C is for Cave

This one is pretty self-explanatory; actually, there is a picture of C is for Cave on the cover of another Waldorf book, Putting the Heart Back into Teaching.

Natalie is very pleased with The Wise Enchanter at bedtime and it is working out well.

Leah just began with The Tales of Tiptoes Lightly this evening. I know she will love it.

Rebecca has moved on from her bunny infatuation (alternating between Pat the Bunny and The Tale of Peter Rabbit) to new and fertile territory: frogs. The current must-have at bedtime is Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London.

Dragon Tire Swing

I am so grateful that all my Christmas shopping for the kids is done & my Magic Cabin order has already arrived! This is wonderful because I had bought the Dragon Tire Swing, which I have been drooling over for five years, and I can give it to the children as a Michaelmas surprise! Hurrah!
I was so hoping it would come in time. I can't wait to see their faces when they discover it in the yard.

Materials List

Today I am getting organized for our list of Saturday projects. I don't have a babysitter all weekend (Steve is away working) so I have to make sure I have everything lined up in advance. Nothing ruins the rhythm of an activity more than having to all get in the car and go to the store. For dyeing wool, I need red cabbage (makes a blue dye) but already have on hand beets and yellow onions. For our lanterns (Earthways, p.33) I need to buy votive candles/tea lights but already have on hand construction paper and tissue paper. For our Michaelmas Festival and Lantern Walk, I have to buy -- or make -- and decorate a large pillar candle (5 cm in diameter or more, autumn color or white preferred) with a dragon, as shown on page 143 of All Year Round. There is also a Michaelmas story for children over 5 years in the back of All Year Round which I will do with Natalie Saturday night. It is called "The Far Country," p. 296. I've already purchased the bulbs for Sunday and we have apples for the applesauce. Going to pick our own pumpkins and mums is part of the fun so I don't mind that shopping excursion. :-) The mum farm we go to is so wonderful; you get a handful of flags and walk around the rows and choose the plants you want. After you mark them they will dig them up for you and put them into bags for you to take home and plant. Happy Michaelmas, everybody!

McGrane Family Harvest Arts Weekend

Well, we won't be going to Ohio tomorrow; Leah woke up at 4:30 this morning screaming and writhing in pain, saying that her stomach hurt. Then she developed a fever. The pediatrician and I were both concerned that it may be appendicitis but he examined her and said, no, it looks like it is a variation of the virus that just hit Natalie. So we are keeping her home under close surveillance for additional signs. I was very upset at first, on missing out on our Taproot experience, but then I realized that I could turn that frown upside down & make it into something positive. We can have our own family harvest arts weekend! Especially since we have had a hard time homeschooling lately with people being sick. So this is the plan, based loosely on what Barbara will be doing at hers:

Friday afternoon - Calvert County Fair
(Natalie gets a 1/2 day of school Friday because it is Family Day at the Fair and kids get in for free, plus we can see the project her class submitted)

Saturday morning - Dyeing wool with natural dyes
Making lanterns for evening festival

Saturday afternoon - Wool felting a ball
Making dinner from garden to table

Saturday evening - Harvest/Michaelmas Festival and Lantern Walk

Sunday morning - Decorating the yard with pumpkins and mums
Planting bulbs (tulip, daffodil, crocus, fritillaria)

Sunday afternoon - Making applesauce


I hope this is a lot of fun for the kids! I know that Natalie's class did Life on a Farm as their theme for this week, as part of getting ready for the Fair, and that next week they are all supposed to bring in apples on Monday.

I bought 48 bags of bulbs today (unfortunately they weren't yet on clearance, which I found out when I went up to the register, but I got them anyway. When we bought this house last April I assumed we had just missed the show but this Spring I discovered that there are no flowers at all in our yard! How can you know that Winter is over without the crocus?). What a show that will be!

No Wolves Allowed

When Natalie and I were at the police station a few days ago, getting the fingerprinting schedule, the funniest thing happened. Well, to back up, when we walked up the sidewalk into the building we passed a little garden out front with a tombstone for a deceased police dog, Miki, and some flowers around it. And I thought to myself, I hope she doesn't ask about that. She didn't. But when we were inside, she looked out the window and said to me, "Mom, there's a sign outside that says No Wolves Allowed."
It was the gravestone -- she saw that it had an engraved picture of a German Shepherd on it! :-)

So I did end up taking her outside and talking about how it was a grave and how many police officers have dogs that help them with their jobs and this dog died and so on and so forth. It is so cute to me how they "read" the signs in their environment to try to figure things out and sometimes they get it really wrong. It was a nice grave, though. The sign said Miki: gone but not forgotten. So we talked about how people like to remember the best things about a person who died and how they put the stones so that they don't ever forget the ones they love.

B is for Boat

This is an easy one. The mast of the boat forms the back of the B and the two curved sails filled with air make the top and bottom curves of the B.

Safari Surprise

This morning I gave Natalie the new Magic Cabin catalogue to look through and she showed me, to my surprise, a new Jungle Safari Playset -- perfect for my classroom display. I am setting up my gorilla bulletin board this week. Now, the Magic Cabin people want $59.95 for two giraffes, two elephants, two zebras, two gorillas, and two felt plants. Silks are extra. I only need the gorillas so I checked out another company who had Holtziger gorilla figures ($12.00 for mama, $8.75 for baby). But by the time I added in the $4.85 shipping, I was halfway to the Magic Cabin price and wasn't getting nearly enough stuff for my money. I have a list of MC Christmas presents to give, so I switched back to shopping from them and added the Jungle Safari Play Set to my cart. The 2 gorillas, 2 plants, and some green silks will go in my classroom and the remaining three animal pairs will be stocking stuffers for my three girls. I also considered, just for a minute, needle felting a gorilla mama/baby pair (see these adorable pictures from the Dian Fossey website) but I gave that idea up on the basis of time. If anyone does make a wool gorilla, though, I'd love to see!