Waldorf painting tutorial

This is a winter wet on wet tutorial.

I will be painting this with faculty and with 7th grade. It can also be taught to classes 4th - 8th.

6th grade Marionettes

We did this puppet show for the 3 kindergartens and the rest of the 6th grade and some faculty, so there was about 65 people in the room. it was great!
we will do the second half of this group in 2 weeks. This one was Rama and Sita and the next is the Native American Cinderella story (the invisible one)

U tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyIYbUBEeY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06D3Yf7qlLs

These two videos are my 7th graders. They are surprisingly good at film editing. It really shows how you just can't keep technology away from kids these days.
I had them in Handwork today and they made me PROMISE I would go watch the video they made on U Tube...So I did and now I will share it with you.

The next u tube is a video on verses and songs. I liked the story fairy song. I will be using that tomorrow for our puppet show the 6th grade is putting on for the Kinder classes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7b7tdyVGnU&feature=related

I got an award!

“This blog invests and believes in ‘proximity’[meaning that blogging makes us 'close' - being close through proxy].”


Thank you Cadi!

I have never received an award before!

its written in a language I don't understand. But I am guessing it is in Spanish, but I could be wrong. I imagine that it was created by some lovely person many many miles away from me, who loves to blog and wanted to create an award to express how very thankful we all are that we can share information in such a unique way.......... very cool!

Did you know that in the time when settlers were exploring the wild west (like in my area) families would build houses on their land (100-1000 acres of land) and they would have no neighbors to talk to. So they would write letters to people. People who new nothing about them. and one of their favorite connections was writing to catalog sales people. They would write them lengthy letters and order some random thing like a spool of thread and put in an 8 page letter. The sales people would write back and kind of become Penpals with these settlers. ofcourse they would have to wait weeks to get a response back cause the department stores were in NY and well that's a long buggy ride!




So now I must pass on this award to people who I love to be 'close to' through the blog world and who I am inspired by and love to share with.

I pass this award onto these 5 ladies.

Julia at http://ithacawaldorf.blogspot.com/
Kewal at http://motherofpinky.blogspot.com/
Mai and Poppy at http://poppymeidays.blogspot.com/
Fairies nest at http://thefairiesnest.blogspot.com/
Shelly at http://waldorfmama.blogspot.com/

This week in the handwork room

First off.....I juggle A LOT OF STUFF!!! A LOT OF CLASSES and A LOT of kids
Here is a window into my world....


This is how I set up my class for 1 through 5th grade. I have 1/2 of 1st grade. they are on the floor. then I go straight to my next class, so I have their work set on the chairs. the orange bags are 2nd grade. I go with the color of their grade.
8th grade quilted pillow and fleece mittens....we are going to play in snow in a month and they need mittens......we don't get snow in our area....we have to drive 2 1/2 hours to find it
6th grade marionettes. we have 13 in this section...we split handwork with woodwork. I get the next 13 after winter break. the puppets are almost done!
sewing machines covered for the majority of the week. this is a corner of the Handwork room
3rd grade stone soup crochet puppets. we have 26 kids in this class....its going to be lots of villagers!
6th grade lantern walk charcoal picture
7th grade creation picture...we had fun with this one

8th grade
The first graders have decided that this is the terrible knot gnome. I keep moving him around class. I made him last year with 7th grade....he actually is Rumpelstiltskin
1st grade flute case. 8 different colors. 2 rib rows per color


8th grade quilted squares

Winter finals

I am in college at the moment and taking 2 teaching elementary Ed classes. It's finals right now and I have studied for 3 hours today and now am taking a break....so here I am writing on my blog. Hubby took kids so the house is quiet.....ahhhhhhhh. I have some tea and a bar of Paul Newman's chocolate next to me....So, surfing through the Internet I cam across this site....

3rd grade weaving ideas

http://www.montessoriworld.org/Handwork/weave/weaving3.html

I also like this seed collage

http://www.montessoriworld.org/Handwork/texture/texture2.html

string art

http://www.montessoriworld.org/Handwork/stitch/stitch2.html

lantern walk waldorf art

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FidORlZzwNs&feature=related

check out this Chinese lantern experience....soooo cool. I wish we could do this at our school





As lantern walk is right around the corner. I started doing paintings and drawings with my girls at home. Here are some pics that my girls have helped to create. The paintings are 3rd grade level and the drawings go with a story(kindergarten level) I told them about Gnomes chasing darkness away.
They will be told the real story of Martinmas on the actual day next week. But for now I am surround our art wall with pics that we did this week.
we all paint and draw...they don't want to show their pics to you today...maybe tomorrow they will share with you.
I of course love to share....so you have to see mine :)

random pics from this week

drawing with my preschooler
our current nature table at home. My preschooler set it up....You can't see it very well. but the gnome is holding a lantern
Storming of Bastille. french revolution
storming of Bastille
this is my picture. Its Napoleon. 8th grade is learning the French Revolution
the 8th grade teacher painted this one. She is so cool I really like her. it's so wonderful when you find teacher's you bond with.

THANK GOD!

"YES WE CAN"

I cried I was so happy

Pumpkin Festival and penny faire

animals at our school


this is one of the stations. Little jack Hornier sat in the corner......
Early childhood pumpkin patch

To begin the day the ENTIRE SCHOOL 200+ kids carves pumpkins


At our school we have a Penny fair in the early childhood where they dress up in magical theme customs and the parents set up fairytale stations for the children to come to. they are all fairy tale or nursery rhymes. we have Rapunzel in her tower (this is a parent) who has long hair (braided yarn) and the children put a penny in a bucket that is attached to her hair and she pulls it up and she puts a gift in the bucket (a shell, a jewel etc) and down it goes back to the child. the pennies are collected for UNICLEF . There is the sleeping giant, the plum and pie nursery rhyme, and some others I just can't remember at the moment.
any way it it lots of fun for them, they have about 10 stations that they go to to collect gifts at and than there is a big feast and they all eat together.....lots of fun!

The older children carve pumpkins and then go on a parade starting from the 8th grade and walking through each class and as they pass through the class, the next class follows and picks up at the end of the line , we end up with a very long line. The parade ends with an assembly and a performance. I had my Handwork 8th grade boys put on a skit and they ended with an explosion of party poppers into the crowd....it was fun and entertaining.