Another sweet story about Nicholas…and cookies

Just wanted to do a quick post. I just found this story a story called “The Baker’s Dozen” http://www.aaronshep.com/stories/020.html It’s about a baker who sells cookies 12 to a dozen, then a woman (witch) comes in the bakery and wants 13 in her dozen. The baker tells her you only get what you pay for, and you bought boght a dozen, which is 12. From then on all his baking turns out bad, and he loses his customers. Nicholas appears in a dream and tells him basically that he is being greedy, and to change his ways. He does, and things get good for him again.

I plan to tell this tomorrow on St. Nicholas Eve as we make cookies. I am just going to make some easy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I don;t think we will have time for decorated cookies.

BTW: the author who’s website the above link will take you to has a ton of very nice stories. Most of them are appropriate for the older children.

A gentle story of Saint Lucia, and free Lucia paper dolls

 This story is posted here with permission by it’s author Tiziana Boccaletti. She maintains an Etsy store www.tizib.etsy.com, and is a contributor at Living Crafts Magazine (my favorite, ever!) Where you can get a free PDF instruction sheet to make a gorgeous, realistic felted rose ornament created by Tiziana, among other free patterns. http://www.livingcrafts.com/page/Free_Patterns  (have you seen the latest issue with the felt saint Lucia crowns?)  

Free St. Lucia paper dolls 

********************************************************************  

SANTA LUCIA 

A story written by Tiziana Boccaletti  

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, in a far away land there lived a
young woman. Her name was Lucia and she liked spending time on the lake,
quietly listening to all the animals and the sounds the water made. The
swans knew her and liked her and would come feed from her hand during winter
time. Mama hawk would often salute her with a loud screech when circling in
the cool sky. She was a young girl like many others, she liked what
everybody else liked and enjoyed spending time with friends in the woods,
playing games and baking cakes with her mother. She always felt gratitude in
her heart for what she had and her good kind loving family but there was one
thing she always wished for.Lucia wished she could see with her eyes. Born
blind, she had learned at a young age to use her ears, her hands and her
heart to listen.    One day, after going for a long walk in the woods, she sat under a mighty
walnut tree and fell asleep. She dreamt many colorful dreams of faraway
places, unicorns, knights and palaces and in her dreams her eyes were as
bright and clear as one thousand candles. In her dream, an old good witch
from the castle told her that soon the light from her heart would travel to
her eyes and she would be able to see.  Lucia woke up and was at first startled by her dream but then she realized
in was time to go home. It was the darkest night of the year and she could
smell the sunset dampness coming from the green grass. On her way to town
she heard an old woman asking for help. Lucia immediately ran to her to see
what she might need. The old woman asked for help walking home. Lucia
immediately offered her arm and the two of them walked for a long time. They
had been climbing up a hill when a young boy approached them and asked for
food. Lucia was very hungry herself but she reached into her apron pocket
and offered him her red apple. He thanked her and devoured it right away.
Lucia was hungry herself but didn’t say anything..she was happy she could
help. They had almost reached their destination when Lucia heard the voice
of a man calling her. He was sitting by the side of the road and told her he
had been robbed of all his clothes. Lucia took her shawl off her shoulders
and gave it to him. It was her favorite shawl, the one that her grandma her
patiently knitted for her by the fire, but she didn’t mind.  When she asked the old woman if they had arrived yet, the old woman said :
“Yes, you have arrived”. Lucia asked: “Where are we?”. The old woman
replied: “Look up at the moon in the sky and you will know”. Lucia raised
her head and saw the full moon with her own eyes .She looked at the old
woman and realized it was indeed the witch she had dreamed of. The old witch
said: “The golden light from your good heart grew so strong that it had to
find a new home and that new home is your eyes.go and use the light to be of
service to others and light their way”. Lucia was overfilled with joy and
ran all the way home to tell her mother and all her friends.  And if things haven’t changed, they are still the same!           

St. Nicholas & christmas stories, poems, links

There is a wonderful website called Saint Nicholas Center.org . There  are so many wonderful resources that you can use for St. Nick day on December 6th, and the rest of the holiday season.

There is a great story by renowned Waldorf teacher Margaret Meyerkort called A Saint Nicholas Story.  There are also 6 others gentle stories in the Waldorf tradition by Christine Natale, one for each day from December 1st up to St. Nick day.

They have a ton of other stories, and things to do, just explore the site. I will continue to update this post as I find new things that may be of interest.

 

Upon his snow white steed
With wind and lightning speed
St. Nicholas leaves the sky
And comes a-riding by

The little hare hops nigh
And lifts his nose up high
The stag with pointing horn
Leaps over bush and thorn

And all the creatures dear
Are drawing quickly near
Before St. Nicholas bow
Their little heads so low

And we will learn a tune
Of sun and star and moon
And sing our happy lay
Sing on St. Nicholas Day!

—Traditional German

Catching up with lessons, excursions & other minutia

After we learned about the Ojibwe and their homes and land it was time for day of the dead. We did the typical day of the dead activities. We made pan de meurto. I liked the recipe we used this year better than any I had ever tried. It was easier than the others, and when you added the glaze it smelled & tasted like fresh doughnuts. I think I will make it again soon, but call it something else. We decorated with simple fold & cut papel picado. I still have not taken them down. I think I will make some red & green ones for Christmas. I thought it would be a good time to start learning spanish. We already knew some basic phrases, colors, numbers, and things like that, we need to learn more so that we can speak it conversationally. We are learning it through songs & movement. We take the words & phrases from the songs & make large cards with the words on them and hang them up. We try to use the new words in everyday life.   I decided since it was day of the dead that we would learn about the mud houses of the Aztecs. Day of the dead has it’s roots in Aztec culture. The Aztec commoners lived in simple one room homes make of pole frames covered in mud or mud bricks. They usually had a thatched roof.   The Aztecs used cocoa beans as money we discussed this very briefly, as we will be going back to it deeper when we do a measurement block on money. Th Mexicolore  website has a really wonderful page about cocoa as money. 3 cocoa beans would have been worth one avocado. I told my daughter the story of how the little blue frog brought cocoa to the people. We made a hot chocolate whisk called a “molinillo” from a piece of dowel & copper wire. All you do to make one is coil about 4 feet of wire around a dowel that is smaller than the one you are using for the handle. This will make your wire look like a spring. You need at least 3 of them. Then you just wrap the coils around the dowel/handle and wire on tightly. 

To make hot chocolate in the traditional way you rotate the molinillo between your two hands placed palm-sides together.  The twisting motion frothes the chocolate. We made hot chocolate in this way while singing a  traditional chant..

Spanish	English
Bate, bate, chocolate,	Stir, stir, chocolate,
Tu nariz de cacahuate	Your nose is a peanut.
Uno, dos, tres, CHO!	One, two, three, CHO!
Uno, dos, tres, CO!	One, two, three, CO!
Uno, dos, tres, LA!	One, two, three, LA!
Uno, dos, tres, TE!	One, two, three, TE!
Chocolate, chocolate!	Chocolate, chocolate!
Bate, bate, chocolate!	Stir, stir, the chocolate!
Bate, bate, bate, bate,	Stir, stir, stir, stir,
Bate, bate, CHOCOLATE!	Stir, stir, CHOCOLATE!

You can hear this chant & others for free at the Texas State Library Archives website.

“Chocolate”  is about 1/3 down the page. This is a great resource for anyone wanting to add spanish to your curriculum or circle time.

We made some easy ojo de dios, or God’s eyes. The Caron website has a nice tutorial if you would like to see how to make them.

My daughter kept asking me “where” these different people we are learning about live. This continued to be an issue. She could not reconcile what their  natural environment & climate was with where they were located. To me this was a huge issue that needed to be addressed.  I decided we needed a map. I printed out a map of North America, or “Turtle Island”  as many indigenous people called it. It was a completely blank map that we could color & fill in as we like. When we study a group of people and their homes we draw their house on the map where they live/d. You can print out a map in just about any size up to 7ft (I think). The one here is 3ft x 4ft. It prints out on regular printer paper & you just tape or glue it together.

The next people we studied were the Cherokee. We did not do any traditional school work with this group. Instead we went to where they lived (and still live & thrive). We went to the north Georgia Mountains. I love it there. We went to many little areas and saw the amazing sites. We went to Tallulah Gorge. This gorge is HUGE. I think they said 950ft. We were lucky enough to be there when they let the water loose. There was some really nice white water, and the kayakers were taking full advantage of it.  They have a small, but very nice museum, and info center. They had a great deal of information on the Cherokee inside, as well as some myths & legends you could read next to pictures & displays.  Outside they had a wonderful blacksmith by the name of David Little doing demonstrations for visitors.  David is a man of many talents. He does black smith demos, makes unbelievable lighting fixtures, rehabilitates birds of prey and works at the Hike Inn at Amicalola Falls, an Inn you have to hike 5 miles on foot to get to. While driving around we discovered a beautiful old water powered mill right outside of Helen, Ga on the Chattahoochee River call the Nora Mill Garnary Grist Mill. It has been there since 1876. They grind all kinds of grain with very old french burr stones that are powered by the river you see in the pic below. This was a perfect thing for a 3rd grader to see as it ties into so many of our lessons.

 While we were up there we went to a great little music festival called Hemlockfest. It is a 3 day camp out festival  put on every year to raise money to help save the hemlock trees which are being utterly devastated by a beetle. The proceeds go to university labs trying to save the Hemlocks. It was a great little festival. This was the view as we walked down the drive toward the festival.

Once we were in the festival it was alive with music & good cheer. The weather could not have been better. This festival is wonderful. They even had canoes you could take out onto the lake for free.  They had a tepee set up at the far end of the lake that you could go inside of.  That’s my husband playing violin on a rock by the lake.The sign read “western plains tepee lodge..come in, sit down, tell stories.” 

They let you bring your dog.  I have been to many music festivals, and this is the only one that is dog friendly. We heard Col. Bruce Hampton, and the Quark Alliance play on Saturday night, and all I can say is wow!! Great show…..I really loved this little festival. I will definitely be back next year.

Shortly after we came home we went on a field trip to Cypress Gardens in Moncks Corner, SC. This was a nice field trip. We all went out into the black water swamp on boats. They have a buttefly pavillion, and aquarium too. I managed to capture this wierd little butterfly with my camera.

Here’s another of the same species in larva form….

That is what we have been up to the past few weeks. We are still working on our shelters block. Right now we are learning about tepees of the plains.

Watercolor paper lantern tutorial

This is an easy tutorial for paper lanterns from a watercolor painting. You can of course make a painting just for a lantern, or use any other kind of paper.

 

gather materials: Watercolor painting, scrap cardboard such as from a cereal box, scissors, glue stick, tape, x-acto knife, tissue paper, clothespin, wire for handle

make a line 1 1/2 inches up from bottom, cut paper below line as shown

cut shapes from paper with x-acto knife

 

coat back with glue

 

lay tissue on the back

it will look like this

 

 

fold up tabs toward back

 

apply glue to the edge of one side

 

clip one end, this will help in holding it in place, tape seam shut

 

trace around cylinder

  

 

 

 

draw a circle just slightly smaller than the one you traced, cut out smaller circle. Trace the one you cut out so that you have 2 cardboard circles

 

coat one side of each cardboard circle with glue. One goes on the inside, the other glue to the bottom

 

Put something heavy (like a jar or can) inside to weight it down until glue on cardboard circles dry

 

Now you can add a wire handle. If you are going to carry it on a stick or dowel, make a notch in you stick abput 1/2 an inch from the end. This will make a place for the handle to rest on the stick without slipping.

Martinmas links & info: Lanterns, poems, songs, & stories

Martinmas/Lantern Walk

St. Martin of Tours was born in 316 and died on November 11, 397. He is known as a deeply religious man who shared his cloak with a beggar and represents the attitude of brotherliness. According to old customs at this time, as the days become shorter and the stars appear earlier, children would walk with lanterns through the streets singing. As the world grows darker, the inner light of man wants to shine forth – from Shepherd Valley Waldorf School

Golden light is turning grey,
Mists begin to rule the day.
Bare the trees, their branches lift;
Clouds of dead leaves earthward drift.

Through the field the farmer goes,
Seeds of ripened corn he sows’
Trusts the earth will hold it warm,
Shelter it from cold and harm.

For he knows that warmth and light
Live there, hidden from our sight;
And beneath a sheltering wing,
Deep below, new life will spring!

Deep below, deep below, new life will spring!

Martinmas stories

Martin & the Poor Man- http://herbnites.tripod.com/waldorfinspiredschool/id15.html

A Golden Lantern- http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/GW3808.pdf

This is the story I will use for a mixed age group. I will tell my daughter the story of Saint Martin while we make our lanterns.

The Lantern

There was once a boy called George who had been outside in the garden all through the Summer running after the butterflies, jumping like a grasshopper, singing like a bird, and trying to catch the sunlight. One day when he was lying on his back in the meadow gazing up into the sun-filled sky, he said, “Dear Brother Sun, soon the Autumn winds will blow and wail, and Jack Frost will come and make us all freeze, and the nights will be long and cold.”  Brother Sun pushed the clouds aside and said, “Yes, it will be dark and cold. In the deep midwinter, warmth and light live deep within, hidden from sight. In the time of dark and cold, you will tend the Light Within.” “But,” said George, “How will I tend this Light when it’s dark everywhere around me?”“I will give you a spark of my last Autumn rays once you have made a little house for it, for this spark must be guarded well. It will light the way for you to tend the Light Within throughout the time of dark and cold.” And then Brother Sun once hid again behind a cloud. George went home and wondered how best he could make a little house for the spark of the sun. He took a thick piece of paper and painted a beautiful blue and yellow watercolor upon it. When it was dry, he cut windows into his painting. Then he placed colored tissue paper on the back of his watercolor – and – he formed it into a lantern. He took a candle and put it into the middle of his lantern. And, as it was growing dark, he went outside with it. George held the lantern up above him and said, “Brother Sun, I have made a little home for one of your golden sparks. Please may I have one? I will guard it well.” Then Brother Sun looked out from behind a cloud and said, “You have made a beautiful home. I shall give you one of my golden sparks.” And suddenly, George saw how the windows of his lantern were lit up, and as he looked into the lantern, he saw a spark happily dancing on top of the candle. Oh, how happy the light was in his lovely lantern! It shone and shone so brightly. “Thank you, Brother Sun,” George called out, “Thank you.” And he took his lantern and carried it carefully home singing:

 The sunlight fast is dwindling,

My little lamp needs kindling.

Its beam shines far in darkest night,

Dear Lantern, guard me with your light
~ from Autumn, Wynstones Press, originally by M Meyerkort and revised by L Sutter.

Martinmas lanterns

Paper mache globe lanterns http://maymomvt.blogspot.com/2007/11/making-lanterns-for-martinmas.html

turnip lanterns- http://resurrectionfern.typepad.com/resurrection_fern/2008/10/how-to-make-a-lantern-out-of-a-rhutabaga-or-turnip-a-seasonal-tutorial.html

water color lanterns- http://naturenest.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/watercolor-paper-lantern-tutorial/

glass jar lanterns-  http://ourhomeschooljourney.co.za/wordpress/142/how-to-make-a-lantern-for-waldorf-festivals-or-waldorf-inspired-gifts/

folded construction paper lantern (only for older childern) http://www.pacon.com/projects/PaperLanterns.htm

For 3 songs you can hear go to http://astorytellingofcrows.blogspot.com/

Aricles about Martinmas

http://chicmommyusa.com/martinmas-lantern-walk/

http://www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com/newsletter/39 -halloween & Martinmas

Day of the Dead necklace tutorial

Super cute day of the dead necklace tutorial. The skulls are from salt dough, and the flowers are tissue paper. Most of us have all the stuff already on hand. What a sweet job Alpha Mom. This would make an awsome garland as well.

This weeks lessons:language & apples

This week we began with Adam naming the animals which was turned into a lesson on naming words & doing words (nouns & verbs). This was inspired by Dorothy Herrer”s “An English Manual”. We had been including  the poems about animals that we found in “Wee Sing & Pretend” by Susan Nipp into our circle time, along with the song “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” by Bob Dylan. The entire animals poem can be seen in the book preview on amazon. The link will take you there. I use this book & cd set for many circle time activities.  The Bob Dylan song can be heard on YouTube using the link.  For the lesson I named an anima & wrote it on the board & she acted out what the animal did. I then wrote it’s action on the board. We then talked about the helper words like “A” , “An” and “the”.  She put what we had written on the board in her English book.

 Tuesday kicked off Michaelmas, and we went to the beach with friends to fly kites. I posted about that in the previous post. I told the kids the story of  “Nkosnati & the Dragon”. This one is appropriate for mixed ages. I did change the story to suit the seasons here.

Wednesday we made our dragon bread.  He puffed up so big that I didn’t have a platter to fit him on. We had to cut him up on the bread board. We also collected some wild flowers that were growing by the roadside for our table.

 

We continued with Old Testament legends with Adam & Eve having to make their own way “by the sweat of their brow” on earth. This actually worked out perfect for this week of Michaelmas. In one of the books I am using for stories “Clouds of Glory”, Michael brings Adam & Eve seeds & teaches them how to break apart the ground, remove the stones, and plant the seeds so that they can grow their own garden & feed themselves.  I love  this book for stories.  In this book the author also presents Shekina, gods  earthly presence. Shekina is female. We continued the english lessons with our weekly silly sentence for spelling practice, and an exercise from the Dorothy Herrer book. I wrote several sentences on the board without capitalization or punctuation, and then had my daughter place periods, and capitals  in the right spots. After that she was to underline the naming words in purple & the doing words in red. Before this exercise we talked about 4 things every sentence must have.. A capital letter to begin, punctuation in the end, a naming word & a doing word. I had her put this into her english book along with 2 sentences that contained those 4 things.

 

 

After this we moved onto the stories about Cain & Abel. More really difficult stuff. Honestly, I did not feel good about telling these stories. What is the lesson to be had from it? I have mulled this over & over. Is it that when we do not control our anger, bad things can happen to us & others? Is it that Cain did something horrendous, and is punished severely, but still is given the love & protection of god as he wanders? I really don’t know if this translates to a 8 or 9 year old. I have long been a student of world mythologies, and I can understand what the general understanding of this myth is in academic circles, but what Steiner sees is different.  I can clearly see that this is a story made by a herding people (the Israelites) to denigrate an agrarian culture (the Canaanites) prior to invading them. They are prefered by god over the farmers they are trying to take over, and this myth would have lended some sort of justification of what they perceived to be their rightful destiny. It’s hard for me to present this story knowing what I know about the history & why these stories were really created.It’s hard to keep these truths from her, especially when the questions that arise from the telling just keep coming and coming.  For now I suppose I have to trust the waldorf curriculum as they have been right about just about everything else up to this point.  

Thursday we had our usual swim lessons, and then our weekly homeschool group playdate, and thank goodness because we needed a break. On Friday we took a break form the old testament legends, and took up our farming work again. We did this for 2 reasons. One is we have a bushel of apples that has to be preserved before they spoil, and this needs to be worked into our lessons, and another reason is we are leaving on Wednesday for a vacation. I do not want to start on the sons of Cain, and Noah until we get back. These stories are going to springboard us into our shelters block. I did not want them to be interrupted by or made to be less important because we are trying to prepare for our trip while these lessons are going on.

So, on Friday we worked on apples. I told a brief story about the farming family from our container story, and what they do in fall. We talked about ways to preserve apples. I told my daughter a story we tell every year that she loves called “The Little Red House”. We wrote a summary on the board, and I had her point out the naming words & doing words in the sentences. She put what we wrote on the board in her farming main lesson book.

 We learned one way to preserve apples is by drying them. We peeled & sliced apples and put then on dowel rods to dry.  We strung the rods together & made an old fashioned apple ladder. Monday we are going to continue this and make applesauce. We save all cores & peels & juice them. You get about a cup of juice for every 3 or 4 apples worth of peels & cores. The pulp from the juice we feed to our chickens so that not one bit of our apples are wasted.

 

We also made some white wool balls with stones in the center for weight. We are going to dye them this weekend with the dye bath we made from goldenrod. I will post more on that later.

Happy Michaelmas!!

We began our celebration of Michaelmas today by going to the beach with some friends to fly kites. I should say we tried to fly kites, because our kite saw no action at all. It was a windless 90 degree day here. The kite layed on the sand while our kinds played on the beach, and in the ocean. Sad dragon….. We spent last night after dinner making him, and anxiously awaited to see him fly only to leave him lying lonely on a hot windless day…. I was dumb and didn’t wear sunscreen, so right now my face looks like a roasted beet, and my arms are burned only on the lower half. The sunburn left me feeling spent, so we didn’t get to make our dragon bread today. Lucky for us Michaelmas is celebrated right up to Halloween, so we have plenty of time to bake a dragon, and make some shooting star balls with wool, and the golden dye we made from the goldenrod we harvested over the weekend.

Michaelmas activity round-up

Michaelmas is quickly approaching. This is my favorite time of the year, and for me heralds the beginning of the holiday season. Michael is the brave dragon conquerer who wields a sword of cosmic iron, and brings strength to mankind, strength we can draw upon as the days become darker and we find our light within.   I am working on planning for activities for the festival. This is a nice little list of links with ideas for activities, stories, verses, and songs.

• how to make a dragon kite
• Michaelmas circle activity
• dragon bread-verse & recipe
• Li Chi Slays the Serpent- a girl hero story
• How to make an easy silk cape- I give you a cape of golden light, to gove you courage, strength & might
• Dying with goldenrod- a gift from fall. Goldenrod is free, creates beautiful golden colors, and is easier to find than marigolds this time of year.
• Beautiful article by Donna Simmons of CHristopherus
• Wet felt Michaelmas star balls (I can’t wait to do this. We will dye them with goldenrod since it is in season, plentiful, and free)
• Story-Nkosnati and the Dragon- beautiful story for Michaelmas from South Africa
• Holywood Steiner video of children singing Michaelmas song
• dragon kite #2
• dragon pinata out of recycled materials

 

Lastly here is a verse that  we use in circle time to reinforce the rhythm of the 3 times table 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 7-8-9, 10-11-12, ect

Brave & true  I will be,

Each good deed sets me free

Each kind word makes me strong

I will fight  for the right

I will con-quer the wrong