Here on the East Coast

Here on the East Coast life is a little different...a little faster and a little more cultured.

We went to Kimberton Waldorf school yesterday and I was blown away by the majesty of the campus and faculty. I was able to sit in on 3 different classes. The 5th grade handwork class, the 11th grade handwork class and the 12th grade woodwork class.

All 3 teachers seemed very well versed in their art and in the teachings of Steiner.

I think the best thing for Handwork teachers to do is to GO AND OBSERVE other teachers in other schools.!!!!! talk and talk and talk about your art until you really understand it.

Talk and read and talk and share and talk and send pictures to friends and don't live in a place of fear that what you are doing is incorrect. You are with the students to teach and Waldorf curriculum is so free you can bring just about anything and as long as it is put in the right frame work and tied into other parts of the curriculum....you are sure to have a positive out come.....

Find the truth of who you are as a Handwork teacher. Don't teach what your mentor tells you to do because THEY thinks its best....do what YOU feel is best and what YOU LOVE TO DO!!!! ART, FIBER ART, Metal ART, WOODWORK or HARD HANDWORK etc!

I would love to share pictures of Kimberton but I will have to wait till I get home...there is also this feeling of privacy for the school and I am not sure if they want me to share these pictures...I'll ask and see...I think you all will want a Handwork and woodwork room like these when you see them.....I am so jealous!

Off to my Handwork Applied Arts Training again

Off to my Handwork Applied Arts Training again (ending my 3rd year)

Send me happy flying thoughts....you know how I loath flying!

If I could talk to Zeus, I think I would be okay....or some other Archetype who had air traffic control.

We are just puppies in this strange existence....totally unaware of the higher forces....!

6th grade animal adoption

this semester the 6th grade will be adopting a baby elephant from this program
http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/index.asp


we are also making felted elephants to go along with this project

THis is a very powerful project and all the children know about it now.
I have been doing this adopting project for the past 3 years and all the kids really love it.

here is a felted nature table person and some elephants this last picture is of the 3rd grade pencil case

I LOVE IT!!!!!!

If this doesn't make you smile and cry, somethings wrong with you

If this doesn't make you smile and cry, somethings wrong with you

1st grade and 4th grade handwork

1st grade Rainbow Pentatonic Flute case.

Cast on 18 stitches of bulky brown sheep yarn. dark on the bottom light to the top.

This pattern does not show the light dark as well as it should

Talk to the kids about the rainbow before hand. Make sure they understand what that means.

If you choose red on the bottom the next color is either Orange or Purple

If you choose Blue on the bottom the next color would either be Purple or Green. 

After that they need to finish with the rainbow pattern.

so red on bottom and they choose Orange next, after that comes yellow and they might want to end with white because green would be darker than yellow. etc.

10 rib rows

20 knit rows per color

Below is a seed stitch needle book for after their handwork bag and cross stitch is done. This needle book will hold pins and needles given to them in 4th grade and used again in 6th grade. 

the bag at the bottom is a bag that my own 4th grader made this week

This bag wad done at home by my 4th grader

Every Waldorf School needs a Handwork Room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rudolf Steiner: "For handwork rooms, interiors should be used which give special emphasis to the soul-element. The craft room should be decorated with artistically executed motifs from everyday life and from the crafts, so that one has on the walls something that receives with a certain symphathy all that is done in these rooms. This would apply to spinning too." (Teachers' conference, Stuttgart, January 31, 1923)

4th grade and more

scrap horse 3rd grade7th grade head

Chickenpox party!

My younger daughter has the chickenpox!
we thought she had it when she was 6 months old but apparently that was something else....another dark age sickness that has spots and a fever and last about 6 days.

So last week when mothers would come up to me and say "are you coming to the Chickenpox party I would say...."we had it already"       WRONG-O

Anyway, the  kindergartens are overjoyed with the epidemic sweeping through our school