What a soup we ate at snack on Thursday! And we made soup paintings which I hope you'll put up in your kitchens -- and from their cue, welcome your children to take on small opportunities to "make soup together" -- both, pretend and real. Soup of course is about people coming together to share their offerings -- and the transformation that arises from that simple recipe for happiness. It's a fun "game to play" no matter how hot the stove REALLY gets.
Stone Soup describes this soup vision so wonderfully, so we are thankful to Grannie Annie (Finn's grandmother, from whose compost heap the our famous and now souped-and-devoured squash had grown). If you haven't already read it yourself, do.
To develop the themes of collectivity and offerings, I'd like to make a school-stone-vegetable-soup for the week before Thanksgiving, where each child brings at least one vegetable they've diced up with their families and we put them all together on one day.... and eat them cooked into soup.... either later that day or at the following class -- depending on cooking logistics. If anyone would love to do the "stove cooking" part of this, just shout! Note, the children do not eat A LOT of soup, so the vegetable contributions can be moderate in size.
Just planting a seed. What do you all think?
SQUASH for STONE SOUP
For a week we have had a special sort of "baby" in our classroom to cradle and care for in many playful ways on our nature table. This baby is a large, oblong, light orange squash from Finn's Grandmother. (Feel free to expand the story of the squash's "roots" Phoebe, if you wish). On Tuesday, the group gathered around an early morning table with Andre, Finn's Daddy for the drama of opening the squash. It smelled like a fresh melon and we each held it for several deep breaths. Sarah took out spoons from her ukelele case (she plays music on spoons!) and with her musical spoons we took turns to scoop out seeds. Some of those seeds we dug holes for in the earth outside.
On Thursday we will eat the squash as soup, cooked by Finn's family. His grandmother will join us and even hopes to read us a story..... STONE SOUP! We will even make a Stone Soup collage together. Maybe children can even help make soup at home soon in this fall season.
On Thursday we will eat the squash as soup, cooked by Finn's family. His grandmother will join us and even hopes to read us a story..... STONE SOUP! We will even make a Stone Soup collage together. Maybe children can even help make soup at home soon in this fall season.
Bread Recipe and Snack Schedule
Here's Phoebe's bread recipe. You may use it, or feel free to bring a dough of your own.
3 cups warm water (not scalding, but not lukewarm)
2.5 teaspoons yeast (or 5 teaspoons if freezing the dough)
Big pinch salt
4 Tablespoons veg oil or melted butter
5 Tablespoons honey
Put water in bowl and sprinkle yeast on top. Add rest of the ingredients and stir a bit.
Add whole wheat flour until it's the consistancy of wet cement.
Add white flour until it forms a dough.
Turn out onto a surface and knead, adding white flour as you knead until it's not sticky. 5-10 minutes.
Let rise until just under double in size. Punch down. Divide into two sections. This is where you can either:
1) Freeze both sections (some yeast will die when freezing, so this is why you doubled the yeast above). The night before you plan to bake it, move one section to the fridge and let it thaw overnight. In the morning it should be thaw, but cold. By the time you get to school it will be warm and pliable.
2) Let rise again overnight in the fridge (2.5 t yeast version).
Rolls will bake 20 minutes at 350.
SCHEDULE OF SNACK PROVIDERS:
November: Phoebe (1st two weeks)/Laila (2nd two weeks)
December: Laila/Phoebe
January: Alice
February: Attis
March: Kaz
April: Theo
May: Finn
3 cups warm water (not scalding, but not lukewarm)
2.5 teaspoons yeast (or 5 teaspoons if freezing the dough)
Big pinch salt
4 Tablespoons veg oil or melted butter
5 Tablespoons honey
Put water in bowl and sprinkle yeast on top. Add rest of the ingredients and stir a bit.
Add whole wheat flour until it's the consistancy of wet cement.
Add white flour until it forms a dough.
Turn out onto a surface and knead, adding white flour as you knead until it's not sticky. 5-10 minutes.
Let rise until just under double in size. Punch down. Divide into two sections. This is where you can either:
1) Freeze both sections (some yeast will die when freezing, so this is why you doubled the yeast above). The night before you plan to bake it, move one section to the fridge and let it thaw overnight. In the morning it should be thaw, but cold. By the time you get to school it will be warm and pliable.
2) Let rise again overnight in the fridge (2.5 t yeast version).
Rolls will bake 20 minutes at 350.
SCHEDULE OF SNACK PROVIDERS:
November: Phoebe (1st two weeks)/Laila (2nd two weeks)
December: Laila/Phoebe
January: Alice
February: Attis
March: Kaz
April: Theo
May: Finn
Welcoming Suchi!!!
Families,
I have told the children, and I want you to also know, that while our dear Sarah goes to California on a big airplane.... our beloved Suchi will come to be with us for the whole day of Tuesday, October 11th! She will be new to Attis and Laila, and for others, "our teacher!" This will be such a treat!
I have told the children, and I want you to also know, that while our dear Sarah goes to California on a big airplane.... our beloved Suchi will come to be with us for the whole day of Tuesday, October 11th! She will be new to Attis and Laila, and for others, "our teacher!" This will be such a treat!
October Nature
Families, We are focusing of the elements and observations of the season. Please allow your child to bring a "gift from nature" to the nature table. It may be a leaf you pick up on your way to school, for example, noticing it's shape, color, texture and the story of fall it is expressing.
If families would like to bring pumpkins and squashes of various sizes, lovely. Even pumpkins we can open and dig into... maybe we can toast the seeds for a snack! Create a picture on a pumpkin (they draw, i carve.... or does anyone have any safe child-ways of pumpkin carving?) and glow it like a Jack o Lantern. Even cook the pulp and make a pumpkin pudding? Hmmmmm.
If you are driving in countryside and wish to pick up a hay bale or two, awesome.
If you would like to donate some un-fancy children's clothes for scare-crow stuffing, that might be fun for us to do later in the month.
Contributions of pumpkin butter and apple butter and honey would be delicious nature-themed contributions for our snacks.
And also, I thought it might be very nice to make some applesauce together if anyone has a single hotplate we could use (with much caution) in the classroom.
Another idea is tea. Do your children enjoy tea at home? Do any of you have a small plug in self heating pot you'd like to contribute to that cause? Do you have hearty small cups (even expresso cups could work!) -- at least 8 of them?
I'm brain-storming, but am open to some feedback on these ideas.
What ideas would you like to put into the fall-mix?
In Rudolf Steiner's Waldorf vision, a holiday event is created around Michaelmas, in this part of the season. It is a vision of courage over adversity, the conquering of a dragon. I have contemplated this somewhat in its relevance to the children's own "inner dragons." I have appreciated the COURAGE it takes them to let go of their parents and fully accept school. And to face the feelings that come up in the battle. Or to feel the COURAGE it takes to face and work through the frustrations and challenges of sharing and new friendships. It's no small bit of inner umph they are mustering!
If families would like to bring pumpkins and squashes of various sizes, lovely. Even pumpkins we can open and dig into... maybe we can toast the seeds for a snack! Create a picture on a pumpkin (they draw, i carve.... or does anyone have any safe child-ways of pumpkin carving?) and glow it like a Jack o Lantern. Even cook the pulp and make a pumpkin pudding? Hmmmmm.
If you are driving in countryside and wish to pick up a hay bale or two, awesome.
If you would like to donate some un-fancy children's clothes for scare-crow stuffing, that might be fun for us to do later in the month.
Contributions of pumpkin butter and apple butter and honey would be delicious nature-themed contributions for our snacks.
And also, I thought it might be very nice to make some applesauce together if anyone has a single hotplate we could use (with much caution) in the classroom.
Another idea is tea. Do your children enjoy tea at home? Do any of you have a small plug in self heating pot you'd like to contribute to that cause? Do you have hearty small cups (even expresso cups could work!) -- at least 8 of them?
I'm brain-storming, but am open to some feedback on these ideas.
What ideas would you like to put into the fall-mix?
In Rudolf Steiner's Waldorf vision, a holiday event is created around Michaelmas, in this part of the season. It is a vision of courage over adversity, the conquering of a dragon. I have contemplated this somewhat in its relevance to the children's own "inner dragons." I have appreciated the COURAGE it takes them to let go of their parents and fully accept school. And to face the feelings that come up in the battle. Or to feel the COURAGE it takes to face and work through the frustrations and challenges of sharing and new friendships. It's no small bit of inner umph they are mustering!
Rhythm
We have found our rhythms at "school." The season is speedily becoming chilly. I am wondering if some non-slip booties for keeping feet warm is in order. Also, as nature develops, your child is most welcome to contribute to the nature table. Make that a morning mission on your way to school, to find a "gift from nature" for the nature table.
Let's look back to move forth.
The children enter, absorb the environment, do some yoga stretches on the rug with Sarah, touch items they need to, sometimes dive deep right into our friendships or activities. We gather then on the rug and use our hands to greet the day and create our basic intentions:
"Hello Earth, Hello Sky, Hello Body, Hello Friends."
Our hands say hello.... Our hands help people..... Our hands touch gently..... Our hands make bread. We wash these special hands, and then the bread dough grounds us each morning. We take our time with it, singing:
This is the way we ___ the bread...."
and Pat a Cake for each participant. The flour and the sticky dough are really lovely to experience. Dough time is something everyone seems to treasure, but some children test the question of arrival -- continuing to play, announcing they are not finished playing yet. Once two children were so busy playing, they missed the bread dough completely -- and this now becomes a story to help them take charge in a timely way of the choice they are making to miss the activity of the group. It's the principle of highlighting the "natural consequences" within choices being made.
Playing then unfolds. They all have their work and challenges so individually cut out for them. Sarah and I help to make sure there is safety while these "challenges" work themselves out. Cooking and sewing and reading books and collecting things.... the children get wonderfully busy. This time is the gem of a Waldorf classroom. Deep play.
Later, we clean up together gaining a sense of detail as we do, so that children can begin to sort items out for their appropriate place or basket. Then it's music time -- with instruments and songs. Our laying-down harp strings make our center piece, and on it our fingers dance to find sound. And finally the bread is ready and we wash up and set the table for snack. We have wonderful rituals to open and close snack, thanks to Suchi from last year. We eat plenty. We'll gain more and more table skills as we go along.
Soon after, we go outside. We paint the walls with water. We dig and fill and climb and ride and throw and chase. We notice nature and the details of the day. A morning glory. A snail. The wet rain.
Back inside, we've been painting. Wet on wet is the Waldorf way, so we've been trying that out a bit. Our paintings often end up all one wash of color. We bring our day to closure with a puppet show that I create for them with a simple friendship story. Three dolls I created lay near one another -- blue, brown, green. Their names are Water, Soil and Hill. Our main character has been the wooden pony (a marionette made by my Maine friend who creates a wonderful selection called Fish River Crafts). The pony encounters the 3 earth dolls each day. He has begun to find some friends: a bird, a moose. The puppet show always ends with the pony going to sleep and dreaming. The children are invited to lie down for a moment of dreaming as well. When we wake up it is time for the goodbye song, and we get ready for guardians to arrive.
Let's look back to move forth.
The children enter, absorb the environment, do some yoga stretches on the rug with Sarah, touch items they need to, sometimes dive deep right into our friendships or activities. We gather then on the rug and use our hands to greet the day and create our basic intentions:
"Hello Earth, Hello Sky, Hello Body, Hello Friends."
Our hands say hello.... Our hands help people..... Our hands touch gently..... Our hands make bread. We wash these special hands, and then the bread dough grounds us each morning. We take our time with it, singing:
This is the way we ___ the bread...."
and Pat a Cake for each participant. The flour and the sticky dough are really lovely to experience. Dough time is something everyone seems to treasure, but some children test the question of arrival -- continuing to play, announcing they are not finished playing yet. Once two children were so busy playing, they missed the bread dough completely -- and this now becomes a story to help them take charge in a timely way of the choice they are making to miss the activity of the group. It's the principle of highlighting the "natural consequences" within choices being made.
Playing then unfolds. They all have their work and challenges so individually cut out for them. Sarah and I help to make sure there is safety while these "challenges" work themselves out. Cooking and sewing and reading books and collecting things.... the children get wonderfully busy. This time is the gem of a Waldorf classroom. Deep play.
Later, we clean up together gaining a sense of detail as we do, so that children can begin to sort items out for their appropriate place or basket. Then it's music time -- with instruments and songs. Our laying-down harp strings make our center piece, and on it our fingers dance to find sound. And finally the bread is ready and we wash up and set the table for snack. We have wonderful rituals to open and close snack, thanks to Suchi from last year. We eat plenty. We'll gain more and more table skills as we go along.
Soon after, we go outside. We paint the walls with water. We dig and fill and climb and ride and throw and chase. We notice nature and the details of the day. A morning glory. A snail. The wet rain.
Back inside, we've been painting. Wet on wet is the Waldorf way, so we've been trying that out a bit. Our paintings often end up all one wash of color. We bring our day to closure with a puppet show that I create for them with a simple friendship story. Three dolls I created lay near one another -- blue, brown, green. Their names are Water, Soil and Hill. Our main character has been the wooden pony (a marionette made by my Maine friend who creates a wonderful selection called Fish River Crafts). The pony encounters the 3 earth dolls each day. He has begun to find some friends: a bird, a moose. The puppet show always ends with the pony going to sleep and dreaming. The children are invited to lie down for a moment of dreaming as well. When we wake up it is time for the goodbye song, and we get ready for guardians to arrive.
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