Category Archives: crafts

Waldorf at Home: Advent

Scenes from the first day of Advent.  They couldn’t stop at just one wreath.

Our advent stocking activities for the year, in no particular order (more about this tradition can be found here):

make hot cocoa

make an advent wreath

get a tree

decorate tree

read holiday books

listen to holiday music

holiday party at the dance studio

cut paper snowflakes

bake cookies

The Nutcracker

get out Christmas dishes

watch ‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’

celebrate the Solstice

make candy

Christmas craft- still to be decided

decorate outside with edible ornaments for the birds

strawberry santas

watch ‘White Christmas’

watch ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’

caroling

visit the light display

play dreidel

“‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”  read by Pop-pop

There are 3 movies planned this year, more then usual and with more people included in the watching.  And more media in general.  I think I’m ok with that.  I feel like I need to take things slow and go very easy this year, where I can, because there is a great deal that is beyond my control.  I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Sparkle Stories.  When I saw that they were offering an advent story series with a new story each day, I thought it would be a lovely treat.  Would it be better and more “Waldorf” if I researched stories for each day to tell myself or better yet made them up?  Definitely more Waldorf and possibly better in some ways, depending on how you define better.  But I’m quite content to have this sweet family time together to listen to wholesome, heartwarming stories while we all knit or sew or just cuddle together.  At the moment I think it’s all the better that I don’t have to struggle and stress to make this time happen.  That feels like a true gift to us all.

There are a great many more decorating and craft ideas on my Winter pintrest board.

 

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Holidays, Homeschooling, Kids, Waldorf
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Waldorf at Home: Martinmas

Rain again for our festival day, though it was just misty during the play.  Several people commented that it was really kind of fitting.  We had our lantern walk inside for the first time, through the halls of our darkened house, as there was no way that our candle light was going to survive the downpour.  It was really kind of a wonderful experience to have, the acoustic element is so different and having all of the singing bouncing back at us was really quite lovely.

Simple lanterns, simple songs, even simple food.  For an audience we had our neighbors from along the road.  Màiri and I learned this sweet song, to share with our guests.  Before we made our lanterns, I told this story, changing the names to Màiri and Galen.  They’ve asked for it several times since.  And yes, our dear second grader finally got to be St. Martin, just as his brother did before him.

Last week it occurred to me that last year I requested that the two eldest boys knit something for charity, as I felt they were old enough to actually give something of themselves to warm someone in need.  And while Galen was knitting at the time, his work wasn’t exactly gift ready yet!  Iain made a hat, a Mini-Gnomey in fact, and Elijah knitted a simple garter stitch scarf.  Even though he is capable of far more complicated work, when given the choice he’s happiest just humming along with a long swath of garter stitch.  I full well meant to make this a tradition and yet somehow it got over-looked.  I’ll bring it up tomorrow, we’ll just have to get our donations in a little late this year.  I think it’s possible that Galen may have a little something to contribute as well.

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Homeschooling, Kids, Waldorf
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42/51

A portrait of my children, once a week, every week.

Iain and Elijah: At work putting up wood for next year

Galen and Màiri Rose: At work on lanterns for Martinmas

the little one: a tiny little something to cover the tiny little feet that were sticking out my side for the first half of the week and have now switched to nudging me in the ribs.  Galen and Màiri keep trying to tickle the Little One’s feet.  This does not tend to work out too well for terribly ticklish me!

 

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52, baby things, celebrations and festivals, crafts, Holidays, Kids, photography, snapshots, Waldorf, Yarn Crafts
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pumpkin all around

First a Spiced Pumpkin Ice Cream recipe for you…

1 C pumpkin puree

5 C frozen bananas

1 tsp powdered ginger

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

pinch of salt

1/8 cup of honey (optional)

Blend all ingredients in a food processor or Vita-mix and serve immediately.

Some seeds for snacking on.  We’ve been loving this Pumpkin Spice Muffin recipe lately.  They taste like spice cookies!  Such a treat.  I’ve actually saved a lot of the pumpkin from our garden by baking up multiple batches of these muffins at a time and freezing them.  One of the things that I love about them is that they use roasted pumpkin, instead of pumpkin puree which saves me the tedious and messy step of straining all the juices from our fresh pumpkins.

Poor Steve in the background here!  In case you are wondering, he’s anxiously supervising Galen carving his pumpkin.  Not always a task for the faint of heart! ~I’ve been informed that he was not, in fact, watching Galen in concern in this picture, but trying to make him laugh using “eye control”.  I stand corrected!

My precocious little girl insisted on writing everyone’s name on her pumpkin, with a bit of help; Daddy, Mommy, Iain, Elijah, Galen, Mairi and Baby.

Some among us take pumpkin carving very seriously.  Like several days worth of work on one pumpkin seriously…

I’m not sure if it’s done yet even now!

And lastly a little pumpkin for baby.  Adaptation again, in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, color: Pumpkin.  This one is a size large, I’m thinking for next autumn.

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baby things, celebrations and festivals, crafts, Food, Holidays, Kids, recipes, Yarn Crafts
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domestic scenes

A bit of sewing, a bit of knitting, a little nature, some kid art (the wood-burned horse above was a gift from Iain), a simple experiment and some apple pie.  Oh, and that funny somewhat cryptic looking letter above?  It’s code doncha know.  The latest craze around our house involved various people writing messages in code to be broken by others.  With letters just randomly appearing where ever the intended recipient is most likely to find it.

I just finished reading Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui: Free Yourself from Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual Clutter Forever by Karen Kingston, as highly recommended by a friend.  A bit of a mouthful that title!  I’m in the midst of a HUGE decluttering kick.  Call it nesting if you like.  It was a nice little motivator to be reading while working through things.  Anyone have any other simplifying/decluttering book recommendations?  There’s still a lot to be done here!  There are so many things in life, that I have absolutely no control over, that are so very painfully complicated.  This I have control over.  I don’t want my home and caring for it to be complicated.  Less is more.

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Books, crafts, Food, Homeschooling, Housewifery, Kids, Life, sewing, snapshots, WIP, Yarn Crafts
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more gathering in

I meant to include this in my last post, but got all caught up in the garden goodness and overlooked it.  Because of course it is not just vegetables coming in these days.  Lots of things are being packed away for the season, sheltered in the basement, under the house, on the porch.  As we enter into this season of fires, the wood that was stacked to cure in the summer is slowly being brought up under the house, where it will be stacked again, ready to be carried in as needed.

Iain, Elijah and I made this wood carrier as a gift for Steve quite a while ago now.  I did most of the sewing, while they harvested, carved and polished the handles.  It’s been rather useful I think, and so far it’s holding up well.  There are several tutorials on-line for similar ones, but none were quite what I wanted, so I took the features that I liked from each and put them all together into one carrier.

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crafts, Kids, sewing
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Waldorf at Home: Michaelmas Supper

A day late to accommodate a complicated schedule.  A hearty, harvest soup full of veggies from the garden, dragon bread and “fire jam”.  To make fire jam: fill one side of a bowel with red jam (raspberry, strawberry, cherry, etc) and the other side with an yellow or orange jam (apricot, peach, marmalade), use a spoon to swirl them together.  Voila!  Fire Jam.

Does anyone have any resources for really inspiring homeschool spaces?  I’m looking for anything from a well laid out shelf to entire rooms.  I’m not happy with our set up at the moment and a large scale make-over is in order.  I need ideas and I’m not really finding all that much.  Actually I’ve found a good bit for little, little ones, but not so much for big kids.  So if you can think of anything, please share!

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Food, Holidays, Homeschooling, Waldorf
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28/52 & 29/52







A portrait of my children, once a week, every week.

 Iain: He’s been working on his back flips, it’s the stuff of grandparent’s nightmares.  Our dear sweet neighbor gave him one of his hand carved bows.

Elijah: Some “light” reading while on a painting break.  He decided he wanted to learn how to throw a javelin, so he carved one, fireside.

Galen:  Being silly, as usual.  Working on his burn bowl.

Màiri Rose: “Helping” to bake Daddy’s birthday cake.  Gathering leaves in the early morning woods with such a remarkable sense of wonder.

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52, crafts, Kids, photography, snapshots
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