Many new things....

Wow! It's been a while since I've had a chance to post some really neat things we've been doing.


Last week we finished up our first block which was Hebrew Culture. We made it up to Abraham's birth. We'll probably cover that again since it didn't get full study. We also finished up our study of The Tower of Babel by drawing really neat pictures in our lesson books of the Tower after God decided to confound the languages. They came out great! I'll try to add pictures of them soon.

Friday evening my friend, Karen, and I headed to Sacramento for the fall Waldorf conference. It was my first time going and Karen's been many times before. It was a wonderful trip! The Waldorf School where the conference was held was so beautiful. It's tucked away along the American River and the grounds are so lush with trees, bushes, grass, flowers etc you feel like you are in a hideaway place instead of in a larger metropolis. I had the opportunity to meet so many neat people and heard so many experts speak about our brains and our children's brains I thought my brain was going to explode. I discovered so many new ways to nurture my children to help them learn and grow to be well rounded people and to help their brains develop in a way that is more natural for them. I love the Waldorf curriculum and it was so reassuring to hear one of the speakers state that on average studies have concluded that Waldorf educated students graduate from high school with more knowledge than public/state educated students simply because of the way Waldorf educates. I chose Waldorf for Joey because I knew it would help him dig deeper into subjects he might otherwise reject because he has fun learning it and the lessons are brought to life through the methods of teaching. I chose to block teach Eden the way Waldorf suggests so that each subject can really get into her head because we don't bounce from one thing to another. I feel it is setting up a great foundation for when she enters public high school next year. It really made me feel like I made great decisions for how I home school my kids.

I took several pictures of the campus where the conference was held. It was held at the Sacramento Waldorf school in Fair Oaks, California. Here is the view of one of the buildings on campus from the gymnasium. Remember when viewing these photos this is a K-12 campus. It looks nothing like any school I've ever attended.

Here is a picture of a stained glass window in the gymnasium building.

As you exit the gym and to the left you will find this beautiful area.

Coming and going from the parking lot you will find an interesting Labyrinth made from stones.

Here is another photo of the labyrinth

This week we began our math blocks. Joey is studying time, linear measurement, volume etc. and Eden is beginning Algebra 1. It makes our days longer when they are studying separate lessons, but we are really enjoying math. Joey is currently working on making a calendar of the year. Eden and I do a lesson together on the board to learn it and the next day before our main lesson Eden works independently on assigned problems that she figures out on scrap paper and then copies very neatly into her main lesson book and then takes time to highlight each problem with art. It's so fun figuring out the answers to the problems together. I get to learn all over again!

Paintings

We did some awesome paintings this afternoon. We painted covers for our 7 days Creation main lesson. We did the face of God. They came out simple and beautiful if I do say so myself.

This is Joey's face of God. It's a blue wash with paint pulled out with a dry brush in the shape of a face.

Here is my picture of the face of God. You can sort of make out the face. The pictures I took don't really do them justice.

Here is Eden's

I let Eden free paint and this is the painting she did. It's amazing! She's a great artist.

The Tower of Babel

Today we studied about Nimrod and the Tower of Babel. Nimrod did not walk with God and he convinced those who followed him to build a tower to the heavens to reach God. These people were excellent at communication and could pretty much accomplish anything. God saw how far they were getting with the tower and decided to confound their language to make their task impossible because he didn't want them to reach heaven. None of us are worthy to reach heaven especially Nimrod and his followers. With their languages confused God dispersed them about the earth.

Along with this lesson we each had to go into a separate space and draw a picture of something we wanted to build with the various blocks we have in Jade's toy box. I told them to make them fairly simple. Then we all had to work together to build each persons building without looking at the picture and each of us speaking in a different "language". Eden could only speak in "O" (oooo, owww, owe), Joey in "A" (aaaaa, awww, ay) and I in "E" (eeeee, ewe, eh). We had to try to convey to one another how to build each structure. I went first and I had the kids do a basic pyramid of blocks. At first I was trying to tell the kids to pull a certain type of block out of the basket and it took a while to get going. Then I started laying the blocks out and asking them in my language to lay them as I did. We eventually go the structure built, but it took much longer than it would have if I could have simply said "put the blocks like this".

Joey's structure was next and when we did his I kept trying to put different blocks on top instead of the blocks he wanted us to use. We all had a hard time understanding. Again we accomplished building the structure, but it wasn't easy

Eden's was last. In this picture you see Joey trying to place a big block onto Eden's structure and clearly it didn't belong as you can see from Eden's reaction. Hand motions played a huge role in our communication.

Eden's structure was more complicated to build than Joey's or mine. Here is a picture of her structure completed along with her original "blueprint". Hers took us much longer to complete and we couldn't accomplish the steps on the side she had originally wanted. This was an interesting and fun activity and I think both kids really grasped the frustration the residents of Babel must have felt once they couldn't communicate well.

The Rainbow

Today we continued our lesson on Noah and the Ark. We read about the flood waters receeding and about how the dove was sent out several times over several weeks until it did not return meaning there was now dry land on which to live. The legends book has a story that says Noah would not disembark until God promised not to cause such destruction on the earth in such a manner. God stretched a rainbow across the sky as his promise to Noah and the earth that He would never destroy the earth by flooding it completely again. The Bible also tell us that God sent the rainbow for this purpose. So today for our writing exercise we wrote out the Bible verses for God, Noah and the rainbow and then we did a picture of the rainbow while doing a study in color. We only used three colors to make the rainbows you see in the pictures; red, blue and yellow. The wax blocks we have blend so beautifully!

We then read about Noah's sons and the curse that Noah placed upon Canaan because of what his father Ham had done to Noah while Noah was in a drunken state.

This is Joey's picture of the rainbow. Again I'd like to say we only used red, blue and yellow to make these. Really neat!

This is my rainbow picture. This was so fun blending the colors and watching them come together. Not only did we make a beautiful picture for our main lesson books, but we also got to experience a true sense of art by blending two colors to make one.

This is Eden's rainbow. Eden's orange came out so vivid. I really like how well she was able to blend the yellow and red together to produce that bright orange.

Eden's Reciting The Plowment

Eden reciting the poem The Plowmen. Joey recited one as well, but it seems to be too big to post. I'll keep trying, but in the mean time didn't want anyone to think he didn't do it as well.

Noah and The Ark

Both Friday and today we discussed Noah and the Ark. We read a story and Bible verses telling why God decided to destroy the earth and only save Noah and his family. The Bible describes the number of each kind of animal they are to invite onto the ark. The legends story tells it that Noah was to take seven pairs of certain animals for food and sacrifice as well as one pair of every other animal. The way to decide which pair from each species to take was to watch their demeanor as they came to the ark. If they got to the ark and laid down then they were the two in that species to come aboard. If they stood they were left behind. That is how they were to be sorted. When the waters began to rain down and rise from below it took one full year before the whole flood was over. The kids and I discussed how it is often misinterpreted that it was 40 days and 40 nights, but the 40 days and 40 nights explain how long it actually rained. It took much longer than that for the waters to subside. According to the legends book they sent a raven out first to find dry land and he became occupied with eating and so they sent out the dove and the dove was to return with the olive leaf. It was an interesting story because it really brought home how very long they were on the ark with all of those animals.

Today we read the Bible verses for the construction of the Ark. When we were done reading about it we went to the ball field and measured it out using the measurement the Bible called for. God told Noah to make the ark 300 cubits long, 50 cubits breadth and 30 cubits height. A cubit is about equal to 18in. So 150 yards is about how long the ark was. It looks huge when you are standing on one end and someone else is standing on another. But then you imagine it filled with the number of animals it had in it and suddenly it seems so small. It really made the ark seem real when we could see it's size.

Friday we did pictures of the Ark. This is mine.

Here is Joey's. He did a great job following my directions and example.

This is Eden's. She's an excellent artist! We also changed our nature table to reflect fall coming soon. The evenings are getting cooler and the days warm, but not blazing hot. It's obvious fall is around the corner.

Rosh Hashanah

Yesterday we studied the celebration of Rosh Hashanah. We tried our best to celebrate it traditionally. Rosh Hashanah literally means "head of the year" and refers to the Jewish New Year. It is considered the most solemn day of the Jewish year. Rosh Hashanah begins The Ten Days of Repentance ending with the holiday of Yom Kippur (which we will study).

We actually began a day late. It begins the night before at sun down. We began at sun down last night. I lit the Shabbot candles, which I found is traditionally done by the woman of the house. It is custom to bring certain foods to the table in celebration of the new year. I chose to make a chicken soup using leeks and Kosher noodles. Our meal was not Kosher, but the kids understood the importance of the food being just right for the celebration. We also had unleavened bread to serve as well as bread to represent the Challah bread traditionally served. Round Challah bread represents rounding out the year. We also dipped apples in honey in the hopes of having a "sweet year". It was a really fun celebration and the kids were excited about it too because we didn't have school at all in the morning. We cleaned up the house and had some free time. Our lesson was the celebration and Jerod got to be home with us for our school time. It was neat to all talk about the traditions etc. One tradition we didn't get to participate in was blowing the Shofar. A Shofar is a rams horn used in Jewish celebrations. It is blow 100 time over the course of Rosh Hashanah. We did show the kids a picture of several of them so they had an idea of what they were. We may still try to get one for our other celebrations this year.

All in all our first Jewish celebration went well. We are Christian, but it is so neat to take a peak into another culture and another religion. Studying Hebrew Culture is great too for us as Christians because we get to really dive into the Old Testament and pick up on some of the theology and legends behind it. We read stories from this Legends of The Bible Book when we are done reading the Bible and the stories are so beautiful and a really fun way to bring to life what actually happened. I have found that through the Legends book the kids really grasp the events that took place in the Bible even though the legends are simply, well, legends.

Here we are enjoying our celebration meal

Our apples and honey...yum!

Bread

Soup made with leeks and German Kosher noodles. I made the stock homemade from chicken, leeks, onions, carrots and cabbage, sea salt and pepper. I strained it and then added the chicken I pulled off the bone, sliced carrots, leeks, cabbage and noodles.

Descendents of Cain

Yesterday our lesson began with our review of Cain's descendents. We talked about who they were and what they brought to the world. Then we did a picture showing the line of Cain's family.

Then we moved on and read about Noah's birth. In the Legends book we read that when Noah was born he was so beautiful that his own father, Lamech fled from him back to his father, Methuselah claiming he had a strange son. Lamech said he resembles the children of the angels of heaven. Methuselah went to Enoch, his father to inquire about his grandson. Enoch explained to him that Noah was special. Enoch explained the destruction that would come into the world and that Noah and his children would be saved and the earth would be cleansed from all inpurity. The world changed when Noah arrived. When he was born all returned to its state preceding the fall of man meaning the earth began to produce as it should and the animals again began to obey man helping them till the earth. It was a fun story to read.

Today we will study Rosh Hashanah. I'll write all about it soon!

Cain and Abel

It's not even noon and we are done with school! Aw the joys of homeschooling.

Today we did our review about Cain and Abel and their offerings to God. How God accepted Abel's and not Cain's and why. To bring it home I had the kids each pick something they love that they would be willing to offer to God knowing it would never be returned. At first I think they thought it would be easy, but it took them a while to decide. Joey eventually picked his favorite Oakland A's hat. Eden gave up her boom box that she loves to listen to the radio on. I gave up my ring my best friend Donna gave me. All of these things mean a great deal to us and we left them on our nature table for our school fairy to deliver to God for us as an offering of our love and thanksgiving.

Next we wrote a Bible verse about Cain and Abel and then did drawings that show the differences between them. Abel being a shepherd and Cain a harvester. Then we read stories about Enoch and Seth. Jager is still not feeling well, so we called it a day after that. We may do some handwork this afternoon.

This is my picture of Cain and Abel

Here is Eden's drawing. She has never done shade drawing before and she did a fantastic job!
This one is Joey's drawing. He did a great job drawing his people. In fact I've seen drawings he's done of people before and they are usually stick people. His garden for Cain is excellent too!

Quick Post today

So very quickly a note on Soccer from Saturday. Eden's team won their game 3-2 and Eden did great! She got to play quite a bit and she took a bit of a beating. She was sore afterwards.

Joey's game went well even though they lost 5-1. Joey played defense the entire game and by the end he really seemed to get what he was doing. We talked about it in the car on the way home and it was cool to actually feel like I understood the sport and was able to give him some pointers. A real bonding moment!!!

So today Jager was sick, but we did school anyway. I thought we'd have to miss out on a lot, but really I only had to cut circle time down a bit. Today's lesson began with an apology letter written by Eve herself concerning the events that took place in the garden between her and the serpent those many years ago. She explained her side of things. It was neat to see the story brought to life for the kids on a scroll I made to look really old. Then we did a drawing that depicted Adam and Eve leaving the garden after being banished. A little sad, but it was a neat way to picture what they were leaving behind and walking into. The land outside the garden so barren and dry. The pictures turned out great.

We then moved on to discuss the first murder. I was certain this would be a hard subject for Joey. I knew Eden would get it, but as soon as I mentioned Cain and Able Joey was actually the one who said "Isn't Cain the one who killed his brother Abel?" I assumed he learned it at church, but come to find out he actually learned it himself while reading his Bible on his own, which he does often without prompting. We discussed quite a bit about why God accepted Abel's offering to God and not Cain's. Abel's offering came from his heart and from his hard work of raising his flock. Cain offered fruit which God gave freely in the garden. Cain's offering was really just Cain giving back to God what God had given him. Not really a sacrifice. Then we moved on to the murder and discussed why Cain murdered his brother. We discussed the idea that Cain may still have thought of things as they were in paradise. After all Abel was not only the first murder, but the first true death. Until then they couldn't understand fully what that meant. Cain's anger overtook him and he took his brother's life without realizing that he'd never come back. God punished Cain severely and Cain did not really speak to and know God after that. The kids and I agreed that no punishment is worse than not having that ability or want to speak to God.

That pretty much concluded our day because of Jager not feeling well we decided that would be enough. Tomorrow's lesson is going to be really neat. I'll post about it once we are done and hopefully Jag will feel better so I can get some pictures of our work. The kids have done some fantastic drawings and their handwriting gets better everyday.

I guess that wasn't a quick post after all :-)

Soccer today

Today is the first day of soccer! I'm so excited. Eden and Joey both play today. Eden at 8 and Joey at noon! More about how it goes later.

Good luck kiddos!!!!

Eden reciting the poem Naming the Animals

Here is the video of Eden reciting the poem. She did such a great job! So neat watching them learn this and know it in just a matter of a couple days.

Joey reciting his poem Naming the Animals

Here is the video of Joey reciting his poem. He did really well considering we read it the first two days and only started to memorize it yesterday.

A Play About Eve

Today is Friday.....ahhhhhh. It's been a good busy week and it's come to an end nicely. We didn't have a lot of problems this week with behavior like we did the first week. It seems that we are falling nicely into a routine.

This week we finished the final days of creation and talked about the day God rested. It's been so interesting to talk with the kids about the first days of the world. Their ideas about what it may have been like are so beautiful.

After circle time we did a play I put together using the story from yesterday and part of the story from today about Adam and Eve. Eden played Eve. Joey played Adam and the serpent. I played narrator and God. It was a lot of fun acting out the parts. We goofed around a bit, but the story really seemed to hit home while we each did our parts.

Here Adam and Eve admire the beauty of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Eve talking to the serpent as he tricks her into eating fruit from the tree

Eve eats the fruit from the tree....

Then shares the fruit with Adam who also eats it

They cover themselves after eating the fruit

Early Morning Friday

It's 6:30 and the house is still quiet. Friday mornings are the only mornings I let the kids sleep later and eat cereal for breakfast. Monday through Thursday I cook a hot meal to start their day. They help with that also. It's a chance for them to learn how to cook a few things, plus it's fun to all be in the kitchen together. But this morning it's quiet and there's only the sound of my coffee pot dripping way too slowly.

After doing the lesson planning for the 7 days of Creation I had a block. I couldn't figure out what to do with the lesson plan in front of me. I have every lesson written down, but not the details. I hadn't gotten that far yet. Then my friend Karen inspired me to make the story from our lesson from yesterday into a play. I decided to use it as our review. Great! Now I have something to teach with! Then it needed to be typed out. I had to take the two stories we used in our lesson, combine them and make them into a play format. Wow, that was a lot of work. As I sat here typing away and thinking about what parts I'd give to who I was also thinking about all of the things NOT getting done in my house. I wasn't cleaning and I'll tell you after the last two weeks of school this house needs it. It really bothers me when the house gets messy. I don't like things undone. As I sat here letting it nag me in the back of my mind, I forced myself to remember that I have four kids who all need my attention. All four of those kids are with me all day long. Nobody leaves for school making a quiet home to simply do housework in. Three of those four kids are capable of destroying a room in 2.2 seconds, especially Jade.

I really enjoy homeschooling my kids. I love this so much. My children's education is of the highest importance to me which is why we chose to home school in the first place. When I was finished putting their school day together it was late and time for bed. I shared the play with Jerod to make sure it ran through smoothly and off to bed I went without accomplishing any housework. I laid there for a long time trying to sleep and was struggling to do so. My friend Karen's husband sent me some awesome coffee and it got here in the afternoon, but I had to try it, so naturally my brain was on overtime while I lay in bed from the extra caffeine boost. As I laid there I realized I had accomplished something far greater than a clean house. By the end of the day today my floors may still need mopping, but I will have accomplished teaching my kids a valuable lesson about Hebrew culture that intertwines with their Christian beliefs along with a little math, a neat poem and they'll get the experience of acting out parts in a play. Their brains will expand and let in all this information and I will have been their teacher.

Busy day today

Wow! Today was super busy. We started out with our normal circle time. We memorized more of our poem, Naming the Animals, and I plan to video both Eden and Joey reciting the poem tomorrow. We did some mental math and again I'm amazed by how well both Eden and Joey do at this.

Because we didn't paint today I took some pictures of the kids writing out their verses on their paintings from yesterday. We did our review of yesterday's lesson by writing out the Bible verse for the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Our lesson today was about the creation of Eve. We read the Bible verse for her creation and then we read a story from the Legends of the Bible book. Again I want to explain that the stories in this book are just stories. Today's story explains that God gave Adam a wife before Eve, named Lilith. She was said to have been created at the same time as Adam, but flew away never to come back to him. You can interpret this story, as with any other, in your own way. When we discussed the story after reading it we came to the conclusion that God may have created a wife for Adam the day he was created along with the other animals and that quite possibly she was a bird of some sort because of the way in which she exited from Adam's life. God saw that it would be better for Adam's wife to be created from him binding her to him. Also, if God created her while Adam was in a deep sleep he would not witness her creation and would love her more for not knowing what it was like. It's a very interesting story.

We also read the story about Eve and the serpent. After both Adam and Eve were told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the serpent decided to tempt Eve. She fell to the temptation and ate from the forbidden tree causing the certain death of all humanity. In the Bible it is said that Adam is with her in the garden while the serpent tempts her. I do feel that Eve carries a huge burden that should not all rest upon her shoulders. Adam was punished too and yet Eve is thought of to be the total cause of the first sin. If he was there then why didn't he stand for his wife against the serpent. God only know. :-) So this was our lesson today.

After our lesson we had lunch and headed out to my friend Karen's house to do a little handwork together. Today we made our knitting needles and the knobs that sit on the ends of them.

Joey and Eden work on writing their Bible verse.

Joey working with clay to make the knobs for the ends of his knitting needles......Yes, boys can learn to knit.


More fun with clay.

Eden, our friend, Jack, Joey and me.

Eden working on her knobs for the ends of her knitting needles.


Joey is so goofy! We really had a lot of fun!

One of Eden's ends for her needles.


Another look...

Eden's knitting needles. We made them out of dowels cut short, sharpened with a pencil sharpener (not to sharp), sanded, rubbed with beeswax, polished with a towel and topped with the baked clay ends made to fit.

Mine are lady bugs

Joey's are green and brown. They all came out so cool and really show our personalities!

And God Rested

"Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had created. And the Lord God planted all sorts of trees in the garden-beautiful trees that produced delicious fruit. At the center of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Genesis 2:8-9

Yesterday we reviewed day 6 and then we moved on to talk about day 7. The seventh day is when God rests after all of his hard work. He deems this day holy. In the Legends book we are reading it tells a story about how everything on earth praised the Lord on the seventh day, each creature having it's own song to sing. One of the creatures is the grasshopper who sings praises to God even knowing he would die. He is to be an example to us as humans that we should be happy and thankful even though we know it is our fate to one day die from this world.

Our poem to memorize this week is called Naming the Animals by Anthony Hecht. It goes with the sixth day when all of the animals are created and Adam has to name them all. You imagine all the animals walking before Adam as he points and names each one.

Having commanded Adam to bestow
Names upon all the creatures, God withdrew
to empyrean palaces of blue
That warm and windless morning long ago,
And seemed to take no notice of the vexed
Look on the young man's face as he took thought
Of all the miracles the Lord had wrought,
Now to be labeled, dubbed, yclept, indexed.

Before an addled mind and puddled brow,
The feathered nation and the finny prey
Passed by; there went biped and quadruped.
Adam looked forth with bottomless dismay
Into the tragic eyes of his first cow,
And shyly ventured, "Thou shalt be called 'Fred'."



Below are our paintings for today. God placed two trees in the garden of Eden and so we painted a picture of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is the tree in the garden that later on Adam and Eve are instructed not to eat from.

This is my painting of the tree

This is Eden's

This is Joey's

We also worked on learning music for playing the recorder today. We did some review of the lesson we had last week and then moved on to a little more music theory. We basically have learned where all the notes lie, what whole, half, quarter and eighth notes are, what the staff is, measures, treble clef, tie, end of music etc. Next week we will finally learn how to hold the recorder. This is a picture of some of the things we learned. The kids really like this and have caught on well!