A very bad blogggger.

Just a short apology to anyone who does actually read it..I had a few "burps" in life and this got put on the back burner. It's about to return as we gear up for summer waldorf schooling at home. I will post some pictures of the wool paintings we did last week, but for this week the goal is to just get a schedule going...something like out of the Christopherus manual a friend sent me..
wake up: Breakfast
Chores
Free Play
Fix Lunch (cooking lesson)
Eat Lunch together
Clean up
Quiet time with a story
Get Eli from Bus
Do a craft/movement/singing/handwork thing
Fix Dinner
Eat Family dinner with candlelight

That's basically it. Waldorf for preschool is insanely simple. We will have many days when we'll have free play at parks with other kids and may have to change things around, but really, this is a good daily rhythm for anyone. Fridays when Kira joins us is definitely a craft and park day at least until Eli is out of school in July.

Still Creating Rhythm

We have been hard at work while I took a break from the blog. For valentine's day we had a visitor, my friend's daughter that I watch every other friday, Kira. Kira and Sophie made some valentines, and then we had a little party with lots of goodies we wouldn't ordinarily eat. Then, we went off to a friends house for a day of completely free play in her yard. I had some dirty and sandy, and happy children to bring home that night.

During the weekend, we focused more on family rhythm. Sophie and Eli are both loving having a family dinner every night, and Eli's manners are really falling in line. Sophie adores candlelit dinner and if we don't light the candles gets a little upset. On Saturday night we made completely homemade pizza (except I bought the sauce). Sophie learned to cut vegetables and pepperoni, and grate mozzerella cheese. Tom made the crust and Eli got his own gf/cf pizza, of course. I think it was the best pizza I ever tasted, because it was made with loving hands. It was just a lovely candlelit pizza dinner..best I ever had! The kids loved having so much family togetherness and to be included in all the things we do in our life.

On Sunday, we had a nice long morning and Tom got a nap in. I took the kids out for a drive, and later we went as a family to the library and got some books to read this week. Story Time is a very important part of every day here. Sophie picked a book called Skippyjon Jones, which of course she has changed to Skippyjon Jobes!

Monday both children were home from school, and so we had a nice, easy day of TV and free play, and Eli and I had a little tummy trouble so we just relaxed all day.

Yesterday we focused on nature, and so I took the children to a local park called Cofrin Nature Park. They both got to walk in the creek and find stuff they wanted for our nature table. We have a great collection of seed pods and rocks there now. Sophie and Devin (her friend) and her mom went for a walk in the woods and explored a felled tree and it's very large root ball. Devin's mom got a very cute picture, which is in facebook now. Sophie had a lovely time, and Eli and I got some time to just play together. Later that night we had a re-focussing time with Bruce from RDI and came up with some new activities and a rhythm for that therapy for Eli. I forgot to mention that Devin's mom came over and helped me clean. Boy does the house look nice..making our rhythms easier again!

Today is Music day...we are listening to some kids CDs designed to give us ideas for dancing and finger play and just enjoying the music. It's lovely! We love Laurie Berkner, so we're listening to her "Whaddya Think of That?" CD today. If I can convince the kids, we will listen to more music after that. I also met with Eli's teacher today and got more ideas on things to do with Eli at home, and the great news that Eli is being included in much more Kindergarten time. He's doing extremely well at school!

Tomorrow we'll have baseball for Eli and an art activity for Sophie and I, and probably some cooking and food shopping too. Sophie is getting very good at identifying all the vegetables and fruits in the store now.

Here is a picture of our valentines from last week.

A little extra bit of today...Tea Party..

I turned off the TV about an hour ago and suggested that my daughter have a tea party. She got herself all dressed up, dressed up her dollies, and found all her tea things and some pretend foods and got right to it. It's absolutely adorable to see. I took some pictures of the dollies sitting around eating and drinking, too.

The best part is my son, who is autistic, and never pretend plays, is pretending to pour tea and drink it. He has a whole script, but it's still so cute!

part of waldorf education is lots of creative pretend play. Sophie went and found our one remaining noisy plastic toy and decided they needed music for their party..ugh, I hate that thing, but the kids really love it.

Here are some pictures of the tea party.