Here are two needle-felted tapestries that Lucas recently made to give as gifts. The above tapestry was given to Aunt Kellie for her birthday. These were both wholly conceived and executed by my darling almost-9-year-old. Both are about six inches in diameter.

This one of tropical fish is a belated birthday gift for another family member. We still have to give it, though, so I won’t say who the recipient will be.

I’ve been crafting a bit myself in fits and spurts, but I’m not ready to show my creations yet. I also have a big fat book edit going on now and it’s eating up my time. I am grateful for my glorious weekend spent among friends; I am trying hard to let it buoy me up this week.

I don’t have many words right now. I’m shocked and grieving for the people of Japan, and I wish I had resources to send.

Doctors Without Borders is taking donations here.

The American Red Cross is accepting donations here.

I’m taking this opportunity to crow a moment and say how pleased I was to be invited to contribute to the March Afterschool Enrichment Guide ebook, published by Little Acorn Learning. Publisher Eileen Foley Straiton creates marvelous ebooks that are perfect for homeschooling, preschool programs, and families. They are full of crafts, stories, poems, songs, activities, caregiver meditations, recipes, holiday celebration ideas, and more. Little Acorn Learning also publishes seasonal and festival ebooks, childcare menu guides, and lesson plan guides.

For this March Afterschool Enrichment Guide ebook, I created two original craft project tutorials and wrote an article on observing Lent and the concept of sacrifice.

I was surprised and happy to see that my little leprechaun is featured on the front “cover” of the ebook.

By all means, check out the Little Acorn Learning website and see the week-by-week activities; here is a brief list of the themes for March.

Week 1: Fairies and Dragons, Magic

Week 2: the Season of Lent, Sacrifice

Week 3: St. Patrick’s Day, Luck

Week 4: Spring’s Return, New Life

Week 5: Rainbows, Creating Color

You can also download a FREE 23-page ebook all about rainbows (from Week 5). Who doesn’t love rainbows? It’s a sample of what you’ll get if you buy the March Afterschool Enrichment Guide. It’s fun for the whole family!

It was tons of fun to work on these projects and I’m honored to have my work presented alongside that of so many talented, creative, wise women! Thank you, Eileen!

Happy Valentine’s Day from our family to yours!

May you be filled with the love that surrounds you, take it into yourself, and let it inspire you.

May you love deeply and truly, with honesty, courage, and compassion.

May you enjoy life, take big bites, and savor small pleasures and everyday delights.

May you see and appreciate the beauty in the world and in people everywhere.

May you cultivate your creativity and capacity to love, for whomever you love, every day.

Blessed be!

We have a class set of valentines to make this weekend for third grade, in addition to a big school project. (Lucas has to build a traditional shelter diorama and write a report—his first major homework assignment ever.) We have opted to make some kitchen valentines for his classmates this year. I’ll tell you about those after we’ve made them. This is what we did last year and it was super fun.

In the meantime, Asher and I had some fun painting coffee filters with watercolor paints (above). The filters really soak up the paint, and the hearts are equally beautiful on both sides. We haven’t decided exactly how to use these yet: window decorations, cards, mobiles … there are so many possibilities! I spent a few moments the other day hacking up a shiny red gift bag into hearts. You can never really have too many of these, just in case.

At preschool, Asher and his classmates have been making valentines for a couple of weeks now. It’s hard work for a 3- or 4-year-old to make enough valentines for all of his friends!

This Valentine Tree is on the third grade nature table at Lucas’s school. The hanging hearts are all made by the students from modeling beeswax.

I still want to come up with some kind of gift for the children, as I do every year. We always have a small breakfast-time celebration on holidays and I like having a wee something to surprise them with. I have loads of paper hearts that I keep year to year, and one thing I always do is to make a pathway of paper hearts leading from their bedroom door to the holiday breakfast table.

Just might have to make these again! How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day with your family?

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Ian and I made some wooden toys for Asher for his birthday. We learned a lot last December when we made his wooden dragon, knight, and horse, and his rainbow gnomes—not the least of which is that sanding wooden toys takes forever. We wanted to practice these new toy-making skills some more, so we made Asher two girls, an older boy, a pig, a goose, and a gnome cave. We ran out of time and didn’t finish goose woman and the other older boy we cut out. But they’ll be along someday.

I drew these figures after looking at some old illustrations by Blanche Fisher Wright that were recently republished in a Barnes and Noble collection of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. I liked their simplicity and their old-fashioned clothing (kerchiefs and knickers and so on). Ian did a marvelous job with the scroll saw, which is the part that scares me not a little.

The gnomes in this photo were made last month, but the stacking cave pieces are new. They can be fitted together or separated out to form a gnome scene.

Now, the truth is, I don’t know if Asher will ever play with these items. Often plastic gifts grab a child’s attention quicker, and Asher got some of those for his birthday. For the most part, he prefers to play pretend and transform himself into someone new, whether human or animal. He doesn’t often sit and play with items the way they are intended by adults to be played with. A screwdriver toy becomes a sword, or a pen, or a magic wand. A firefighter’s helmet becomes a bowl or an astronaut’s gear. A stethoscope becomes a communication device or an air tube.

I will just sit back and see what he does with these wooden toys, just as I do with everything else, and be proud that we made them from scratch. They will be for him whatever he needs or wants them to be. And if nothing else, and if I’m very lucky, maybe someday I’ll see them in the hands of my grandchild.

All that birthday party hullabaloo I wrote about happened the day before Asher’s real birthday. So on Monday, the day he really turned 4, we celebrated some more, in small ways with just the four of us. It was easy, peaceful, and special.

In the morning, Asher’s place at the table was set out with what I’ve come to think of as the birthday place mat. His birthday crown was there waiting for him (I made it last year). And I set out a big bronze bell. He was delighted when I said, “Today is your birthday! You get to ring the bell.” Asher rung in his fifth year.

The bulk of the day was normal. He went to preschool, Lucas to school. We worked. But in the evening we had a birthday dinner; Daddy cooked him sausages, as he requested. Of course there was a little more dragon cake to be had for dessert.

We used the birthday cake candles to light up the Scandinavian “party chimes.” Ian and I have had these for years, but we ran out of the 1/2 inch diameter candles and haven’t set it up for a long time. Birthday candles worked just fine, and I thought it was perfect: 4 candles, 4 years old.

There was a sweet, spontaneous hug as Lucas read the birthday message he wrote for Asher.

Finally, we gave Asher his birthday gifts from us. We believe in letting Lucas regift his old toys that he doesn’t want or play with to Asher when the time is right and Asher’s ready for them. Lucas is always very pleased to do this. This year, Lucas gave Asher some felt story boards. These were a big hit and we all played with them awhile before we got to any other presents.

Two books (The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett and The Paper Princess Flies Again (with Her Dog) by Elisa Kleven), a rainbow bowl and scoop, four jewels, a piggy bank, a wooden car, and wooden people and animals that Ian and I made for him.

When it’s time to celebrate, our family does it right!

We held a small ceremony last night to celebrate Imbolc, or Candlemas. It was just the four of us and it was perfect, I think. In my research, Imbolc and Candlemas led me to Saint Brigid, who led me to Brigid, the Celtic triple goddess, who whispered in my ear how very alike she is to Hestia, the Greek goddess of hearth and home. Now, Hestia and I go way back, and at that moment I was instantly comfortable, on familiar turf,  “at home.” I can work with this!

When I create a ceremony or celebration, I have this little tendency to go overboard. When the intention is to celebrate with my small children, I have learned that the key  is to keep it simple. I usually let my imagination run wild for a while, come up with lots of complicated and meaningful ideas, and then I consciously scale it back, make it shorter, and let the symbols speak for themselves.

After dinner, we sat by the fire on our sheepskin rug. I had purchased a 3-inch beeswax pillar candle and we softened some modeling beeswax in warm water. We each fashioned a design or symbol to attach to our “FamilyCandle.” As we did so, I shared a poem about Candlemas Day.

“If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, Winter will take another flight. If Candlemas Day be cloud and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again.”

Then this, which I wrote:

“Round the hearth, with our fire burning bright, we speak from our hearts. With kind words we kindle our hearts’ light.”

We then talked about Imbolc being the midpoint of winter and that after that night, we’d be moving toward the spring. We talked about family and home.

The boys mostly played with the colorful wax and stuck chunks of it on our Family Candle. Asher called his chunk of blue the “rainbow bridge.” Daddy made a beautiful interlocking rings design, with four rings representing the four of us. I made a star with a rainbow and a little blazing fire (because stars and fires mean winter to me, and a rainbow gives me hope for the spring).

Here is our Family Candle in this morning’s light.

Here you can see the boys’ additions to it.

While we modeled our beeswax and added it to our candle, we thought of with words that mean “family” and “home” to us, things we associate with our home and being a family together. We wrote these words in crayon on a watercolor painting I made earlier in the day. Lucas wrote words for himself. Not to be outdone by his older brother, Asher followed suit, with his own version of writing.

Here is our family artwork hanging above our kitchen table. Love, peace, joy, family, us, tribe, prosperity, health, warmth, luck(e), respect, happiness, hope, laughter, help, rest, safety, boys, hearth—and contributions from Asher, such as “squirrel family in the snow!”

Especially for 4-year-old Asher, we did a small motion play from A Child’s Seasonal Treasury by Betty Jones called Groundhog Day.

Bears hug in their caves so snug.    (Hug self with eyes closed; smile.)

Squirrels are restless in their hollow tree.    (Make a hole with one hand, wiggle fingers of other hand through hole.)

Fox family yawns and stretches in their lair.    (Yawn and stretch limbs.)

Groundhog pokes his head from the ground.    (Make large ring with arms and poke head through.)

Whiffs and sniffs and looks around.    (Sniff, look around through hole.)

Will or won’t his shadow be found?     (Nod “yes,” then “no,” shrug shoulders.)

If it is, we all will know     (Nod “yes” and rise to squat position.)

Spring is getting ready to go!     (Spring up in place with outstretched limbs.)

Finally, while we all held our decorated Family Candle together, we finished with this verse by Marsha Johnson.

Bless this candle in our hands.

Bless this flame as here we stand.

Bless the faces ’round this light.

Bless all people on this night.

We’ll be burning this Family Candle during dinner and on weekends when we are home for the rest of winter.

(Last year’s candles)

Today is Imbolc, or Candlemas, if you prefer. Some call it Oimelc; some call it the Feast of Saint Brigid. In the U.S. it’s most commonly called Groundhog Day. Today marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Today it’s a good day to divine the weather, a la Punxsutawney Phil, but this little fellow isn’t the first, by far, to do so.

“If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, Winter will take another flight. If Candlemas Day be cloud and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again.”

Today is a great day to make or buy candles. Gather all of your candle stubs and bits and pieces and melt them down to make new candles by dipping or pouring into special candle molds. Winter has a good six weeks left to blow in most places in the Northern Hemisphere and that’s plenty of dark nights to light up.

(Photo from candle dipping at Sacramento Waldorf School last fall)

I have a small candle-oriented celebration planned for our family for tonight. Last year’s was simple, too. We’re going be decorating a “family candle” tonight, if I can get everyone to cooperate. I have in mind a beeswax candle decorated with more (colored) beeswax, with each of us adding pieces to it so that it becomes a representation of our family, our home, and our hopes. It’s my intention that we’ll keep lighting this family candle throughout the rest of the winter.

(Colorful beeswax bits like these can be molded by hand to make shapes, people, and other decorations, and will stick onto the side of a candle.)

In doing a bit of research, I’ve come to understand there’s a significant parallel between Brigid and Hestia, which infuses even more meaning for me into this winter festival. In the dark of winter, and even halfway through it, we must tend to our hearth fires and keep the lamps lighted. We must live, together, in close proximity and in peace as much as we are able. We need such unifying rituals to hold us and keep us safe together.

Today is a great day for a purge or cleaning—of things, of negative feelings, of anything that is needing letting go. Today is a great day to stoke your own inner light, so you may keep it burning brightly as we march toward Spring.

Here are two lovely discussions of this holiday. I hope you enjoy them.

Celebrating the Wheel: Oimelc Overview

Little Acorn Learning: Celebrating Candlemas (with Guest Blogger Marsha Johnson)

This is the second post in a three-part article about what Waldorf school looks like compared to public school. If you’re just coming to this, I encourage you to read Part 1, which can be found here. Please keep in mind that Ian and I are parents, not teachers, so our perspective on Waldorf is a parents’ perspective.

What does Waldorf school look like?

6. Curriculum. Reading, writing, and math are taught systematically, but probably not with the same system that you are familiar with if you come from public education. The Waldorf curriculum is not up to individual teachers, as it is long established, although teachers can mold things to their liking by choosing stories as teaching vehicles. They are not teaching out of an instructor’s manual and the students do not have textbooks of any kind. Rather, the teacher brings the lesson and the students make their own “lesson books.” Thus, they are constantly developing and using their reading, writing, math, and art skills no matter the subject. Students definitely are not doing whatever they want, as some people seem to assume about Waldorf education. Rather, students follow the lessons set before them by their teachers. More about the Waldorf curriculum can be found here.

7. Class Size and Student/Teacher Ratio. My son’s class has 28 students. It is up to the teacher and the administration to determine how many students he/she can take. They try to hover around 28 to 29 children. In first grade, there was a wonderful classroom aide to help the teacher, but probably more to help the young students adjust to being in a classroom for lessons and sitting in desks. Starting in second grade there is no classroom aide, but the students have the other specialty teachers I mentioned above. In third grade, which I discussed in more detail here, students do lots of cooking, and our dear Spanish teacher also helps with cooking to ensure appropriate supervision of the children while they are working in the in-classroom kitchen.

8. Media Use. The children have no access to computers or computer-assisted learning at school until they reach 8th grade or maybe even high school, I’m not sure. Waldorf is sometimes accused of being of technophobic in that way, but Waldorf teachers have very clear reasons why computers have no place in the lower grades. They strongly discourage the use of TV, movies, computers, and video games for young children, and they can be very adamant about it. There is a plethora of research to support the Waldorf ideal of no or minimal screen time. (I urge you to search the internet for research.) The use of media for the young child effectively drugs children. It robs them of their ability to use their imaginations to form the kind of detailed mental pictures that they need to form while reading, learning history, learning about cultures, learning abstract concepts of math and science, empathizing with others, and eventually in high level problem solving. Some might scoff and say imagination isn’t important. But Waldorf and industry leaders agree: If you cannot imagine that something can be done a different way, then you cannot innovate. The whole goal of Waldorf eduction is to teach children to think for themselves.

Now, to address computers and technology specifically I will admit that some children are using computers at home. My children mostly do not, although they are around us when we use our computers. Some people have asked me, “Don’t you worry about your kids not learning computers? However will they compete in a high-tech world if they don’t study computers in school?” Personally, I have no worries about my kids’ ability to pick up technology skills when the time is right; technology is part of our culture and children learn fast. Our kids will not be able to get away from technology in their lives—so I don’t mind at all staving that off for a later date. I want my kids playing when they’re young, using their hands and their bodies to explore and navigate the world, not sitting glued to a monitor. With that said, my 8-year-old has a pretty darn clear understanding of the Internet just through observing us use it over time, and my younger son has a great affinity for technology. In our home, it is not taboo but rather a useful tool that they do not yet need.

9. Clothing and Warmth. We do not have school uniforms, though there is a dress code: no logos, no pictures, no words on clothing, no camouflage, NO TV or movie characters. Ideal play clothes are warm and comfortable, layered to regulate temperature, and designed in such a way that the clothing does not take the wearer or the wearer’s classmates out of the here and now and into some other space. What I mean is, if a child puts on an outfit and wears it like a costume, letting the outfit dictate their attitude, personality, and receptivity, then that clothing is not conducive to learning. For example, a young child might wear army-green camouflage and then run around playing army and guns, which is discouraged at school. On the other hand, a girl dressed up in fancy princess clothes that make her put on airs or decline to run and play and hang upside-down is missing out on the learning opportunities of the school day. Teachers and administrators don’t want the children to be conscious of their clothing. The rules about clothing, jewelry, and hair color change somewhat as the children get older.

10. Student Evaluation. Waldorf students do not get report cards or letter grades. We get a skills evaluation at the midyear parent-teacher conference and we get an evaluation letter at the end of the school year. The letter is specifically about our child: who he is, what his is learning, what his strengths and weaknesses are, what he brings to the class, etc. There is also a long letter about what the class as a whole studied during the year, and it is broken into predictable chunks, such as Language Arts and Arithmetic, and also Music, Form Drawing, Drawing and Painting, Movement, Performances, and Books Read to the Class. I have to admit, I am thrilled to my core when I read my son’s evaluation letter, even the parts that explain where he needs more practice. Here’s an excerpt.

“Lucas has continued to be such a loving and joyful presence in our class this year. Whether he was creating rocket ships, organizing elaborate games full of imagery, or building great cities in the sand, Lucas was where the action was. Never at a loss for ideas, his eyes would twinkle with excitement when he had the opportunity to boldly create something he hadn’t before. Early in the year I introduced ‘free rendering’ to the children, whereby they could create in any form something from the story they had previously heard. While most drew or painted pictures, Lucas quickly asked, ‘Can it be 3D?’ In no time he was constructing a large castle made out of many pieces of paper rolled and taped together. As others joined in with Lucas at the helm, an amazing castle with drawbridges and towers was formed.”

Such a written evaluation allows us to know our child in his school environment, where we cannot and do not observe him directly. This teacher’s perspective is valuable; it is the observations of the adult who spends all those many hours in our son’s presence among his peers. It gives us a much better window into his growth and development (socially, academically, physically, intellectually) than any series of A’s, B’s, C’s, or D’s ever could.

This article will be continued in Part 3. Please join me there for more information on Waldorf schooling. As always, I welcome your comments!