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.