Well, tons has happened since the beginning of school this year. Fiona is finishing her first block dealing with farming. We have been working on Simple Times Farm each Sunday, milking the goats and tending the garden and chickens. We have also had 6 meetings with our co-op, celebrated together Sukkah and had a potluck and lantern walk. I've finished the first six week session of my art classes for 4-6 year olds and 7-11 year olds. And all of our extra activities have started, and soccer season is coming to an end. WHeeew! I think this year we may....really I may have added too much to my plate. However adjustments are not so easy to make, so I will see how this goes and perhaps cut back on my personal commitments.
Today we worked with a lenth of rope and practiced tying knots, she worked in her math book and did some amount of spelling work. Of course she also practiced her spanish, recorder and piano and read on her own. Tomorrow we will work on her and her sisters Halloween costumes.
We just love working on the farm. Fiona has had a bit of the "why doesn't Anya have to..." and the "I'm doing the most work it's not fair" but I suppose that's just the way 9 is, and the way Fiona is. However at the suggestions that perhaps we stop coming to do the work with the goats, she becomes very upset. I believe she is adjusting to doing some more challenging physical work. I just love the time with the goats, they're like dogs, I mean they are obviously goats, but they can make you look a fool...just like my dogs do. Our joke now is that our 1 1/2 year old dog Puck is half goat. Both Anya and Fiona have a deeper understanding of just where our food comes from, and Fiona especially is becoming quite the advocate for natural sustanable living. As fall turns to winter and into spring, I believe this time we have on the farm will be remembered fondly in my girls adulthood. We will be planting spring bulbs there this Sunday, and have plans for the small playhouse they have in the backyard. It needs some sprucing up.
The art classes went really well. The younger class was enjoyed very much by the students, and my daughter Anya (4). She was the youngest in the class and I know that students any younger just wouldn't work. The class is set up really like a waldorf kindergarten, though the time frame is for 1 1/2 hours. There is a craft, circle, story with puppets and work with block crayons or wet on wet watercolor. The older class also had crafts, and story as well as working with block crayons and wet on wet watercolor in addition we work with form drawing and nature journaling and use pastels as well. The younger class really loved going to the orchard for their feild trip. We had our circle in the midst of the trees. I brought the star in the apple story and puppets with me and we did some leave rubbings as well as beeswax apples. And of course, we ate some apples and picked wuite a few too! The older children came with me to Greenfield Village and we saw and drew many harvest activities. I took a page from Comstocks book on corn, since there was a corn field growing with squash and beans.
Our co-op is so supportive and so much fun! The older children will be performing the "Blessings of the Corn" in another month or so. Anya just loves the stories with puppet and our circle is just so sweet. I love celebrating the year with these families...it has been very special . This last month we had so much fun taking the wool we washed and we felted them into pumpkins, adding some orange wool and green for the stems. The older children helped needlefelt them into shape as well. We've also made lanterns for our lantern walk, had a nature treasure hunt and woven the finds into a stick frame, and this next month we will be weaving baskets...I jsut have to get some grapevine from my in-laws forest. Fiona is learning recorder finally. We tried two years ago, but Fiona just wasn't ready. Last year she started piano, and had been a fantastic student with that. So this year I really wanted her to learn the recorder since part playing will be introduced later and she is coming along, though she is much more frustrated by this than piano. She must really need to do some work with the breath! Anya has been really playing with children her own age finally. Anya had been gravitating to children Fiona's age, co-op day has brought some balance to her week.
For Anya, she gets her circle on Monday ( in art class) and on Wednesday (in co-op) and on Fridays, we have spanish and just a fun day,Anya and FIona also go to spanish on Tuesday as well. Fiona's schedule is a bit , well more. Mon,Tues,Thurs are main lesson days, Tues is art class (group)Wed are co-op(group) and piano and on Tues and Fri are spanish. She also in in Girl Scouts twice a month, soccer for 6 weeks in the fall and spring, and will begin Gymnastics once a week while soccer is off. Also we all go to the farm on Sunday mornings, all this has made for a busy week, though thankfully, we do not have to drive all over the place. both Girl Scouts and soccer is local and spanish is within 30 minutes. My art class meet here, so its Tuesday and Wednesday that has been a challenge.
Really the biggest challenge for me has been all the changes I've had to work through myself. My schedule this year is much different. I've changed so much of what I do, change is hard.
Well, I'm moving through it. Right now I'm preparring for my next art session. I'm reading Coyote Road, a Datlow and Windling adult fairy tale series. Session II is focused on animal and trickster tales. For Fiona's main lesson studies, I'm also reading the old testament since we will be covering creation from the old testament just prior to Solstice. As for Anya, I've been using Ellerseik's movement and song book for fall and winter. It has been awesome!
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