We have been up to our ears in Autumn. In addition to our regular school activities, we've tried to fit in plenty of seasonal projects and activities.
Our Autumn nature table is very colorful this year:
These beeswax harvest mice we modeled are part of the Human Being and Animal main lesson block Dallin has been doing the past few weeks, but I thought they fit well with Autumn too.
Waldorf schools observe some unique festivals, one of which is the festival of Michaelmas. This commemorates the story of Michael the archangel casting the dragon out of heaven, found in the book of Revelation. Whether or not you get into the spiritual aspects of the story, it is very fun to tell dragon stories and make dragon bread with the children every year.
Can you tell which painting is Dallin's? (The origanal painting idea came from Little Acorn Learning's Autumn and Michaelmas festival e-book. Just making sure I give credit.)
Dragon bread from top to bottom: Dallin's, mom's, and Sariah's. I really like this festival. It is all about courage, especially courage going into the winter months when things will be colder and darker. I can imagine this need would feel more acute had we lived hundreds of years ago with no electricity or heat... but still I think it's applicable today. It's nice to have a time of year when thoughts turn naturally to our efforts to conquer our own personal dragons. It's also nice to think of God sending unseen angels to help us when things get hard in our lives. I told Sariah two stories this year that were a bit deeper than what I'd told her in previous years. One, The Strong Boy by Christine Natale, is about a boy who learns about using strength only for good things. The other, Crossing the Sea from the Autumn Wynstones book, is about a child who needs angelic help to cross a stormy sea in order to plant special seeds in a far away country. The last story seemed to me to be a metaphor for our journey here to earth and our mortal experience. I thought these stories were beautiful and appropriate as I can see her changing from dreamy little girl into bigger, thoughtful girl. She's been asking some hard questions lately about reality, about Jesus, etc. I could see that these stories touched her in a way no stories have previous. I can see that since, her questions seem to be settled (even though the stories weren't specifically about her questions). God blessed her with a beautiful, special dream as well to help her. She struggles with frequent nightmares, so it is especially healing that she would have this dream.
After our homeschool park day the other week, we went up Millcreek Canyon to collect autumn leaves.
Yes, that is Preston running away down the trail...
Preston loved throwing leaves up inthe air and watching them land.
True to form, he also loved sitting down in the middle of the trail and refusing to budge.
He wanted very much to walk along the top of this little ridge, just like his big brother.
Then last Thursday, we took advantage of nice weather to hike to Cecret Lake at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon with some homeschool friends. We were just in time--it snowed the next day.
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