St. George's play

At the end of April we had St. George's Day here in England.  Apparently it's a big deal.  Since we were in the midst of a local geography lesson, it seemed only right to learn more about it and how it's celebrated here.

We already knew the story of St. George slaying the dragon.  It has been told and retold countless times, by countless people.  Usually it's something we do at Michaelmas, and my go-to version comes from one of the Waldorf books.  However, this time I told a version I found over at the Baldwin Project from C. S. Bailey, entitled simply: St. George and the Dragon.  And the girls were quick to say that they preferred this retelling much more than the others.

Because Sunburst had been studying the Crusades a few months ago, we were reminded about how St. George's cross was used to identify a crusader and then brought to England by Richard the Lionheart to identify English troops in battle.

We set out to hear the poem by William Blake ("And did those feet in ancient time") that was turned into a hymn of sorts and named "Jerusalem."  It's a wonderful song-- even Emerson, Lake and Palmer covered it in the 70s.  The girls were so enamored with the song that we were inspired to learn it.  And that was Monday.  Our first attempts to get the tune down were hilarious, but by Tuesday we had begun to show signs of improvement.

The girls both made some lovely St. George drawings for their books.  Sunburst wanted to draw hers in pencil, while Moonshine asked if she could use pastels.  Moonshine's drawing had such an otherworldly quality to it that it reminded me of program covers from Waldorf school plays.  The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that we finally had a large enough cast to put on a proper play.  The kids were immediately excited by the idea and thought it would be a great surprise for their dad Einstein.

We created a program using artwork from the girls' main lesson books.  I included the words to "Jerusalem" so that it would be a nice keepsake for the kids.  Even Kitty Bill picked up the lyrics rather quickly.

 Here is Sunburst's drawing on the inside of the program:

And Kitty Bill was inspired to draw a picture, as well: 

Both Sunburst and Moonshine wanted to help write the dialog, so we worked on it together in the afternoons as they found the inspiration.  Somehow the entire thing took on a life of its own and turned into a musical-- this is what happens when you have children that don't ever stop singing.

Sunburst played both the king and the dragon.  She managed to transform a cereal box into a convincing dragon's head.  Moonshine took the part of the Princess Sabra, with the comic exception that she wanted to be eaten by the dragon.  Kitty Bill played St. George.  His role was fairly straight forward, but he managed to bring some comedic personality to the role when, overcome with wonder by Sunburst's convincing dragon death scene during rehearsals, he shouted, "Awesome!"  We laughed so hard that we decided to leave that line in for the performance.

They had a fantastic time, and Einstein was completely impressed.  He couldn't believe that they had pulled off the show without him catching any hint of it.  And of course he was taken with their performances.

We managed to capture the entire performance on video to send the grandparents back in the states.  I think it will be quite the treat for my British grandmother in particular.  I fully expect she will be singing along.

Week of lions... and Greece!

Last week, to meet Moonshine's request of more "boy saints," I presented her with a story about St. Jerome and the lion. I wrote her a flute song based on this story, and I was so glad that it was such a hit because I had planned a whole week of lions.



I also mentioned last week that Moonshine is trying out some new behavioral territory. Could it be the nine-year-change approaching already? I'm hesitant to label it as such, but I do know that it's making us all crazy, herself included. She's being antagonistic to everyone and she's not sleeping well. It's a dangerous combination... and well, she rather is like a lion.

I carried over the heart theme from last week, and challenged Moonshine with a poem I wrote just for her. She copied it into her copy book, memorized it, and recited it--- all with great joy! And because she's insisting to write things phonetically and without help, I pulled some words from the poem and challenged her to her very first spelling quiz. She was so excited!! She remembered every single word, and she can't wait for her next quiz.

The poem was very simple, but the message is also very clear:

Fill my heart
with gladness.
Fill my heart
with joy.
Fill my heart
with love
For every girl and boy.

Fill my heart
with kindness.
Fill my heart
with care.
Fill my heart
with tender thoughts
For creatures everywhere.

To extend the heart theme, I invited the kids to watercolor-paint some hearts. Then to extend our lion theme, I went ahead and pulled from my second grade materials and told the story of the Lion and the Mouse. It was a good reminder of kindness as well. --Those of you who have Teaching With the Fables by Sieglinde de Francesca will recognize my attempt to recreate the picture from the cover of her lovely, lovely book.








Sunburst and I worked on Greece, Greece, and more Greece. And math, of course. I also tossed another wondrous geometrical form her way, shown at the top of this post. She is lapping it up.

This is our rendition of Helios and the sun chariot with Prometheus stealing fire to give to the humans:





We also worked together to copy out the amazing family tree from the front of D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. It was a challenge, for sure, but we worked at it little by little over the last two weeks, and it's already helping us to keep all the Greek mythological gods and goddesses sorted. Greece is definitely a lot of fun!

Everything cows!

We're still finishing up our zoology book from last year. Now that we're practically living on a farm, it makes it a much easier task.

From our studies of Ancient India to the lowing out in the fields, everything is suddenly turning up cows!


Our weekend trip to the Swiss mountainous countryside coincided with the Swiss cows coming down from the mountains for the winter. Apparently the goats came with them.




These cows are currently pasturing behind our house, and the girls have been making daily visits to a newborn calf in the stable next to us.




Since we don't eat cow, we celebrated our appreciation for them with some artwork (mine and Sunburst's):





My attempts at pastel cows:



and Sunburst's, including a poem she memorized awhile back:

Visibility zero

Black and white pigeons
peppering the electric lines, warm
horses layered with frost
in a barren, cold landscape
Whoosh! Suddenly
there is nothing but white
all sights are obliterated
mountains, trees, this very road
in this second only you and I
exist, just us, in a cloud of snow
we could blink and disappear
if not for the noise of children
from the backseat

1104 miles into our trip this thing happened-- we made it as far as Laramie, Wyoming and the interstate was closed. Sure, the road was icy and with the intermittent blowing snow, and then real snow on top of it, there were times we couldn't see a thing. Honestly, I was happy to stop. We found some vegan grub at Sweet Melissa's cafe, watched the trains roll by, and just relaxed for the next sixteen hours until the interstate reopened.

Moonshine is FIVE!

Moonshine is five.
Hair to her knees.
Not really, but she begs it
Please!
Five today. Eyes alight.
She dreams of rescues by a knight
So shining. Shining!
It's such a shame that tomorrow
She'll be seventy-two.
Or Peter Pan.
She has it all memorized anyway.
Every word, every song.
She'll want you to sing along
And you will
drink the chocolate in her eyes
because she's so shining.



Moonshine, my life-is-about-the-details "middlest" child, turned five today. I was up all night sewing the dress just the way she wanted it. And of course the other dress for her doll Ella. It's a small thing, really, catering to her need for all the fancy details. She's still so incredibly dreamy and sweet I can't help myself.

So from sun-up to sundown it was a day fit for a fairy princess. Complete with waffles, wings, fairy books, flower garlands, and a cake that seemed to have grown right out of the ground! Imagine that!

Word Family Village

We've been having a blast lately making up words.

This is Sunburst's own Word Family Village. It's not finished yet, but she has been working on it steadily, and with great gusto, for the last three weeks. And not only is it fun, it's accomplishing exactly what I had hoped that it would: Sunburst is learning to spell.

As any unschooler will tell you, the best way to learn to spell is by reading. That argument makes perfect sense to me. But for some reason, despite the fact that Sunburst readily and greedily reads over 200 pages a day now, she still can't spell. Maybe this is something that comes with time? Or maybe, I think, Sunburst has always been a FAST sort of person. Despite her reading ability and comprehension, she doesn't slow down to think about how words are constructed. So when it comes time for her to write words, they fumble upon the page in strange configurations.

So I thought we'd slow things down a bit and work on basic word construction. Word Families. You know what I'm talking about - -it, -in, -an, -on, -up, -un, -en, -et.... that sort of thing.



I started out by drawing a house on the chalkboard and telling a simple story, which went something like:

Once upon a time there was a family called the In Family. They lived in a very small house with a red door that that had their name written right upon it: In. That way the mail carrier never got confused and delivered them someone else's mail.

Well, one day, even though their house was small, they decided to have a big party. Their relatives started arriving in an orange bus. b, d, t, g, w... All of them came, and they were having a great time. They cooked up a mess of yummy food, and laughed, and hugged, and talked all day long . But as the night wore on, they got louder and louder and louder. No one at the In house could sleep with all this noise, so they decided to stay up all night long. They cooked more food, laughed at each other's jokes, and cranked up the music and had a dance party. It was great, except for one thing. The noise coming from the In house was so loud that it woke up the neighbors.

One by one the neighbors came over and knocked on the door asking them to quiet down. Finally, the sheriff came, and that got their attention. "Shhhhhhhhh!" Said the sheriff, "Your neighbors are trying to sleep!"

So one by one, the Ins settled down to a whisper, and as the sun started peeking over the horizon, the last In had fallen fast asleep.

Sunburst liked the story, and so then I showed her that all the folks that had come over to the In house actually made words. We sounded them out together, and then she drew the house in her book with all the -in words. Then I asked her if she could use the -in words to make a poem. She happily dictated, I wrote it on the board, and then she copied it into her book. (Rin is place from the Rowan of Rin book series she's crazy about.)



Then Sunburst asked for another story. But first I handed her a pad of construction paper, scissors, and a glue stick and asked her to make the In house. While she was doing this, I took a few wooden shapes (spoons, popsicle sticks, and teardrops) and began to make consonant people. Sunburst helped dress them. The small ones are singular consonants. The larger ones are consonant blends. She took her In house and glued it onto a presentation board and started drawing roads and grass, and before we knew it, it started to look like a village. She even drew a town square with a fountain! We attached the people with a loop of masking tape on the back, and one by one we started moving families in. The Ut house looks like a hut. The Up house is on stilts. The Ub house, well, it's actually an elitist pizza parlor. You have to make an -ub word to eat there... otherwise, they deliver.





Sunburst even got Moonshine involved by having her color in all the roads.



All this was well and fun, but the question was still there. Is Sunburst learning to spell?

To answer that query, we decided to host a spelling bee. It was actually Sunburst's idea to have an oral test. Three of our favorite characters came: Martha, Charlotte, and Rosemary. Sunburst represented for each of them, of course. They all did an outstanding job spelling words from a few different families. And rumor has it, they can't wait to do it again.

A Week's Food

Milk is nice for Monday,
Milk begins with M;
Treacle tarts for Tuesday,
I'm rather fond of them;
Walnuts do for Wednesday;
Thursday, toast and tea;
Friday figs; and Saturday soup;
And Sunday--
Wait and see!

- E.C. Brereton
from A Little Book of Rhymes New and Old, c. 1940

Anticipation

When I have said my evening prayer,
And my clothes are folded on the chair,
And Mother switches off the light,
I'll still be seven years old to-night.

But from the very break of day,
Before the children rise and play,
Before the greyness turns to gold,
To-morrow I'll be eight years old.

Eight kisses when I wake,
Eight candles on my cake!

-Lucy Betty McRaye
from A Little Book of Rhymes New and Old, circa 1940

Sunburst has not been able to contain herself all day. Tomorrow she'll be turning eight. EIGHT!? It seems so old... how on earth did she get to be eight already?!