their sisters even when they were motionless. Someone should tell this to the bunnies, by the way.) One morning the king woke up and looked out his window and saw that his kingdom was full of green many-headed Trolls! He called the guards and they picked the Trolls up and threw them over the walls and told them to never come back. And so the kingdom was safe from Trolls once more.
So we went through this whole story and then we went to get the Trolls out of our garden/kingdom. The children LOVED the story and I have never in my life seen anyone weed with such enthusiasm. They begged me to be allowed to weed again after dinner and Natalie announced at bedtime that when she got up in the morning she was going to change straight into her clothes and go outside and do some weeding.
:-)
First Grade, Day One
My booklist for the first day of First Grade:
Poems and Speech Exercises for Grades I & II
by John Miles
Form Drawing: Grades 1 through 4
by Laura Embrey-Stine and Ernst Schuberth
Treasury of Children's Poetry
ed. Alison Sage
Painting in Waldorf Education
by Dick Bruin and Attie Lichthart
Will-Developed Intelligence
by David Mitchell and Patricia Livingston
Will-Developed Intelligence is an awesome resource for the Handwork curriculum in a Waldorf school! I have been teaching knitting for several years now and just always begin with making our own knitting needles. After reading Patricia Livingston's article about Grade 1, I realize that I was setting sail before building my ship! Check this out:
"Meanwhile, the golden box just sat in the room creating a mood of quiet anticipation. I waited until everyone was ready and then slowly took off the lid. In the box were beautiful golden threads! I carefully took them out and held them up to show the class, handling them as though they were pure gold. We were all thrilled and delighted! Then I said, 'If you would like to have a golden thread on your desk, fold your hands, and don't touch it until we are all ready to begin.' When each child had a golden thread (golden yarn), they stood up again and learned to tie loops and bows and take them out without making knots, and also learned to take out knots when they did. We wanted the threads to look perfect before we put them away and returned them to the gnome."
From here she goes to on to teach slip knots (magic knots), finger knitting, and then introduced the knitting needles and balls of yarn. They began by making chains using one needle and then after they could make 12 perfect loops on one needle they graduated to learning to knit. It is so helpful to hear how a handwork teacher does it, isn't it? So simple, so step-by-step. And I already have a golden box, hurrah!
By the way, I decided that I wasn't comfortable using Puck the Gnome for a classroom setting, so I am beginning the school year with King Beetle-Tamer by Isabel Wyatt. But I began Puck the Gnome tonight as a bedtime story at home. Natalie LOVES it -- it is so appropriate for age 7!
Poems and Speech Exercises for Grades I & II
by John Miles
Form Drawing: Grades 1 through 4
by Laura Embrey-Stine and Ernst Schuberth
Treasury of Children's Poetry
ed. Alison Sage
Painting in Waldorf Education
by Dick Bruin and Attie Lichthart
Will-Developed Intelligence
by David Mitchell and Patricia Livingston
Will-Developed Intelligence is an awesome resource for the Handwork curriculum in a Waldorf school! I have been teaching knitting for several years now and just always begin with making our own knitting needles. After reading Patricia Livingston's article about Grade 1, I realize that I was setting sail before building my ship! Check this out:
"Meanwhile, the golden box just sat in the room creating a mood of quiet anticipation. I waited until everyone was ready and then slowly took off the lid. In the box were beautiful golden threads! I carefully took them out and held them up to show the class, handling them as though they were pure gold. We were all thrilled and delighted! Then I said, 'If you would like to have a golden thread on your desk, fold your hands, and don't touch it until we are all ready to begin.' When each child had a golden thread (golden yarn), they stood up again and learned to tie loops and bows and take them out without making knots, and also learned to take out knots when they did. We wanted the threads to look perfect before we put them away and returned them to the gnome."
From here she goes to on to teach slip knots (magic knots), finger knitting, and then introduced the knitting needles and balls of yarn. They began by making chains using one needle and then after they could make 12 perfect loops on one needle they graduated to learning to knit. It is so helpful to hear how a handwork teacher does it, isn't it? So simple, so step-by-step. And I already have a golden box, hurrah!
By the way, I decided that I wasn't comfortable using Puck the Gnome for a classroom setting, so I am beginning the school year with King Beetle-Tamer by Isabel Wyatt. But I began Puck the Gnome tonight as a bedtime story at home. Natalie LOVES it -- it is so appropriate for age 7!
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Online Resources
The final page of that handout was this. There are many wonderful resources and I only gave a few examples from each category. It should be enough to get you started!
Newsletters
• Waldorf Clearing House Newsletter
(archive of past issues)
http://www.waldorflibrary.org/ClearingHouse.htm
• Barbara Dewey’s Newsletter
(she also offers teacher training for homeschoolers)
http://www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com/
• Suzanne Down’s Newsletter
http://www.junipertreepuppets.com/
Blogs with Teaching Notes
Melisa Nielson
(this is her St. Patrick’s Day blog entry with lesson notes)
http://waldorfjourney.typepad.com/a_journey_through_waldorf/2009/03/our-st-patricks-lessons-for-grade-two.html
YouTube Videos
Eurythmy and Waldorf Education
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcCvcy0zAlM
DVDs
• Eurythmy DVD
http://www.waldorfbooks.com/anthro/eurythmy.htm
• Waldorf in the Home online store
http://www.waldorfinthehome.org/waldorf-store.html
Kelly Morrow’s Watercolor Painting Workshop (grades 1 & 3)
This online store also contains CDs of workshop recordings on child development, parenting, and other aspects of Waldorf education.
School Supplies
• Paper Scissors Stone
www.waldorfsupplies.com
• Nova Natural
http://www.novanatural.com
• A Child’s Dream Come True
http://www.achildsdream.com
Newsletters
• Waldorf Clearing House Newsletter
(archive of past issues)
http://www.waldorflibrary.org/ClearingHouse.htm
• Barbara Dewey’s Newsletter
(she also offers teacher training for homeschoolers)
http://www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com/
• Suzanne Down’s Newsletter
http://www.junipertreepuppets.com/
Blogs with Teaching Notes
Melisa Nielson
(this is her St. Patrick’s Day blog entry with lesson notes)
http://waldorfjourney.typepad.com/a_journey_through_waldorf/2009/03/our-st-patricks-lessons-for-grade-two.html
YouTube Videos
Eurythmy and Waldorf Education
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcCvcy0zAlM
DVDs
• Eurythmy DVD
http://www.waldorfbooks.com/anthro/eurythmy.htm
• Waldorf in the Home online store
http://www.waldorfinthehome.org/waldorf-store.html
Kelly Morrow’s Watercolor Painting Workshop (grades 1 & 3)
This online store also contains CDs of workshop recordings on child development, parenting, and other aspects of Waldorf education.
School Supplies
• Paper Scissors Stone
www.waldorfsupplies.com
• Nova Natural
http://www.novanatural.com
• A Child’s Dream Come True
http://www.achildsdream.com
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