Songs on Sunday: King Winter Is Now In The Land

We are trying something new to encourage our daughter to learn how to play one new song per week on her recorder. She loves to have recording sessions with her Daddy, so we will be recording the songs at the end of each week, and posting the recordings here each Sunday. The songs will generally be seasonal, but others may be work songs, or songs that pertain to our main lesson work. Enjoy!

This song can be found in the Wynstone Press book “Winter”, and was written by M. Meyerkort & N. Foster. Music played by my husband, and  my daughter.

Celebrating Winter with Frau Holde, AKA Mother Holle

Frau Holde is a goddess of the southern Teutonic people of Germany. Many of you who have taken your children through a Waldorf kindergarten or first grade may be unknowingly familiar with Frau Holde, or Mother Holle as most of us know her. Mother Holle was one of my daughters absolute favorite fairytales. She asked for it again & again, and still does. Now that she is 9 Mother Holle remains one of her favorite stories. She begged for it, so we are spending a couple of days on the story and related activities. It actually could not be better timing. She has become lazy with her (very few) chores, and has taken a bit to whining. Maybe rehashing this story will set her straight.

Frau Holde, mother goddess of spinning, domestic animals, & childbirth, brings the winter by shaking the white, feathery down from her pillows, an sending the crystaline snowflakes drifting  to earth. Fog is smoke from her fire. When it rains it is her wash day, and thunder is heard when she spins her flax. In fact, it is Frau Holde who first taught the magical art of spinning linen into flax.  

Holde is a protector of the home, and a patron of the housewife & mother,of spinning, and domestic chores. This is a goddess that should hold a special place in the heart of a homemaker. Much like Hestia, she is a goddess of the hearth.  She promotes the independence of housewives.  Before the industrial revolution, spinning and selling their goods was the only way housewives could get money of their own. Frau Holde loves, and rewards a hard worker. She is a kind goddess who gives unexpected gifts on the best spinners, and those who stop to help her for no other reason than the kindness of their heart. Her gifts often look like common objects, but hold great treasures for those with eyes to see them. One legend tells of Frau Holde giving a gift of wood shavings from her broken cart to a man who had helped her repair it. He thanked her genuinely for the gift, and the shavings turned to gold. Alternately she punishes, and has no mercy for the lazy, and idle.

Frau Holde was traditionally celebrated during the period between December 2oth until January 1st known as Winternights. Some sources site these days to be Dec. 25th until Jan. 5.  She oversees the New Years preparations for families that she is caring for. One of these preparations is making “butterklosse” , a traditional german dumpling (recipe later in the post) for the feast of Frau Holde. We call them MOther Holle’s Pillow dumplings.

There are so many fun things you can do to celebrate & have fun with Frau Holde/Mother Holle. Here are some things we have done.

• Tell the story of  Mother Holle.  You can hear an audio of the story at Storybee.org  if that will help you remember it in order to tell it to your child/ren. The stories are in alphabetical order. This story makes a wonderful pre-cursor to activities. If your child is just learning letters, this is the perfect story for introducing the letter H. The H can appear as the framework for mother Holle’s house. See this link for another picture http://www.oakmeadow.com/curric/demo_oc.cfm?grade=1 . The story of Mother Holle also opens the door to discussing natural phenomenon. You can tell them of  how when the snow falls to earth, Mother Earth will make  water with it that the seed babies will need to drink when they wake up in spring. With out the water from the winter snow they would not be able to grow into the beautiful blossoms of spring & summer. Mother Holle’s feathers are a promise of the coming spring.

• Make Butterklosse, or Mother Holle’s pillow dumplings (link will take you to our new recipe & tute blog)
• Take a nature walk to hear, smell, see, & collect all the things winter has to offer. When you come back inside make a soap snow scene with your nature finds. 
• Make an easy, low fat, cofee cake like Susan’ Coconut Chai Breakfast cake. Let your child dust it with powdered sugar to “make it snow”. All of Susan’s recipes are egg & dairy free, but you would never know it to taste them.
• Make paper snowflakes for the windows, or to hang up.Make very easy one with younger kids. Older ones will enjoy the challenge of more complex patterns that can be found all over the web. Below is a basic fold I found at http://www.joysikorski.com/PaperSnowflake.html. You can make them sturdier my ironing them between sheets of wax paper then removing the snow flake.

Holy Holda, by Diane L. Paxson
Holy Holda, in the Heavens
A snowy featherbed you’re shaking –
Bless the earth with your white blanket,
Moist the mantle you are making

Holy Holda adapted for our use:

Mother Holle, in the Heavens
A snowy featherbed you’re shaking –
Bless the earth with your white blanket,
Moist the mantle you are making

 Sources:

Order of the White Moon: http://www.orderwhitemoon.org/goddess/Holda1/Holda1.html

Llewellyn’s Magical Almanac 1996

Wapedia: http://wapedia.mobi/en/Holda

Finally finished the shelters block**Happy Solstice everyone!!

Yeah! We finally finished up our block on shelters, and the sun is making his slow & winding return. Yesterday we finished up on Igloos, and DD put a paragraph & illustration in her book, and wrote the last part to the Dorothy Herrer houses poem that we are including in the shelters main lesson book. 

 In the afternoon we went with friends & had a small solstice spiral celebration at our local state park with a spiral of evergreen & apple candles. I was my usual, very together, self (this is sarcasm), and forgot my wallet, so we had no cash for admission to the park. It all worked out since you can walk a mile down the beach from the pier, and get into the park that way. It actually turned out to be a happy accident because we found some neat nature things on the walk to the solstice spiral. We found a horseshoe crab shell, which we used as a bowl to collect other finds. We found 2 spiral shells, a large bi-valve of some kind, a spiny sea urchin, pieces of coral, and some sea sponges.

 The beach was pretty much covered in the sea sponge. To me it looks like deer antlers. I am thinking maybe I could sew some felt deers, and use the sea sponge as their antlers. I works in theory anyway. 

We put Mother Earth & the baby sun child on the nature/advent table.

I made them a few years ago. Mother Earth makes frequent appearances with different cloaks, but the sun child’s stay is brief, as all children’s are. Today was the final day in our block, and the start of our short winter break. I had DD look through Fiona Macdonald’s excellent book “Homes”,and find one house of her choice to add to her shelters main lesson book.

She chose a dome shaped leaf house made by people in the African rainforest.

“Homes” is a wonderful book about houses. It has primitive houses, all the way to modern houses. What people do in houses, ways they protect houses, primitive, and modern. This is an excellent resource as are all of Fiona Macdonald’s books.  We celebrated the closing of the shelters block by making a gingerbread house from scratch. I used the gingerbread recipe from “The joy of Vegan Baking”, and a house template that I got here. That’s it for school until after Christmas. I think we will enjoy the rest of the holidays by making gifts, and doing a few fun, and silly crafts. I hope every one has a safe, happy, abundant, light filled holiday.

This years goldenrod dye pot

We have been dying things with goldenrod for a few years. Every year around Michaelmas every field, roadside, and neglected patch of land bursts with brilliant yellow as the goldenrod blooms. Goldenrod is a superb dye stuff. It can give shades of lemon yellow to deep gold, and even olive green with the addition of iron. Last year we dyed golden silk capes.  They have been washed numerous times and are still a brilliant yellow, so it is a very colorfast dye. This year we dyed about 15 yards of cotton muslin, some felted shooting star balls, a white dress that had been lightly stained,  a cotton velour hoodie, and some leggings. Everything turned out beautifully. 

I had 2 pots, one with goldenrod & alum, the other goldenrod, alum, and rusty nails. The nails put iron into the mix, and changed the PH to get the lovely olive green shade. I did a post about how to dye with goldenrod last year.     What I did to get the green is a bit different from what I posted last year. This year I had 2 pots of steeped goldenrod. One pot I put the rusty nails in, the other I left with just goldenrod & water.  I dyed all of my yellow stuff after I added the alum to one pot, and then mixed in the  alum/goldenrod water into the goldenrod/nails water. That is what gave the nice olive green. This will save you alum, which is not really expensive, but it will save you a couple of bucks. Goldenrod can also be dried for later use.

 

 

The Little Red House: an apple story

The Little Red House

There was once upon a time a little boy who was tired of all his toys and, tired of all his play.  ”What shall I do ?” He asked his mother.  And  his mother, who always knew beautiful things for little boys to do, said, ” You shall go on a journey and find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside.”         

This really made the little boy wonder. Usually his mother had good ideas, but his thought that this one was very strange. “Which way shall I go?” He asked his mother. “I don’t know where to find a little red house with no doors and no window .”  “Go down the lane past the farmer’s house and over the hill,” said his mother, “and then hurry back as soon as you can and tell me all about your journey.”         

So the little boy put on his cap and his jacket and started out. He had not gone very far down the lane when he came to a merry little girl dancing in the sunshine. Her cheeks were like pink blooms petals and she was singing like a robin. “Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star in inside?” asked the little boy. The little girl laughed, “Ask my father, the farmer,”  she said. “Perhaps he knows.”        

 So the little boy went on until he came to the great brown barn were the farmer kept barrel of fat potatoes and baskets of yellow squashes and golden pumpkins. The farmer himself stood in the doorway looking out over the green pastures and yellow grain fields. “Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows  and a star inside?” asked the little boy of the farmer. The farmer laughed too. “I lived a great many years and I never saw one.” He chuckled, “But ask Granny who lives at the foot of the hill. She knows how to  make molasses, taffy and popcorn balls, and red mitten! Perhaps she can direct you.”        

 So the little boy went on farther still, until he came to the Granny, sitting in her pretty garden of herbs and marigolds. She was wrinkled as a walnut and as smiling as the sunshine. “Please, Dear Granny,” said the little boy. “Where shall I find a little red house with no doors and no windows  and a star inside?”

         Granny was knitting a red mitten, and when she heard the little boy’s question, she laughed so cheerily that the wool ball rolled of her lap and down the little pebbly path. “I should like to find that little house myself,” she chuckled. ” I would be warm when the frosty night comes and the starlight would be prettier than a candle. But ask the wind who blows about so much and listens at all the chimneys. Perhaps the wind can direct you.”        

 So the little boy took off his cap and tipped it politely to the Granny and went on up the hill rather sorrowfully. He wondered if his mother, who usually knew almost everything had perhaps made a mistake. The wind was coming down the hill as the little boy climbed up. As they met, the wind turned about  and went along, singing  beside the little boy. It whistled in his ear, and pushed him and dropped a pretty leaf into his hand. “I wonder,” thought the little boy, after they had gone along together for awhile, “if the wind could  help me find a little red house with no doors and no windows a star inside.”         

The wind cannot speak in our words, but it went singing ahead of the little boy until it came to an orchard. There it climbed up in the apple tree and shook the branches. When the little boy climbed up, there at his feet lay a great rosy apple. The little boy picked the apple. It was as much as his two hands could hold. It was red as the sun had been able to paint it, and the thick brown stem stood up as straight as a chimney, and it had no doors and no windows. Was there a star inside?  

The little boy called to the wind, “Thank you,” and the wind whistled back, “You’re welcome.”  Then the little boy gave the apple to his mother.  His mother took a knife (AT THIS POINT , START CUTTING AN APPLE CROSSWISE) and cut the apple through the center.  Oh, how wonderful! There inside the apple, lay a star holding brown seeds.         

“It is too wonderful to eat without looking at the star, isn’t it?” the little boy said to his mother. “Yes indeed,” answered his mother. 

Picking apples, and Mini German Caramel Apple Pancakes

We went on a field trip  a few hours north to a u-pick apple grove to see how apples were grown and pick a bushel for preserving. The whole picking process was fast. I wish it had been a longer experience, but at least my daughter did get the experience of pulling the apples from the tree with her own hands, apples she will process this week into dried apples, apple sauce, and fruit leather during next week’s lessons. At the orchard a mother pig had just had 5 babies a few days before. Baby pigs are pretty close to the cutest things on earth. You really have to see them in action. CUTE OVERLOAD!!! 

This morning I made everyone mini german apple pancakes from a few of the apples we picked. The recipe is below.

 

 

 

 

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

Our Lessons this week: stars & dandelions

I had so many cool things planned for a week of stars, but some personal business really got in the way. I did however manage to get in one nice story that tied in the sun, moon, and stars while opening the door to spring with the inclusion of dandelions. I do love those glorious yellow weeds!! Our rabbit Ms. Bun loves them too!! 

  

 My daughter learned this poem when she was 5. It was her favorite, but her bigger girl self had forgotten what she had learned, and loved so very much when she was smaller. She re-learned it & put it in her book of poems, and songs. My illustration ties it into The Star Children story. If we can we will paint about the story later in the week.

She loves it just as much now as when she was 5, and took a great deal of joy in blowing the white puffy seeds froms the stems. They are really every where right now. I think they are truly the Ambassadors of Spring.

O DANDELION

O Dandelion, yellow as gold, what do you do all day?
“I just wait here in the tall, green grass, ’till the children come to play.”

O Dandelion, yellow as gold, what do you do all night?
“I wait and wait, while the cool dew falls, and my hair grows long and white.”

And what do you do when your hair grows white, and the children come to play?
“They take me in their dimpled hands, and blow my hair away!”

   Lastly, I shared with her information I learned from this article that I found through the Waldorf Online Library. It  was about how you can never really pick a dandelion.  It is a really beautiful article that is worth taking a moment to read. I hope all of you are having a wonderful time watching this spring unfold!

Why the evergreen trees keep their leaves: a winter tree and bird tale

This story is a great one for this time of year when most of the trees save the evergreens are in their skeletal form.  A little injured bird needs a place to stay, but no one  will help her. Spruce, pine, and juniper show her kindness and offer shelter,  and for that the Frost King rewards them in kind.

One day, a long, long time ago, it was very cold; winter was coming. And all the birds flew away to the warm south, to wait for the spring. But one little bird had a broken wing and could not fly. He did not know what to do. He looked all round, to see if there was any place where he could keep warm. And he saw the trees of the great forest.“Perhaps the trees will keep me warm through the winter,” he said.

So he went to the edge of the forest, hopping and fluttering with his broken wing. The first tree he came to was a slim silver birch.

“Beautiful birch-tree,” he said, “will you let me live in your warm branches until the springtime comes?”

“Dear me!” said the birch-tree, “what a thing to ask! I have to take care of my own leaves through the winter; that is enough for me. Go away.”

The little bird hopped and fluttered with his broken wing until he came to the next tree. It was a great, big oak-tree.

“O big oak-tree,” said the little bird, “will you let me live in your warm branches until the springtime comes?”

“Dear me,” said the oak-tree, “what a thing to ask! If you stay in my branches all winter you will be eating my acorns. Go away.”

So the little bird hopped and fluttered with his broken wing till he came to the willow-tree by the edge of the brook.

“O beautiful willow-tree,” said the little bird, “will you let me live in your warm branches until the springtime comes?”

“No, indeed,” said the willow-tree; “I never speak to strangers. Go away.”

The poor little bird did not know where to go; but he hopped and fluttered along with his broken wing. Presently the spruce-tree saw him, and said, “Where are you going, little bird?”

“I do not know,” said the bird; “the trees will not let me live with them, and my wing is broken so that I cannot fly.”

“You may live on one of my branches,” said the spruce; “here is the warmest one of all.”

“But may I stay all winter?”

“Yes,” said the spruce; “I shall like to have you.”

The pine-tree stood beside the spruce, and when he saw the little bird hopping and fluttering with his broken wing, he said, “My branches are not very warm, but I can keep the wind off because I am big and strong.”

So the little bird fluttered up into the warm branch of the spruce, and the pine-tree kept the wind off his house; then the juniper-tree saw what was going on, and said that she would give the little bird his dinner all the winter, from her branches. Juniper berries are very good for little birds.

The little bird was very comfortable in his warm nest sheltered from the wind, with juniper berries to eat.

The trees at the edge of the forest remarked upon it to each other:

“I wouldn’t take care of a strange bird,” said the birch.

“I wouldn’t risk my acorns,” said the oak.

“I would not speak to strangers,” said the willow. And the three trees stood up very tall and proud.

That night the North Wind came to the woods to play. He puffed at the leaves with his icy breath, and every leaf he touched fell to the ground. He wanted to touch every leaf in the forest, for he loved to see the trees bare.

“May I touch every leaf?” he said to his father, the Frost King.

“No,” said the Frost King, “the trees which were kind to the bird with the broken wing may keep their leaves.”

So North Wind had to leave them alone, and the spruce, the pine, and the juniper-tree kept their leaves through all the winter. And they have done so ever since.

(Adapted from Florence Holbrook’s A Book of Nature Myths. (Harrap & Co. 9d.))

from How to Tell Stories to Children, and Some Stories to Tell , by Sara Cone Bryant

 

making pine cone bird feeders

The air is cold, the worms are hid

for the robin what can be done?

Let us make some pine cone feeders

so he may eat until winter’s gone.

 

We are working on the lives of saints. This week I told the story of Saint Francis & the birds. We made some simple pine cone bird feeders with pine cones, peanut butter, and birdseed, and hung them in front of all of the windows so that we could see the birds. DD spent about half an hour today just watching the differnt birds who came to feast.  Most of you I’m sure have seen these before. If not all you do is smear the cone with the p-nut butter, and then roll in bird seed. I give my daughter all of the supplies on an old baking pan, and when we are done there is very little mess to clean up. She loves making these, and the birds love eating them.