Resources

• Greek Mythology and History from Donna Simmons’ Fifth Grade Syllabus
• D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths
• Ancient Greece by Charles Kovacs
• English from the Roots Up by Joegil Lundquist
• BBC’s In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great by Michael Wood
• The Waldorf Book of Poetry, ed. by David Kennedy

I followed Donna Simmons’ schedule in the fifth grade syllabus fairly closely.  We began by reading about the Greek Gods and Goddesses in the D’Aulaires’ Book of  Greek Myths.  Some of the activities Teal did in addition to our daily readings include; a chalk pastel drawing of Zeus, a drawing of Artemis and an accompanying summary of her story, sculpting a minotaur from clay, writing a summary of the story of Pelops and the start of the Olympic games, a summary of the story of Heracles, memorizing and copying “Hercules” by Eileen Hutchins into her MLB, copying the poem “Hymn to Prometheus” by Roy Wilkinson into her MLB, and copying the opening stanza of The Iliad into her MLB.  We also read Simmons’ play “Demeter and Persephone” and ate pomegranates for lunch.

After the mythology section was complete, we dived into the Greek History section of Kovacs’ book.  Teal and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the history presented by Kovacs.  The stories were very well written and often included something funny that made us laugh.  They really made the history feel alive!  Some of Teal’s work on Greek History included; memorizing the Greek alphabet (She developed her own little tune that made it easy for her to memorize,) drawing a map of Greece, learning about and drawing the three types of Greek columns, writing an imaginary letter from a person in Athens to his cousin in Sparta, and taking a field trip to see Greek inspired columns in our city and Greek letters on the fraternities and sororities of the nearby university.

In the Simmons’ syllabus, Donna recommends making a point of drawing your child’s attention to Greek words which are a part of our language, but advises that it is not the time to get into a formal study of Greek roots.  I weighed her council and thought of my little “author-to-be” Teal and decided that we would go ahead and learn a bunch of Greek root words during this main lesson block.  I used the book English from the Roots Up, which was recommended by a friend many years ago.  There are 37 Greek roots in the book so I split them up – six roots each week, with seven roots the first week.  Teal copied the Greek root and its English translation onto little note cards, then chose two examples of words we use all the time that come from the Greek root.  She and I enjoyed the activity.  We casually reviewed the words each day and then moved to new words the next week.  It was fun and informal, but I am pleased with how much we both learned!

Last, but not least we watched BBC’s In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great.  This four-hour documentary is recommended by Donna Simmons.  (We watched it over the course of four days!  I don’t think it’s doable in one sitting.) When asked just now if she liked the documentary, Teal said, “I like how you ‘went’ to Alexander’s places.  I liked the narrator.  I thought it was a pretty good movie.”  I have to admit that I did not watch this documentary before plugging it in.  There was at least one comment per episode where I cringed a little inside.  For example, in the first episode an Egyptian hieroglyph is mentioned in which wine in being poured over a phallus and you get to see that hieroglyph.  Truthfully, my kids didn’t seem to notice any of those comments.  I was just left thinking, “Hmm.”

Still to come, as a completion of our Ancient Studies this year, we are going to go to a museum and eat Greek food.  The one thing I regret is not including a painting activity of some sort! I also sort of regret not making a map of Alexander’s conquests.

Thanks for visiting today!

Mrs. Mallard

photo credit: http://www.princetonwaldorf.org/programs/Eurythmy/grade_school

A few weeks ago, my local homeschool group held a day-long workshop with Eurythmy teacher Cynthia Hoven.  Cynthia teaches Eurythmy at the Rudolf Steiner College and has written a book about Eurythmy.  She explains eurythmy as “a modern movement art developed by Rudolph Steiner in which the sounds of language and music are expressed through gesture and dance.”

The workshop was fantastic!  The first half of the day we worked on archetypal movement including body carriage, something Cynthia called Three-fold stepping, and eventually walking through a type of choreography that had us partnered off and walking a pattern on the floor while simultaneously moving to different corners of the room to begin the pattern in a new direction!  As a dancer in years gone by, it really filled my soul.  How I love to move!  As a group we worked on being spatially and bodily aware of others while we passed little balls, walked triangles, figure eights and stars.  Cynthia recited little poems with appropriate meters to keep us all moving cohesively.

Later in the day we were divided into two groups and Cynthia had us glide through a pattern that first seemed like a big circle, then a peanut shape, then a flowing “X” as the two groups crossed, and finally ended in two separate circles.  She indicated that we had just danced something that is studied in the Waldorf seventh grade. Immediately, I could see that we had just “performed” cell mitosis!  (I have been looking ahead.  Seventh grade isn’t too far in our future!)  We then followed her in a fairy tale using eurythmy gestures.

I reflected for days on how enlivening movement is and how I can bring it to my children in our home.  Some things I can bring easily; like the purposeful stepping, the reaching exercises to open your back space, and the walking of shapes on the floor.  Some things will require more children, and for that I’m glad we have a homeschool group!  I ended up buying Movement for the Young Child and Cynthia’s book Eurythmy.  Movement for the Young Child looks very promising with many verses and stories and their accompanying gestures. Cynthia’s book contains the descriptions of the eurythmic gestures.  Using these two resources, I may be able to put some movement activities together (but authentic it will not be, as eurythmy is a four year course of study that I don’t envision learning!) That is fine by me, just adding some enjoyable movement activities will be enriching.

Do you incorporate archetypal movement or eurythmy into your homeschool?

We cleaned out our little garden beds yesterday.  I was going to move them to a sunnier spot, but decided to leave them where they are and add MORE containers for the vegetables that need more sun!  The ducklings helped plan our plot layouts, talking about which veggies did well in their spots from last year and which ones we needed to move around.  We are trying a few new things this year; chard, sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, another heirloom tomato variety, potatoes and several herbs.  After checking the planting instructions on some of our seeds, we decided to throw a few things in the ground yesterday!  There were several things that said we could plant them as soon as the ground was workable – peas, spinach, lettuces, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower.  I also threw in seeds for broccoli and cabbage, though they might not survive because our hard frost warning goes until late April.  I figured it was no big deal.  I planted from seed in April last year with pretty good results.  This is just a hobby garden after all!

Teal and Pintail have always had a little entrepreneurial streak and their latest idea was to sell peg dolls at our homeschool gathering.  I think they did a really good job on their little dolls and I was very grateful to the moms who bought some for their children at the gathering.  It made Teal and Pintail very, very happy!

Teal is in a short botany block right now.  The weather has been cooperating nicely, but all over the internet I have seen that many of you are enjoying gorgeous daffodils in bloom. Ours are just barely starting to emerge!  It has been really great timing, but I’m surprised by how barren our landscape is right now compared to other climates.  We talked about tulips two days ago, and out of the blue one of my neighbors gave me a lovely tulip plant.  It was perfect timing and I’m thankful to her for her thoughtfulness.

Teal and Pintail participated in a piano festival a few Saturdays ago.  It is part of the Federation of Music Clubs.  They had to memorize two pieces and perform them before judges.  Both Teal and Pintail received Superior marks, the highest you can get!  I was very proud of their hard work.

I am looking forward to our upcoming Spring Break.  Will you be enjoying any time off next week?

Mrs. Mallard

Someone on a facebook group I belong to linked to this beautiful video of my mother’s favorite song Sheep May Safely Graze by J.S. Bach.  It made me feel so at peace, I wanted to share it with you.

Peace,

Mrs. Mallard

I have one Turkish Bed Sock nearly finished! I need to sew up the two side openings and then it will be done.  I have already cast on the second sock though, because I decided to finish up all the seams together at the end.  It has been a fun pattern to knit and I have yarn ready for a second pair.  (But I won’t be using said yarn for a while because I have THREE other projects I’m ready to cast on!  I’ve been a bit of a yarn glutton this past week.  Scroll down to the end of this post and you’ll see what I mean!)

Teal and I learned how to do a provisional cast on today.  She has just begun a pair of Camp Out Fingerless Mitts.  (The picture directly above is the pattern photo.)  They are really cute, aren’t they?

Pintail is still plugging away on his Spring Valley Horse, a pattern we got from Melisa Nielsen.  Oh, he just has to finish this soon.  It’s dragging on like nobody’s business!

I have done a little yarn hoarding this week (as I alluded to at the beginning of the post.)  I bought yarn to knit Wigeon this sweater.

It’s the Immie.  Oh, you’ve heard me talk about that before, right?  Lot’s of times!  Yeah, well I got frustrated and frogged the whole thing.  Now I’m starting over with the Quince yarn.  I have to hustle because the pattern only goes up to age two and Wigeon’s already there!

While on the Quince site, I was tempted into buying yarn for these mitts.

I love them.  They are so cool looking I think!

I had a ten dollar credit at my local yarn store, so I bought a skein of Madelinetosh to make the Honey Cowl because everybody’s doing it.

And last (but certainly not least!) I was gifted with enough gorgeous MillaMia to make Wigeon this beautiful dress.

So much to do and so little time!  What are you working on?

Thank you for dropping by!

Mrs. Mallard

P.S. I never really wanted to have a stash.  I always intended to buy and knit as I went along, but here I am.  Now I have a stash.  Now I have projects looming. AH!  The stress of it all!

Joining with Frontier Dreams KCCO and Ginny’s Yarn Along.

I have to admit that part of my initial fascination with Waldorf/Steiner education was due to the simple, beautiful, natural toys. (But just part of the fascination.  I also loved the daily rhythm aspect, the Head, Heart, Hands philosophy, studying concepts in-depth, and many more things.)  But today I want to talk about “The Waldorf Doll,” and perhaps this should be more like an AA meeting.  Something like, “Hello, my name is Mrs. Mallard, and I want my daughter to LOVE her Waldorf doll.  I want her to prize it above all other toys.  I want her to eschew the pre-formed plastic dolls that are so cold and hard to snuggle with, etc.”  You get the idea?  Well, here’s my story.

I bought Teal and Wigeon beautiful, and I mean BEAUTIFUL, Waldorf dolls for Christmas.  Teal loves her doll Ivy and gave it an honorary place on her bed, just as it merits, but she doesn’t play with it.  I’m OK with that.  Teal is eleven and while playing with dolls used to be her thing, it isn’t any more.  I get it.  But Wigeon, little Wigeon, I was determined that she would love her Waldorf doll “Willow.”  I guess my unspoken (or was it spoken in non-direct words?!) desire for her to love it was somehow interpreted by the bigger ducklings, and a few days after Christmas, Wigeon’s other dolls mysteriously disappeared.  It was funny and I laughed about it, but I was secretly thrilled that there would be no more competition to earn a place in Wigeon’s heart.  And there wasn’t!  Suddenly a relationship started forming between Wigeon and Willow.  Wigeon asked for Willow every night at bedtime.  Wigeon played with Willow.  Wigeon began talking to Willow and wanting her to come with us in the car.  It was lovely!  Heartwarming really.

And then something happened.  Wigeon got a baby doll for her birthday.  A sweet plastic baby doll that is small and cute and looks like a baby.  It can take a bottle.  It can take a bath.  It is NAMED Baby.  Wigeon LOVES babies.  And Willow?  Dear Willow has been relegated to second place. For now.  (Teal confided in me that she remembers playing as if she had a little girl rather than a baby when she got older, so she is hopeful that Wigeon will come around.)

And me?  I’m OK, too.   I’ve read about “The Waldorf Doll” in The Education of the Child.  Steiner thought it was important for children to have simple dolls (like folded-napkin-dolls-with-dots-for-features simple)  so that their brains had to work to “fill in from their own imagination what is necessary to make it real and human.”  In giving a child what he calls a “pretty” doll, the “brain has nothing more to do” which makes it become “stunted and dried up.”  I certainly don’t want to cause a stunted or dried up brain, but sometimes I think even the Waldorf dolls of today leave very little to the imagination.  What do you think?  (And I don’t mean to turn this into a “My Waldorf doll is simpler than yours” type of thing!)

With all this in mind, we are going to keep loving Baby and Willow, Wigeon has already gifted them with a sweet sense of humanness, and I will continue to work on offering other playthings that leave lots of room for imagination.

Click on an image to view the birthday gallery.

Wigeon turned two last week!  She is the happiest, most gentle little girl I know.  I am so glad she is part of our family!  Her birthday started with a very special scavenger hunt created by Teal and Pintail. (You can see a blurred image of Pintail carrying her around.  Most of the photos are blurred this time around. Sorry!)  Teal and Pintail also decorated her door with streamers, which she loved.

I made my first-ever felt crown for Wigeon’s birthday.  I embellished it with two little needle-felted flowers and her needle-felted initial right up front (although the initial is not in the photos.)  I plan to add a flower or bird or person every year, so that by the time she is big her crown will be filled.  I thought it would be sweet to have the felted image grow with her.   The beautiful yellow playsilk in the photos was hand-dyed by my friend Amber.  You can buy them at HearthMagic.

Happiest of Birthdays Wigeon!  I love you!

Someone I love dearly passed away and I have been wrestling with strong emotions for the last three and a half weeks. I have had a difficult time being engaged in anything but the Must-Do items of the day.

Now, as the days have turned into weeks, the ache of loss has not abated, but I am buoyed by the hope that just as the frozen and dead-seeming earth is beginning its rebirth, new life will someday be given to those who have died.

I finished the Turn A Square.  I like it.  It’s cute.  I had seen a finished version in my local yarn shop and it seemed huge, so I actually left out the increases and it worked out well.  I like the square top.

This past Saturday, I wound the unwound skeins of my teeny-tiny stash.  I’m glad my mom has a yarn swift.  It really turns out a nice ball of yarn.  I have two skeins of lovely Koigu that I’m going to use for my next project; a pair of Turkish Bed Socks.  This pattern is a few years old, but I have wanted try knitting them for a while.

The ducklings and I tried our hands at using modeling clay yesterday.  We enjoyed the medium very much, but as our pieces dry they seem to be breaking very easily.  That is a little disappointing. I am getting more and more use out of Learning about the World through Modeling by Arthur Auer.  I’m glad I have it as a reference.

Teal’s Minotaur

Pintail’s “Dead Horse”

Sweet little Wigeon who told me she made a train.

My Minotaur which received a lot of guff for having well-formed buttocks.

Thanks for dropping by the pond today!  I look forward to seeing what other projects abound.

Mrs. Mallard

Shared as a part of Waldorf Wednesday, Yarn Along, and KCCO!