Looking Forward to Our Next Step!

Lol....how many times do you have to tell a nearly 6yo that banana peels and apple cores do not go in the recycling box? LOL!

Anyway...so I have been doing a bunch of brainstorming for Twirly-Whirly's 1st grade year, which will be termed First Grade per CA law, but will more of a transitional kindergarten or 2nd year Kindy, per Waldorf/Charlotte Mason. Twirly-Whirly really is still quite squirrely....she needs more play and growing time before full-on school. As I have stated in other places...I am a developmentalist and believe in delayed academics.

So some of the ponderings looming for my planner:

Using A Little Garden Flower's Before the Journey and Homeschooling Kindergarten, along with Earthschooling's Kindergarten curriculum. Add to this Along the Alphabet Path from a blog called Serendipity.....it is a gentle framework story trail which will revisit the Flower Fairy Alphabet we did in Kindy but will wrap around Tales of Beatrix Potter, a la Oak Meadow's use of the stories, but moreso as I have used all of the Potter tales for each letter, rather than half as OM did.

We will do block crayon drawing of letter pics based on the Potter stories somewhat like Waldorf does but without the phonics work. Oh and we'll be using Tales of Beatrix Potter Number Games cards for beginning maths. For "penmanship" she will be continuing with coloring book pages based on the stories read. She will also do whatever copywork takes her fancy....she loves to copy letters!

We will also be reading from Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks compiled by Sara E Wiltse back in 1890 and Fingerplays for Nursery and Kindergarten by Emilie Poulsson. These will be used in our Circle Times, along with books by Tasha Tudor, Elsa Beskow, and Sybille von Olfers, as well as whatever else may pop into our heads...not forgetting all the fun to be found in all the other Flower Fairy books, of course, and also the Brambley Hedge series (a short series but very fun).

These stories will aid us in our nature study...plus we'll have our Fairy Garden and the Family Farmette. (Have I mentioned we'll be visiting chickens tomorrow???)

For continuing math work, we'll be doing Gnomes and Gnumbers which is also from the Serendipity blog...coupling that with lots of other gnome stories from various places. We'll be doing some handwork like beginning felting (with chopsticks instead of needles) to make some gnomes of our own....also some peg gnomes too...more handwork will include finger-knitting and easy hand-stitching projects.

Music will be addressed in Circle Times, using ocarina to begin with and later moving to pennywhistle. We'll do a wee bit of composer etc study too. We'll explore the ballet, the orchestra, and the opera with the Sing Me/Read Me/Dance Me a Story trio.

Art instruction will be done with Baby Lambs by Stebbing. It's a Christ-centered book intended for preschoolers but it fits our mode. Artist study will focus primary on those author/illustrators of the books we are using along with some of my most fave illustrators, Michael Hague, Arthur Ransom, and Tomie de Paolo. oh and by "study" I mean we'll look at the pics as we read and enjoy them richly....the same goes for composer study....lol....we'll be playing the music in the background of our day. ;)

Other artistic fun will include wet-on-wet watercolor and beeswax modeling.

I also hope to work in some fun with Mother Goose-based reading, me reading to her, and activities. I do adore Mother Goose, don't you? lol In other words, plenty of stories, rhymes,and poems...lots and lots of language arts. History? Oh yes...using A Child's History of the World, which is done in a very A.A. Milne manner, btw.

We will also help her build her memory skills with our Classical Conversation materials. Getting her ready to begin some classical studies next year...Latin and Greek, if you please! This will also be used in Circle Times.

We'll some fun with French this year...she has already been learning some Spanish from Dora and Chinese from Kai-lan and Dad, who learned Mandarin a long while back. (Don't even get him going on Latin and Greek...lol...)

Domestic arts: rather a la Waldorf...breads, soups, snacks, and what-not mixing in those handwork projects and helping Momma around the house *and* taking care of her "house" in the PlayRoom....which will find full washing/drying gear...a washtub, washboard, wringer, and of course her own clothespin apron with those sliding on pins to use on her line on the family clothesline. I can see plenty of clean doll clothes in the future! She loves to wash things!

Let's not forget physical activity: Yoga Play and Fitness Fun, both by Gaiam Kids. She'll continue her ballet and both Twirly and Boo will be back to VIP Soccer in the Autumn. And once Momma's bike is fixed, we'll have some lovely rides while the weather is obliging (hee hee...we'll each have a lovely basket too...)

Group/social activities: Awana on Wed eves, Hearth Keepers at Home on 1st Fridays and 3rd Thursdays, possibly GEMS again on Mon eves but that is till in the air, SpiralScouts tbd (once a month tho), SCA as occurs, Sunday School on Sunday of course, and ballet and soccer. oh! SBHN's Park Day ( Wed afternoons...more or less..will depend on proximity to our home so as not to conflict with Boo-man's bus.)

Our fave library will be closing yet again for further remodeling. It will be closed all Autumn into Winter. We'll go back to it in Spring...the weather will be luring us outdoors again by then, I am sure!

There will also be Friday Fun at Madrona Marsh, but that will depend on the activities planned....as the Twirly-Whirly and I have been participating in Ms Cindy's group since it was up at the botanical gardens, we are beginning to see a lot of repetition of things she has already done at least twice....sooooo....that'll be a thinker for me as to what to do....we'll see....

There will also be some holiday festivals we'll be enjoying, with friends, I hope...decorating the Garden Loom...adding to the Nature Table....we celebrate a Celtic Christian Year...it's a mash-up of the Christian liturgical year and the Pagan Wheel of the Year. We celebrate the everchanging seasons, the glorious world around us, and El who made it....

Does this all look like a lot? I know it does to me...lol...but it's really primarily story-telling and read-alouds....hands-on arts and crafts and games and such....homemaking....movement....and plenty of play woven throughout!




"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."