Autumn

Some families who homeschool multiple children create one lesson block for all of their children, then adapt each child's lesson work to the age of the child.  Others, like myself, use separate lessons for each "grade".  However, I have been hoping to find some activities that we can all do together in addition to our separate main lessons.

 

I got this idea from a Waldorf podcast I listened to recently.  It could have been a Gnome's Home Radio podcast (Waldorf Essentials), but honestly I don't remember.  If I do I'll see if it's a free one and I will post the link. 

 

My understanding is that at the beginning of each month, a new poem or verse will go on our chalkboard.  I will make a list of several activities that are inspired by this verse, and over the course of the month, the kids and I (and daddy is always invited, too, when he is home!) will do some of those activities together as a family.

 

Some of the ideas on my list so far are:

 

~field trips~

~nature journaling~

~original poems & verses~

~painting~

~felting~

~knitting~

~sewing~

~reading~

~papercrafts~

~woodworking~

~music~

~seasonal crafts such as leaf-dipping or luminaries for Autumn, ice candles for winter, Ukranian egg dyeing for Spring, gardening for Summer~

 

I have been really feeling the transition from Summer to Autumn over the past couple of weeks, and so, on September 1st, the kids awoke to this poem (from A Journey Through Time in Verse and Rhyme)

 on our chalkboard:

 

 

We had moved the tv downstairs and I have to say I love being in this space even more now that this is what I look at when I sit on the couch - along with my happy houseplants, which get a lot more loving attention in their new spot!

 

While leaves here in Fairbanks are just starting to turn a bit here and a bit there, we headed down to Denali for the day, and I have to say this poem captures exactly what the world is like there right now...even down to the mist on the hillside and the clouds grey and white:

 

We planned to try a new trail that I had hiked my first summer in Alaska, but we just happened to hear from Cali-mama who had been camping in the Park during her one brief moment of cell reception, so we abandoned plan and headed into the park to meet her and the crew:

 



 

They had checked out a discovery pack from the science center, so we headed out in search of tracks and scat and whatever else we could find:

 

 

Every single one of us was so excited about all of the really cool rocks:

 

 

At one point, I looked up and turned in a slow circle. I was just blown away by the vastness and beauty of my surroundings. "Look at where we are!" I cried. BuffloHeart reminded me "and you live here!"  We ventured on across the water, hunting for tracks...

 



Thanks to E, Panther made it across the water (although, by the end of the day, the shoes were soaked anyways!)



 Success!  There were many caribou and moose tracks (along with scat, of course). 

 

 Time to make the cast:

 





 

 

 

We used litmus paper to test the pH of the water:

 

 BuffaloHeart and I even got a queit moment alone...

 

 

 And so did Cali-mama and I:

 

 

The colors were spectacular!

 

 

 There was even a rare and mysterious beast lurking along the creek...

A plant I am not familiar caught both my attention and Cali-mama's"

 



 

Time to head out and...

EAT!

 

 

I am so lucky.  I am so blessed.  I am so grateful.  I am so going to snuggle with my man and drift off to dreamland in the arms of one I love...