Sweet, sweet love

This beautiful and deliciously sweet heart was the accidental result of introducing some waldorf form drawing again. Somehow I found it deeply symbolic of the love I have for my family. In wanting to start the new year off with some more deeply rooted rhythms around the house and a little less chaos I have started trying to implement some more Waldorf form drawing. This week I introduced the symbol of the spiral for our form drawing lesson. We started off the week by making spiral cinnamon rolls. We are starting off the new year with a unit about various creation stories from many different cultures and religions . I chose to introduce the spiral because it is such a universally powerful symbol for the path that we follow in life . I am finding myself being ever more grateful for this opportunity to be one of my daughter's guides on her life path. Yes I am her teacher...but I am able to be so much more than that even. I am loving homeschooling my children because I am able to really dig into a subject in so many more ways than she could ever be able to experience in most public schools. I am able to let her mind go to places that would be shut out by conventional classroom learning. If she is suddenly enraptured with a book about Egyptian Pharaohs in the middle of our week about American Indians we have our way of dealing with that in our house. We just use our time machine. It is my belief that this creative flexibility can be a very powerful learning experience. As for the form drawing I have a deep love of pattern and form and texture. Being a potter and artist I use lots of rich textures and patterns on the surface of my clay. There is something very sacred about being physically engaged with a shape or a line. I am always amazed at the forms that I see in everything....in leaves, shells, the soles of shoes, flowers, the landscape etc. I have done a little bit of this with Cammy in the past with not much success. She is usually able to draw the form but not with the kind of spirited embrace of the form that I am intending to try to imbue or impress upon her. I have simply tried to connect the form to something we are studying. When we were studying the globe and the compass and maps I introduced the cross form and an arrow. We drew a huge compass in the road with sidewalk chalk trying to be as accurate as possible with the directions. We studied the clock at this time as well and drew clock faces incorporating arrows. We laid down in the floor and made arrow shapes with our bodies. we played a game where we laid down like the arms of the clock and posed each other having to try to figure out what time our partner posed us in. My intention and goal was to try to physically engage Cammy with the shape and how it played a role in her life. This leads to a deeper knowledge...a mind, body, spirit connection. Last year was quite possibly the most powerful and trying year of my life. I want to imagine myself wearing a hand sewn super mom cape for having made it through my first year of homeschooling a six year old with a one year old by my side and hers and climbing on the table and into the cabinet There were some incredibly difficult things that happened to our family last year that we have been strong enough to come through stronger than ever and loving each other more and more. I love being a mom I do, I do! With all my heart!

Where did our rhythm go?

Being gone for two weeks has really disoriented me. The kids seem to be readjusting better than I am thankfully. We have been back for almost two weeks and I still haven't quite gotten back into the solid rhythm we had working so well for us before we left for the mountains. I think part of it is that I really didn't get a good dose of nature when we were there. It rained nonstop the entire time we were there.....so no hikes in the woods or up mountain trails or dips into mountain streams. I usually get so invigorated and renewed by a trip to the mountains but not so this time. I left feeling unfulfilled and kind of empty. Then we had a craft show the next weekend on the road where it rained and sales were lousy. We made enough money to get home which I am thankful for but I am still a little bummed. I haven't had a show that slow in years. So.....getting back into my groove in the pottery studio has been difficult.
I have had a hard time getting myself really focused on Cammy's school lessons as well but we are trudging forward. I have made it really fun and loose this past week with a lot of imaginative play thrown in. We built the time machine last week and took it on our first adventure this week. Monday, Cammy launched from headquarters and went back in time to the Medieval/Renaissance period in history. We chose this time period because I am teaching a workshop in Charlotte later this month and we will be going to the Renaissance festival.
We have been doing some work with telling time and with calendars and so it was a nice fit to build the time machine. The other neighborhood kids have been congregating on the porch to play with the time machine as well.
I must give credit to the many Waldorf homeschool bloggers who I pulled bits and pieces of stories and ideas from to create our adventures from but I do not always know how to insert a link....gotta get some tech help from my hubster when he gets back home.
For the first stage of our adventure Cammy took her time machine back to the Renaissance period and ended up in the castle of the benevolent King Equals who was quite distressed because the Dragon of Numeria was very angry with him because he had not been invited to the last royal ball. The dragon had locked the gates to the land of Numeria until someone brave enough and clever enough to solve his math riddles could unlock the tweleve locks. We have had a jolly good time pretending to be a host of characters this week. My husband stood in as King Equals being quite dramatic and begging Cammy to help him decipher the dragons riddles. I was the royal servant (kitchen cook, maid, messenger, etc,) and the demanding Queen. Cammy was herself ....although she did have to change into proper attire for the time period for the Queen did not approve of a lady of the court wearing pants. Cammy had a blast. I as the royal servant showing her the lay of the royal land upon the request of the King and Queen was quite fascinated with the odd trinkets she brought with her in her time machine. Cammy thought it was so funny that I didn't know what all these modern technological things were and she was delighted every time she had to explain to me what something was or how they did thing now versus how they made things in the Renaissance. I was most fascinated by her iron horse which she called a bicycle that she rode on in the streets( apparently she brought everything in the house including the kitchen stove with her in her time machine...she said she had a shrink/enlarger machine on board).
I (the kitchen cook ) enlisted Cammy's help in determining how to cut the cake or in our case brownies up so that everyone invited would get an even sized piece; for the great King Equals always wants everything to come out even and fair for everyone. We traced the pan onto a big sheet of manilla paper and cut it out and then folded it in halves until we had an adequate number of pieces for everyone who was invited. This was a good lesson in doubles and fractions.
I did not have our beloved math gnomes ready for the adventure yet so word has been sent via paper origami cranes for them to come and help their dear friend King Equals and Cammy with her training before she goes up against the math dragon. We started some of her physical and mental training even though the gnomes are not here to oversee everything yet. I made bean bags with numbers up to twenty on them for the girls. On one side there is an even number and on the other an odd number. We played games on the castle stairs like even or odd or greater than or less than where I tossed out bean bags at random and if it was even she jumped up one step or if it was odd she had to jump down a step. For Greater than or less than she got to jump forward if it was greater than or down if it was less than the previous number, etc. We also did some double digit addition this week and Cammy picked up on it with no problem and took to writing her own problems on the board and solving them. I also challenged Cammy to see how many blocks it would take to build the castle stairs. This involved adding multiple single digit numbers. She also got to build some nice block towers in the process for Karma Kong to knock down. All in all we had a royal good time.

Compost Burgers

OK! so I know it doesn't sound that appetizing, that's just our name for them. My good friend Amber(she can't stand it when we call them compost burgers) taught me how to make them and they are actually called croquettes and they are delicious. My family loves them...even Cammy and Karma too. So far Karma hasn't rejected much of anything if it's food. She eats the tomatoes right off the vines if I don't watch her closely, she's a sneaky one. She always sneaks the cherry tomatoes and just grins at me clutching it in her tiny fist thinking it's hidden.
They are very easy to make and we lovingly call them "Compost Burgers" because we use the greens in the fridge that are wilted or just on the verge of being too old for a pretty salad....nothing actually rotten enough for compost. I saute garlic and onions in olive oil and add in some chopped up carrots and whatever greens we are using...lettuce, spinach....we like to add cilantro or chopped chives or fresh basil leaves. Saute until wilted down pretty well. I take this out of the pan and put it into a bowl and add 1-2 eggs depending on the amount of greens you have prepared and add some cornmeal until they will hold their shape loosely. I usually just spoon a small burger sized amount of this mix back into the pan of olive oil and fry on both sides until golden brown.....I season mine with curry, and a pinch of sea salt but you can experiment with any spices you like. Today our croquettes were mainly lettuce, carrots, onions, garlic, basil, chopped chives and curry powder to season. I served them with a vidallia onion sauce for dipping....YUMMY!
So go make some "Compost Burgers" for your family for lunch.