Christian meets Montessori meets Waldorf

The way we have been homeschooling isn't really working for us anymore. There were things lacking, and too much emphasis in other areas. I was just stressed trying to juggle it all. I was stressed by how materialistic and consumerist Montessori was making me feel, needing this much stuff was doing my head in. I want a simple life and a simple house.

Then I went and visited a lovely friend aka best bud aka claimed sister. We had some small chats, and her beautiful children inspired me to explore new areas of education. I came home with a zeal to research, learn and try something new.

Then the real task began, what is Waldorf Steiner education. How can I implement this into our homeschool. As I read more the big question ended up being, can I as a Christian use this material? Is it ok to pick bits out and ignore the bits that don't sit right for me. Can I ignore them when Steiner himself writes verses like this:

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 Deep in the ground of the human soul,
Of victory assured.
The Spirit-Sun is living.
All through the winter of the inner life
The faithful heart divines it.
That is just one of many examples and the only one I could re-find.

After many hours reading and praying, I don't see the harm for my family to be Waldorf inspired in our education. What I use as resources for that I am still researching (ETA I have just purchased the Earthschooling Curriculum and it looks awesome). I am excited to use art more as a learning tool.  I look forward to learning new techniques and how to really use art, music and nature. This is not something that comes naturally to me so I do need some resources to help.

Now I still love a lot of the Montessori approaches, and we will continue to be Montessori inspired. But I cannot do the full monty. We will continue to use nomenclature cards for areas of study, I will use a lot of the math resources, I love the beads, and many of the other math manipulatives. I am sure the are other things I will find over time to use. But the pressure to have it all is removed.

Looking to the Christian component of our studies. It was fairly non existent. It has been on my heart to include more. As I read and researched I looked for ways to make our house and our learning more Godly. We are going to begin our week with a bible reading and the creation of their own illustrated Bibles. Each day will start singing and thanking our Lord.

I will also be incorporating elements of the Brave Writer program, where ages 5-8 are the Jot it Down period. This meaning besides the short verses of copywork I am the childrens scribe. It gives them a chance to develop their languages skills first rather than dumbing down their thoughts to meet their writing skills. They learn how to spell and write, through reading back over their own words, and through copywork. Writing comes later when they are more ready.

The current conclusion is a brand new daily and weekly rhythm.

Monday:

• Bible Reading and verse singing
• Memory Verse copywork into their brand new bible study art folio books
• Illustration of this story/verse next to the copywork,
• Yoga
• Monty Math
• Cultural Study
• Cooking
• Quiet reading.

Tuesday - Thursday

• Memory verse singing and dancing
• Reading of a Fable/ Poem/Rhyme/Story
• Copywork of a segment of this and illustrate (complete over the 3 days), Mr 5 will incorporate alphabet art and Miss 3 just free drawing (maybe some light elements of form drawing)
• Gross Motor excercise
• Maths
• Cultural Study/Science/Geography/Unit Study
• Handcraft
• Quiet reading

Anytime

• Music (I am currently researching buying a glockenspiel instead of the handbells Montessori suggests, or the flute that I am seeing in Waldorf works).
• Self interest research, which I will scribe his findings into the new "What I've learnt" book (or titled something along those lines, any ideas please leave a comment I am a little stumped)

I plan to bring this blog back to life as I share this new journey of ours with links to the resources we use and pictures of the new fun times we will have. Finally feeling inspired again. Feeling free and lighter.

Tomorrow we start. Excited and nervous.

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The wheels fell off....

....and we crashed into a wall smashing our utter existence into tiny pieces.

OK that might be a touch exaggerated. But the reality is, the way we educated stopped working overnight. It felt like our whole being fell apart. Nothing was working, nothing. Every day was a battle with everything.

So what did I do. Well I panicked I yelled and screamed. I tried to quietly whisper. I presented work each day. I made him sit and not get up till his work was done. I withheld lunch till work was complete. I did everything I could think of to enforce my authority over him. I tried to be a teacher rather than his mother.

What did this achieve. The broken pieces of our education being thrown at me. It resulted in meltdowns, horrible attitudes and broken relationships.

So then I simply did nothing. I just let be what was. We lived our life, we visited the library, we got work done in the yard. I just tried to make sure there were things to do. I made sure I spent time with them. We started reading. Lots and lots of reading. Read alouds and quiet reading. We read fiction and non fiction.

Where did this all lead. It lead to repaired relationships. To a new found excitement to learn. To a remarkable improvement in reading. To fun, smiles, happiness and a hugely more stable family life.

I am still forging my way through this new jungle. Having nothing planned each day is not working. There seems to be a need for some structured activities and some suggested learning. But the kids and I together will pave our new path, one brick at a time together choosing what ones to use. This is OUR journey not MY journey.

Skip Jumping

Since we got back from Tassie, it has been non stop busy. It is just nuts. We have OT sessions 2 or 3 times a week, plus 2 hourly sessions at home with therapressure brushing, motor planning exercises, core muscle strength building and fine motor strength work. I am exhausted. Very little schooling is happening and I am slowly becoming ok with that. If he was at school I would have to keep at home for this time to get these therapies done anyway. So I shall be at peace with the little we do.

But the challenging thing is, I am needing to be much more creative with how we do our learning. Mr I is being sent nuts by this therapy, it is almost like he has had a stroke and someone is slipping him drugs. He has regressed several years in a lot areas, it is painful. But I am told very common with this therapy and all will return to normal in a few weeks. I pray it is sooner rather than later.

So for now we need to be much more active, using our whole bodies for EVERYTHING. This mumma is tired. So today we did some skip count jumping. The kids loved it, this mumma regrets not getting dressed and putting a bra on first.

Lots of jumping and lots of counting was had.

I hope to get back into the blogging soon, but I barely have time to drink a cuppa at the moment.

Artventure review

Artventure is an online art tutorial hub for kids. I hesitated before buying this. Art with my kids tends to end like this, and this was only the beginning of the mess:

I vowed to never ever do art with them again. Well at least nothing that involved any mess making chances. They were limited to coloured pencils and on extremely rare occassions crayons and textas.

Although Texta's normally end like this:

So now that you can see my hesitation. I can tell you how much I LOVE artventure and LOVE watercolour paints.

The lessons are simple and very well explained. The kids love following them and then placing their own mark on their artwork. I love that you can search by difficulty, grade and subject, although I cannot seem to work out how to filter all 3 at once.

They are asking every day to do another lesson.

I think the tutorial is keeping them engaged so their little creative sensory seeking minds don't begin to wander into areas they shouldn't. Clean up was a simple tip out the bowls of water and a quick wipe of the table.

I am so pleased I took out this subscription.  I wish she told us where to buy cheap paper and paint. And it would be nice to use a few different mediums (but never ever glitter).

If you like me hate art, and have no fantastic skills at it. Artventure is a fantastic way to introduce your kids to creating amazing art works.

Below are two created by Mr I, this last week.