First Day of First Grade!

"Children of the Forest"  Elsa Beskow

So, I don't have any pics our first day back to school, but I had to write it all down to remember.  We had a really wonderful day!  This is the first day of Michael's first grade in our Waldorf inspired home school. (silly us, we started on Labor Day.)

The morning began early!  I set my alarm, the quietest setting on my phone, to get up at 6:00 am.  I had about 3 minutes to myself before Owen woke up!  I had meant to get some inner work in before the kids awoke, I dreamed of a half an hour, maybe even an hour! Alas, it wasn't meant to be.  As I nursed Owen I managed to read a little, pray and think about how our day would flow before getting up.  I have to say though, just those few minutes semi-alone with my thoughts helped immeasurably. Michael came running in just minutes later all excited for his first day!

To greet Michael there was a chalk board drawing of a colorful fall tree and written "Welcome to your journey to meet Wise Sophia".  (this in reference to the story in A Little Garden Flower's first grade curriculum that contains all the learning for this coming year.)  Then, "Pebble" the needle felted gnome and a hand sewn squirrel greeted him on the table along side a watercolor card for Michael.  Inside I drew a quick sketch of a path leading to mountains with trees and a sun and a message to Michael about his journey this year.  It was a congrats on completing Kindy and a "yay, what a lucky boy you are to be taking this journey of knowledge" message.  On the mantle was a small chalk board with the words "Welcome Michael!" written.  I didn't want Michael to miss out on any of the first day of school excitement.

Since we were up so early, I made some strawberry jelly muffins. We had breakfast together and then we took a nice long walk.  It was so beautiful out this morning.  It was overcast and even a little chilly, somewhat unusual for our hot SW desert.  It felt so fitting to me, a born and bred & lately very homesick North Easterner, that our first day of school start with a chilly air.  On our walk we even found some yellow leaves had fallen, an exciting sign for Michael and I as our favorite season is Autumn.

"Around the Year", Elsa Beskow

When we came home we started our Circle Time.  The boys were so excited!  I wish I could have gotten a picture of their excited faces and sweet smiles.  They remembered our calling song, "The More We Get Together".  We sat in a circle of play silks and held hands as we sang our opening song.  Then we recited poems and sang songs of the coming season.  I brought out songs from last year's fall circle time and they greeted those familiar songs like old friends.  After circle time and with Owen milling about happily playing Michael and I did some Math games. Owen must have thought they looked like great fun because he came and participated in a few as well.  We counted stomping like giants in our circle, we counted flowing like a stream through the countryside and we hopped, hopped, hopped like frogs to our numbers too.  We played "show me", which is a game where you call out a number and the child has to show you the number on their hands as fast as they can.  Michael thought this was great fun. We also threw a bean bag frog back and forth as we counted as well.  I've never had so much fun with Math!  After our Math time was our main lesson which began our journey to meet Wise Sophia.  We read the first part of the story, did our first form drawing, drew pictures of our story and covered his main lesson book (sketch book) in fabric.  After our work we had lunch.  This was the time that was a bit tricky with the boys as Owen was getting sleepy but refused to settle down to nap.  So I went ahead with our story time after lunch. This year I'm really focusing on storytelling as it's not something I feel very comfortable with.  I want to be one of those Mom's who can creatively come up with a story at any time to fill a need.  Right now I'm reading, "Storytelling with Children" by Nancy Mellon. It's such a good book!  And it's really opening my mind to the art of storytelling.

So, at story time I set up a very simple puppet show with "Pebble" the needle felted gnome that I made and a crystal, a small box, and silks all on a chair.  I tried hard to read "Pebble" from, "A Donsy of Gnomes", and commit it to memory to tell, however I just couldn't.  I seem to have a mental block about telling stories I've read.  The way they're written is always so beautiful and full of detail and I can never remember the details well enough to feel confident telling it. Anyway, I read the story and then told one I had made up about Pebble.  We started with a little bell that I used to call the boys to me.  Then we sang "Fairies of the Story time" and I began.  Michael loved the story we read from the book, but of course, was anxious to see the puppets in action. He seemed to really love the story I told myself.  The story came to me after I read "Pebble" again last night.  I'll have to write it down so I can remember to tell it again. In the book, "Storytelling with Children", Nancy Mellon suggests painting or drawing just 3 pages, the beginning, middle and end of a story and making a simple little book to remember your stories. I love that idea.

Anyway, it's a learning process.  I think in the future I'll read the stories at bed time and tell a story from my imagination at story time.  I seem to do better thinking one up on my own than trying to translate one, so I'll focus on that for now.  I also want to think of some stories that are much simpler for Owen.  He loves the puppets and loves talking to them, but long, involved stories are too much for him. 

Today was also the first day of the new rule of no TV during the week.  This has been quite a progression for our family.  My husband and I disagreed for many years on this point. I have to admit my weakness for TV which is why I wanted it shut off. Finally this summer I again asked if we could shut off the cable expecting opposition.  To which he said, "Ok, I don't watch it much anyway".  And it was that simple, it kind of blew me away.  So we finally had our cable shut off.  Having cable is just too tempting for me.  The new rule of no TV during the week is maybe kind of a risky one to start the first week of home school but so far it's been ok.  We have plenty of things to keep us occupied and every time Michael mentioned TV we read. Which is what I'd rather do anyway.  Also a couple of weeks ago we started a family movie night on Saturday evenings.  We make it really fun with pizza or popcorn, pillows on the floor, all of us watching together with no distractions.  The boys really love it and even husband says he loves it too.

After that it was just nap time and quiet time.   So, all in all a great first day.

Until next time...