This weeks lessons:rainbows & doves & dolly costumes

If you read this blog you know it’s weird that I post this week’s lessons on Monday. I really just needed to go ahead & post them so that I could close the book, so to speak, on old testament legends (for now). We need to clean the slate & start fresh. Today we finished up the Noah/flood story. First we made easy origami doves which we colored. This was a great activity because this was a “folding story”. I retold the story of Noah as we did the folds. Each of the folds symbolized part of the story. I did a separate post on how to make the doves. If you hold their chests and move them up & down the wings & tail will flutter & appear to fly. My daughter just loved this, and made several of them. My daughter wrote the story in her book & did a few illustrations for it. We had a discussion about what it would be like to build such an enormous structure. Through out Noah we sang Shel Silverstein’s poem”Unicorn“. It is kind of silly, but most kids relish silliness. It tells of why the unicorns did not get on the Ark. There are several youtube videos of people doing it as a song if anyone wants to hear it. My dd likes to sing rather than recite, so I accomodate her when fitting.

We sculpted a few animals, and a rainbow from beeswax.

My daughter made her favorite doll “Posey” her Halloween costume. This served as handwork. Posey has been a constant companion since I made her when my daughter was 4. I have repaired holes, re-stitched hair, cleaned repeatedly, and even had to do a complete body replacement. A mean cousin  drew all over her face with a sharpie. That just devastated my daughter, but fortunately the most wonderful dry cleaners in the world at Conway Cleaners cleaned her up for us free of charge. Posey has reached Velveteen Rabbit status. She’s real. So it is only natural that she have her own costume. A is pretty good at working in 3 dimension. She hand sewed the gnome hat from a pattern she made herself. I was suprised to see a 3 panel gnome hat. That was not something I had ever thought of before, but it worked out well. She sewed pink wings onto the doll’s overalls.

So, thats all for now on the old testament legends. The remainder of the week we will work on wigwams made by the Ojibwe. We will hear about the beginning of Turtle Island, a story about a monster called Windigo that eats people & has a heart of ice, and the legend of the dream catcher, all three Ojibwe legends. We will draw, we will sew puckered moccasins, we will make a dream catcher to hang above our beds to capture any bad dreams that arise from all of the weird, scary, modern halloween images she takes in this time of year. Working from the spider theme of the dream catcher we will work on the 8 times table. I think since we are working on 8 in math our form drawing will reflect this too, although I am not sure what forms we will work on. I am thrilled to have a change, and I know my daughter is too.

Little felt horse or unicorn pattern

 This post is a response to Jennifer’s comment on the toys post. I used a pattern for the rainbow horses from a book called “Feltcraft”.  (If anyone reading this does not have this book, you need to get it. It’s been a perpetual resource for toys and crafts for me.) Echoes of a Dream posted the same horse pattern that is in the book  on her blog . You can sew the hair on as she did, or if you stuff with wool, you can use a felting needle to felt on hair from wool roving.  One thing you need to know when sewing the horses is to sew the bottom piece (known as a gusset) to the 2 sides first, then the hooves,  then stuff legs. Next sew the neck/head/back in that order. Stuff the head after you have sewn it because once you have sewn to the tail it will be difficult if not impossible to stuff. When you get to the tail area stuff the body, and sew up. Once it is sewn add the hair. For me it took about an hour to sew.  As far as the mermaids go, I made that pattern myself, and basically I made tiny waldorf style dolls, and put a tail where the legs used to be.

How to make a sarubobo

I have always wanted to know how to make these!! Mairuru posted a clear tutorial.

Tutorial: reusable snack bags

These are fantastic!! They look so simple to make……..

Tutorial: princess wand

I found this great tutorial for a star wand over at Zakka Life.  You could make a wand and a felt crown for a magical princess set.

Tutorial for Waldorf style washcloth knot baby/gnome

I found this on craftser.org, just thought I would share it.

Stockmar crayon roll for sticks & blocks: a vague tutorial

   

This is for the mommas in our fledgling waldorf homeschool group. I made this for my daughters big, new, set of crayons from Swift River Toys. They came without a box, so we really needed something that held all the crayons, both sticks, & blocks in one place. I also took the red brown & black from her old 8pc set to make a total of 18 sticks.  This was pretty simple. I made my own bias tape to match, but you could just as well buy pre-fab bias tape with nice results. I used a bias tape maker to make my bias tape, but creative little daisy has avery simple DIY version of a bias tape makeron her blog.

 

what you need:

• 18 x 12 piece of wool felt
• a piece of fabric at least as big as your felt
• 1/4 elastic
• 61 inches of bias tape
• ribbon, I used thin ribbon, but 1/2 inch would be better
• thread, pins, needles

 

DIY main lesson book #2

I just thought I wouold share how we made the MLB for our honey bee block. It was very simple. I just used about 15 sheets of 12 x 18 drawing paper, and laid it flat on top of a piece of colored art paper that was a bit larger. Then I sewed down the center with a sewing machine. I had it set on my machine’s longest stitch. This is a gallery of part of my daugters honey bee main lesson book. You can see in the last 2 how the book was made.

Rabbit & the sky box: a story, form drawing, & handwork

The Rabbit &  the Sky Box is a short legend from South Asia that I used as a bridge into form drawing & handwork.  It explains the phases of the moon. It goes something like this……

 Up in the shimmering sky there is box. Inside the box lives a silvery white rabbit. Rabbit slowly opens the lid, and as he opens it a sliver of light escapes. He opens a bit more, and that sliver of light gets bigger. He opens it a bit more & it gets bigger still. Until he opens it all the way, and hops out. The light is the full, round moon. He grazes a bit on the field of  glittery flowers in the sky, and then hops back in, and slowly closes the lid of the box.

You can easily elaborate on it & make the story longer. We decided upon a ribbon motif for the box, and practiced it on the chalkboard. First straight lines, then curves, then a combo of the 2, and finally a mirror of our final running form.

 

 We then took the ribbon motif & painted it on a round paper mache’ box which we had painted a deep blue. We made a white rabbit to go inside.  A pom pom rabbit would be nice for little hands to make, or a knitted one from a single square  would be nice too.  Here are some pics.

 

 

Giant main lesson book tutorial

This is a tutorial we put together showing how to make your own giant, hand stitched main lesson book.  You can buy blank main lesson books from many waldorf supply vendors, but we prefer to make our own.  It’s pretty easy, and kids love making their own books.  This makes a terrific handwork project. We like to make them very big to give plenty of room to draw, and add writing.

First, gather your materials. You will need:

• standard size posterboard
• large paper for the pages. We used 18″ x 24″ newsprint paper  which is inexpensive, but great for crayon drawing. I paid $8 for the pad, and it will make several lesson books.
• a stapler or clips that will hold very tightly
• scissors
• hammer
• nail
• piece of wood you care nothing about
• yarn or other super sturdy thread/string
• large needle, big enough to thread the yarn through
• a good helper ( not required, but fun)

  

Click “read the rest of this entry”  for tutorial.