Waldorf Meets Montessori Sensory Tub

I like a lot of Montessori stuff, but I LOVE Waldorf.  So we tend to lean towards Waldorf stuff, most of the time.  Why?  I love the all natural, nature based feel of Waldorf. 

It came to my attention (hello permanent marker scribbles on the table) that one of my main needs for home school, was a way to keep Kian and Felicity busy while Logan and I worked on his lessons.  I've always done sensory play with the kids, but wanted to kick it up a notch.  I decided to make the two littles some Montessori inspired sensory tubs.  My one hang up was all the plastic stuff people usually put in them.  I know....I'm a freak.  But a box full of plastic trinkets and rice just doesn't thrill me.  Plus, I've really been working on de-plasticising our house for a year now, so I'd honestly have to go out and BUY those plastic trinkets.  No thanks.  So I decided to Waldorf it up.

First, in true Waldorf form, I involved the kids.  We've been studying Fall, especially with Lissy for preschool.  So I asked the kids to review the colors of Fall to me.  We wrote them down and then each child chose a color they wanted to dye their rice.  Logan chose orange, Kian chose yellow, and Felicity chose purple.  Then they dyed their rice (in a not so Waldorf manner, baby steps).

Here's Kian rolling his jar of rice on the carpet, to evenly spread the color.

After the rice dried, I put it in broiling pans I'd bought for Kian and Lissy.  I'd like to have nicer boxes, but I'm just glad they're not plastic.  :)

Then came the fun part.  I threw in a few handfuls of acorns and acorn caps the kids had gathered that day on our nature walk. I also added dried corn kernels we harvested from our yard.  I sent Lissy out to the backyard to find Fall leaves, and those were added too.  I had bought some Indian corn at the store the other day, so I put one in each box.  A spoon, a small cup, and a clothes pin and the boxes were done!

Our Fall sensory box!

Felicity and Kian had so much fun and this kept them busy long enough for Logan and I to really get some work done.  Then after this seat work, they were ready to go outside and swing awhile, again allowing us more work time.  These two have been bickering a lot lately, so this was a VERY wonderful addition to our homeschooling day, especially since the kids helped with every step of the creative process.

Felicity wanted to add her beloved "Bible Men" to her sensory tub.  In sticking with the Fall theme, I asked her to just add the Bible Men who were dressed in Fall colors.

She was a bit sad that the Pink family were not included.

They'll get their chance in the Spring.  :)

Pumpkin Planting Time

We just got around to planting our pumpkin seeds.  We really should have done it earlier but again.....life.....oh my.  

I had some cow pots sitting around and had saved one cardboard egg carton so we planted our seeds in those.  Since these are for the kids garden, I just let them fill their pots with as many seeds as they wanted.  I figure it'll be very gratifying for them to see lots of sprouts in their little pots.  Logan has LOVED white pumpkins since I can remember.  I mean he was a TINY guy when he saw them for the first time, and he has picked a white pumpkin over traditional orange ones each year at the pumpkin patch.  He was thrilled to find a packet of white pumpkin seeds at the store for our first home grown pumpkin patch.  We also planted traditional jack o lanterns (which I hope to use for cooking), assorted gourds, sunflowers, and holly hock.  It may be too late for the sunflowers but Felicity fell in love with the seed pack at the store because it had a princess on it.  So we're growing late sunflowers.  :)  And Zac loves holly hock and always wants to grow them but for some reason we've never had luck so we're trying again for him.  We're very excited about the gourds!  We grew wonderful ones last year and the kids were so excited and then I accidentally broke the vine at its base while weeding so we never got to enjoy them.  I can't wait for all these kid centered garden fascinations to sprout and grow!

And I have a quick request.  I'm sitting at home these days, too nervous to venture out too far as I await what is to come, so I thought I'd get started on some crafting goals I've put off.  My main one is Felicity's Waldorf doll for her 4th birthday in September.  I have a book, Making Waldorf Dolls by Maricristin Sealey, and have been reading it.  Now I need to buy my wool and other needed materials.  I will purchase all online, I assume, as I don't think anything I need is sold locally.  If you make Waldorf dolls, I'd appreciate any links to where you buy your materials online, and any tips.

Thanks!

Polenta Play

Texture play is always a hit around here.  It makes a big mess, but I don't mind messes (which you know if you've ever visited our house) and the vacuum can suck it all up super fast so the time spent in play is well worth the quick clean up.

Kian prefers to scoop and dump, making the biggest mess of the 3.

Felicity usually makes little worlds in her broiling pan.  She sets up animals on little hills.

And my car/truck obsessed boy usually makes his broiling pan into a mini construction site.

The texture of choice is always just something we have on hand.  On this day it was polenta and baby rice cereal.  I'd just cleaned out my pantry.  The polenta was outdated, and the rice cereal....well, Kian's WAY too old for it and we honestly never really used it.  We've been known to use salt, flour, powdered sugar, shaving cream, hair mousse, and water for our texture play times.  I've been wanting to set up a tub of beans for them to play in, but Kian still has straight to the mouth tendencies (if you know what I mean) so I think that will have to wait a bit longer.

On this particular day, the kids were extra busy so I buried treasures in each of their pans for added interest.  The older two were told how many buried objects they were to find and that kept them busy for a while.  Once the objects were found, then they went on to their imaginary play with their texture pans.  Kian just got excited when he randomly found new treasures while playing and pouring.

Color Map

Felicity is a little behind in counting and colors.  When most almost 3 year olds are starting to learn the concept of colors and numbers, we were focusing on Lissy's speech delays and teaching her simple words like "help" and "owie" to help us know and meet her needs.  Now she's almost 3 1/2 and her speech is definitely improving.  Last year at this time, she was considered almost non verbal.  She had about 50 words but that was being generous.  Her Daddy's VERY hands on and even he couldn't understand 80% of those 50 words.  The only reason I could most of the time was strictly out of survival.  Today, I could never count her words.  She has way too many.  It wouldn't even be possible to keep track.  :)  Though we are still the main people who know what she's saying the majority of the time, family and friends close to us are starting to be able to understand her too.  It's exciting to see.

ANYWAYS....she's lately shown that she's ready to learn color concepts so I made her this SIMPLE "color map". 

She lays is out and simply gathers objects and places them on their correct color square.  When Logan, Zac, or I do it with her, we say the colors for her.  When she does it on her own, it's simple matching, though she does know how to say "blue", "pink", and sometimes "red."

It's a great way to encourage her investigation of colors and SO simple to throw together.  If you don't sew, you could simply cut squares out of paper and glue together.

Lots of heart crafting

The kids and I made some Valentines the other day.  I can't post them here yet as they will be going to family who follow this blog.  :)  But that got the kids going on hearts and they've been crafting hearts like crazy. 

Felicity and I made last minute (because I forgot) handmade Valentines for her Cubbies Valentine party.  I cut hearts from card stock while she watercolored.  Once the watercolors were dry, I cut those into smaller hearts.  All hearts were hole punched.  With curling ribbon I tied a card stock heart and a watercolor heart together and curled the ribbon.  I added a Valentine message and she "signed" her Valentines by making thumbprint hearts on each one.  I also punched a butterfly shape into each watercolored heart since Felicity LOVES butterflies.  I was bummed that I'd forgotten her party and that these were simply thrown together at the last minute but when I was later going through her goody bag and throwing out junky Barbie (hate her) and super hero printed papers, I felt a lot better about our handmade creations.  Call me old school, but I'd take handmade anything, any day, over the same store bought stuff everyone else has.

I'm a saver of fabric.  I save the smallest scraps, and even stuff that I KNOW is totally trash, I have a hard time throwing out.  I did a lot of cutting the other night (for a project I'm really excited to complete and share) and I had LOTS of scraps in my throw out pile.  I suddenly had a wonderful idea and pulled them out of the trash pile.  I made a pile on the kitchen table, cut large hearts for the kids, dribbled glue all over the hearts and they set to work putting fabric scraps all over their hearts.  When they needed more layers, they haphazardly dribbled more glue all over and continued piling on fabric.  Once they were dry (which took a LONG time), I cut the excess fabric off that hung over the edges, revealing a heart shape.

Hmmmmm....glue tastes interesting.

On a night Zac was working late, I was bathing the baby after dinner and Logan and Felicity wanted to paint.  I told them they'd have to wait until I was finished bathing Kian.  A few minutes later, Logan came running in so proud of himself.  He had set up the dinning room table full of paints and supplies!  All I had to do was cut two huge hearts and they set to work painting.  They also added more fabric to their painted hearts, along with linguine noodles.

This is the kind of mess I don't mind at all.

Mixed medium hearts

Lissy's painted heart

And lastly, we simply used their old artwork to cut hearts from.  I folded the paper and drew a half heart for Logan and was THRILLED when he cut it perfectly!  Normally, his cutting is haphazard as he lacks patience to do slow steady cuts.  I was so excited to see this growth.  Felicity still has a hard time cutting on the line so when we do cutting work that needs to be specific, she sits on my lap and we cut together, my hand on top of hers on the scissors.

We have hearts on windows, hearts on bedroom walls, and secret Valentine hearts hidden away for Monday.  I'm not usually one to really get into Valentine's day, but I have to admit, the kids' excitement is starting to rub off on me pretty good.  :)

The Curiosity of Clay

We recently introduced Kian to clay.  I think he felt pretty big being up at the table with Logan and Felicity experimenting with this new medium.

I wanted to use the clay as a handwriting tool for Logan.  I showed him how to make four balls, turn them into four snakes, and then use the snakes to form a W.  Here he is working on the balls and snakes.

He got this far and froze.  This is a problem he's been having lately.  I made a W myself, step by step, to show him how to do it.  Then we made one together.  Next I asked him to do one on his own but again, he froze.  I have been very frustrated with this freezing thing lately and don't know what to do.  If I try to help, we both get frustrated.  This day, I just decided to walk away when both our frustration was rising.  I was hoping some space and independence would help him.

In the mean time, I heard Felicity excitedly yelling "U, U, U!"  I turned around to see that she had in fact made a whole collection of U's (our letter from a few weeks ago).  I know the picture below isn't that great, but I just had to include it because her proud face is just too cute.

And sure enough, some time alone to calm down and try MANY times helped Logan successfully make a W!

He even went on to voluntarily make some review letters so I'm hoping that meant he wasn't too frustrated after all.

And of course, boys will be boys, and some stabbing of clay was done.

Lissy later came back to the clay and wanted to practice cutting it.  This worked great for her since paper is still hard for her to control while manipulating the scissors.  Look at her face of concentration!  Love it.



An Experiment With Fire

 One morning, as I was lighting a fire, Logan started asking questions about which things would burn and which wouldn't.  I decided to do an impromptu science experiment with he and Felicity.  We gathered a few items and one by one, added them to the fire.  The kids sat and watched as the items burned, or didn't.  In the picture below you can see their rocks we added.  If you look really closely, you can also see a nail sticking out of the top right piece of wood.  Both were part of our experiment.

Here are the kids watching their items burning (or not).  You can also see that Logan has a list in front of him.  We made two tables on two separate pieces of paper.  I didn't take a picture of them because, well, I'm being lazy.  On one table we made a grid and listed the items we planned to burn, and each of our guesses.....yes (it would burn), or no.  Our second table was actually two circles.  One was labeled "Burned," and one was labeled "Did Not Burn."  After observing the items in the fire, we added them into their appropriate circle.  Some things we had to have patience for, such as the rocks and nails.  They required the fire to completely die out so we could rummage around in the ashes to find them.  Other objects, such as rosemary, paper, clothes pins, and pine cones burned quickly.  Still other objects, such as pomegranates, definitely burned, but pretty slowly.

Texture Play

I've done texture play with my kids ever since Logan was the size of Kian in the above picture.  The kids love it, it's easy to find the supplies on hand, and it's great for preschoolers.  I basically just fill a bowl with a substance, provide plenty of spoons, containers, and other kitchen gadgets, and go grab time to fold laundry while they go at it.  Oh, and before I get to my laundry, we talk about what it feels like, smells like, and if applicable, what it tastes like.  That's why texture play is a great preschool activity.  It's a lesson in the senses.

I think this day they were playing with baby powder.  I have had a lot sitting around from our pre cloth diapering days.  They sure smelled good after they were done.

Felicity discovered that baby powder makes good clouds.

Handmade Holiday 2010 - The Kid Edition

Disclaimer - I know I said yesterday

it was my last Handmade Holiday post,

****                             but I wasn't lying!                           ****

It was MY last Handmade Holiday post.

This one's the kids. 



We have always included our kids in the act of giving at Christmas and birthdays.  In the past years, that meant they were taken on a special outing to buy gifts for each other.  This year, however, it seemed silly to take them shopping when I myself didn't go shopping for them.  So I decided to include them in the handmade gift making process. 
After watching me make peg people for Lissy, Logan wanted to make some for her too.  I was excited about his idea because at that time, I was so wrapped up in my own crafting, I hadn't begun to think about what they could make for each other and I hadn't even mentioned crafting for each other to them.  It was wonderful to see that he wanted to make something for his sister.  So we searched the house and found two last peg guys.  He went to work painting their bodies.  I added the eye dots and Mod Podge.  Next he picked out what color hair he wanted for them.  He chose blue because it's Lissy's favorite color.  I also had him choose which fabric he wanted me to make the gnome hats out of.  It was so wonderful to watch him sort through my scraps searching for butterfly fabric, knowing his sister LOVES butterflies.  It made my heart happy see how much he considered HER likes while creating these little peg ladies for her.

While Logan was painting his pegs for Felicity, I was trying to think of what she could make for him.  Then Logan said, "Mama, can Lissy please make me some guys for Christmas?".  Perfect!  So the next week Lissy made her men for Logan in the same fashion he had for her.  She picked her paints (a bit of every color of course), fabric, and hair color, and with help from me, we made some nice peg guys for Logan.

Kian loves balls.  I had been wanting to do a marble painting with the kids for them to give to Zac.  So instead of using marbles, I turned the one project into two gifts.  I bought a wood ball and a medium sheet of Art Board from Michaels.  I really wanted canvas but the Art Board was so cheap and its nice and sturdy so I couldn't pass up the deal of a few bucks.  I took a piece of flat cardboard and folded the edges up, making a box slightly bigger than the Art Board.  The kids and I placed the Art Board in the box, randomly put spots of paint onto the board, and rolled the wood ball around inside the box.  One kid stood at each end of the box and we gently rocked the box so the ball rolled around in the paint.  We added paint when we thought we needed more and stopped when we had a product the kids were happy with.  The painted Art Board is their gift for their Dad, and the paint covered ball is their gift for Kian.  After we were done using it to paint with, I set the ball on wax paper to dry and then put Mod Podge on top to seal in the paint.  Next time we do this I'll use 2 complementary colors that will create a third color (such as using blue and yellow to make green).  We used colors that will go in the kids' bathroom but when mixed all together by the ball, they made some mucky colored spots.  Of course, the kids thought it was great.  I wasn't planning on it but I had them paint a layer of Mod Podge on top of the painting after seeing how it made Kian's ball look a bit nicer.  They were very happy with both of their creations.

Putting Mod Podge on Daddy's painting.

The finished painting.

I wanted to post this on Christmas Eve because I think there's nothing sweeter than kid made gifts.  I love watching them create and seeing them excited about gifting their creations.  This is, in fact, the season of generosity and I hope these fun lessons in giving will bring them closer to the understanding of God's generous gift to us, His son.