If you miss the festival - don't miss the fun!

This post comes from a mum who struggles to balance

Steiner in the home with going to normal school and working part-time.

Last year's Martinmas celebration was peaceful and focussed.

This year I missed it with a hectic work schedule.

Instead of beating myself up about it : we celebrated on a different day.

Luckily my two seeds have no concept of time.

Better to encourage some awe and wonder 

than nothing at all.

So we went for our walk in the garden with our tin lanterns.

Special occasions remind us of the need for these rituals, to do something out of the ordinary,

to make us focus on nature, simplicity, important moments;

but they need not be confined to certain dates of the year.

Make up another celebration...

the end of Autumn, the start of Winter, the start of December, etc

but do go for that walk in the dark by candlelight.

x

Starting School- Making The Start A Good One

Big Seed finally started a new school.

We have enjoyed homeschooling and going to a Montessori Nursery for 2 afternoons

but there are hardly any homeschooling children his age here.

All his friends are starting school  so we decided to send him...a little reluctantly so soon.

The school are very supportive and let me stay with him as long as it took for him to settle a few days last July, and he loved it.

So we celebrated before he went instead of after...to alleviate any apprehension.

We made a celebratory breakfast.

I laid a tablecloth, and their own floral arrangements and the wooden rainbow laid on top

with an Autumn gnome.

We made some rainbow crayons last weekend which I wrapped in silks.

Little Seed unwrapped one too... his brother, his main playmate is leaving and it is a new beginning for him too.

I am sure he will enjoy the extra attention though.

Here is the Autumn gnome we wrapped as a gift,

he holds an apple one side ( very appropriate) and an oak leaf another.

Bought from a wonderful Etsy mama Waldorf Mouse here.

(UK mums check her out!!)

And a squirrel from her for Little Seed.

Focussing on natures changes moving into Autumn.

I also got him the Flower Fairies of the Autumn.

Big Seed bought a new crystal from the crystal shop.

We all gave it a kiss and I put it in a little cloth bag for him to take in

his schoolbag...to carry our love with him.

I hung our long rainbow silk from the stairs and placed his bag and shoes at the bottom.

I think days like this are just as significant as birthdays and religious celebrations

because they are so important to the child.

The whole family is involved in letting go...

of old routines, places, people...

and starting new ones.

I hope your child enjoyed their new beginning ...did you celebrate?

x

Happy St.David's Day

Happy St.David's Day!

St.David is the patron saint of Wales.

Today children dress in traditional costume, have Welsh folk festival competitions in schools,

make traditional Cawl soup and eat Welsh cakes.

Daffodils, leeks and dragons are Welsh symbols.

We had a nice day out in the park with friends and ate Welsh cakes.

It has been the first dry day in ages!

x

Valentines Day Activities #1

We are into the swing of our new theme:

St Valentine's Day, which is celebrated here on the 14th of February.

I cut up different shades of red/pink/purple from an old catalogue and Big Seed stuck them onto a paper heart as a collage.

He has since been cutting up an old catalogue by himself and making more hearts like this.

Little Seed stuck some down onto sticky plastic film.

He isn't ready for this yet but still wants to join in and copy his big brother.

I cut out different sized hearts from scrapbook paper for Big Seed to sort.

Sorting heart beads from Ebay.

Transferring marbles into a heart ice cube tray with a Chinese spoon.

Tray is from Ikea.

Big Seed loves post-it notes. So I gave him some of my pad and also made him

little heart shaped notebooks stapled together 

so he can pull off the sheets.

Big Seed made these counting heart cards.

I bought some shiny sticky 3D hearts from Ebay.

These are lovely to touch when counting.

Simple sentences.

This is a great introduction to reading and writing.

Big Seed drew the people in his family.

I wrote the words for him.

He chooses a person and he makes the sentence and reads it.

This activity isn't Valentines related but it's part of our "Activity Basket"

that we are working on now.

These cards relate to the Pink Series Montessori initial sounds

bought from here

I laminated them and he uses a wipeable pen.

They come with answer cards for self correcting.

This is some of the stuff we are working on this month.
I shall do another post with our other Valentines activities.

x

Happy Chinese New Year!

This is the first time we have celebrated Chinese New Year.

We started by looking at an atlas and having a chat about it.

Then the boys made these cards.

Big Seed painted with red watercolours at Christmas so we used these as a base.

I found some chinese writing on google so I wrote "happiness" on one card in pencil

and "peace" on the other.

Big Seed wrote on top in felt tip and Little Seed just liked to copy him with black crayons.

We glued on some gold glitter too.

I downloaded this rabbit template from here

Inspired by this we made a Chinese banner.
I wrote some words in pencil and some random letters
and Big Seed painted on top in watercolour.

We put everything up on our mantelpiece.
Then had Chinese Takeaway for dinner...of course!

Happy New Year !

x

Epiphany

I never knew what Epiphany was until I started celebrating all these occasions

with the boys.

It's the Three Kings Day.

Here they are on our nature table with 3 candles

left over from our Advent wreath,

and all the crystals we could find.

Some people believe that the Three Kings visited the Baby Jesus 12 days after his birth.

In Spain this is a huge celebration, and the day when children used to get their gifts, although

it is becoming more common to give gifts on the 25th.

Many people give a house blessing by writing the initials of the 

Three Kings and the date above their door in chalk: CMB2011

If you want to know a bit more read here

If you want ideas click here

If you want to see a small video of the Epiphany Parade in Barcelona see here.

Enjoy

x

Happy St.Nicklaus Day

Here is St.Nicholas, Patron Saint of children, about to go onto our Winter Table.

I always depict him in blue to distinguish him from the modern Santa Claus.

Here he is dressed as the Bishop that he became, holding a golden crozier as he is seen as the Shepherd of the People.

For further information, stories and celebration ideas visit this definitive website here.

This is such a fond memory for me, I love the simplicity of it.

Nuts and tangerines given with only 1 or 2 small gifts always unwrapped, just placed in the shoes left for him on the windowsill.

It's our call to decorate the tree.

Little Seed's knitted ball with silk streamers from Green Mountain.

Wooden carved 3 Little Bears from Mama Made Them

When I was little my Oma used to sing:

Knecht Rubrecht von drausen komme ich her,
Ich muss euch sagen es Weinachtet sehr,
Al ueber auf den tannen spitzen sah ich goldenen lichtlein blitzen,
Und droben am himmels tor sah mit grossen augen das Christkind hervor.
Lieber Lieber Weinachtsman,
Seh micht nicht so boesse an,
Steche deine rute ein,
Ich will auch immer artig sein.
Einen kleinen zuckerman,
alles bring der Weinachtsman.

Translates as:

Dear Dear Father Christmas,

Please don't look at me in anger,

Put away your cane, I promise I will always behave.

One little sugarman,

Father Christmas he brings everything.

Knecht Rubrecht,

From outside of the forest I come,

I must tell you all that Christmas is near,

I see Christmas tree tops everywhere sparkling with golden lights,

And above heavens door I see Jesus the saviour.

 ....

If you were good you would receive some gifts,

and if not you would get a lump of coal and a threatened with a broom.

Well this tradition goes back a long, long way when singing about thrashing naughty children was pretty ordinary stuff. (Think of The Old Woman in the Shoe nursery rhyme.)

You can get miniature brooms that look like witches' brooms covered with sweets in shops today.

I always looked forward to this much more than Christmas...it is an easy tradition to start.
The stories are heart warming and simple, the most renowned being the one about giving 3 poor daughters sacks of gold for a dowry to save themselves.

Enjoy this day

x

Martinmas

This is our first Martinmas celebration.

We made tin can lanterns.

We filled them with water, put them in the freezer, then hammered holes into the ice with a large nail.

Big Seed hammered while I held the nail...he was very fond of egg designs.

There are gale force winds tonight, so our walk around the garden had to be

replaced with a walk around the house with the lights off while we sang a few songs.

Big Seed enjoyed.

We ate our simple supper by lots of candlelight...Little Seed enjoyed that.

Hope you had a great Martinmas celebration.

x

Michaelmas

It's Michaelmas today.
It's the first time we have celebrated it.
You can find out lots of information here on a great post by Twig and Toadstool.

This is our table setting for Michaelmas.
I made the dragon out of felt after reading this at Rhythm of the Home.
It took a few evenings.
The beeswax candle was made by Big Seed.

I bought the wooden fire from Rjabinnik at Etsy.
I liked the link with dragon breathing fire and Big Seed is also into playing with fire engines.
It will be useful for storytelling this season.

Big Seed is too young to understand the real story behind Michaelmas,
and he is scared of dragons and fire...so we kept it very simple.

Here is his happy dragon painting.
What you say? It looks like a fish?
That's because he painted over his legs!

He didn't want a dragon story tonight so we played his current favourite game.
A pot of wooden acorns and a pot of real acorns.
( The block in the middle of the pic is purely artistic, placed there by Big Seed).
Roll a dice and put that number in your opponent's pot.
The winner is the first to empty their pot.

Happy Michaelmas to you

x