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.

Saint Elizabeth Dobro Blues

There's something infectious about songs in this family. All it takes is one person to hum a bar, and someone else picks up the tune and carries it around with them. Usually it's Kitty Bill. But any one of us is susceptible to the draw of melody. Even Einstein.

There's something very cool when a Dad picks up a song his child is learning and plays around with it. I think it gives a child more confidence in a way, more respect for what they're learning-- after all, music is cool! Especially when Einstein plays it. The kids always get a kick out of it.

I don't know quite what else to say about this, just that I have to share it with you. This is our Saint Elizabeth song morphed and played by Einstein on a homemade dobro. It makes me smile every time I hear it.

Songs for Saints/Heroes

So... I wrote a bunch of songs when Moonshine and I were doing her unit study/block of the saints for Grade 2. I felt having music to go with this block really enlivened the experience for us, and she absolutely loved every minute of it.

I've got a whole pile of them here, and I've been trying to figure out the best way to share them with you so that if you want to use them in your own lessons, you would have both the sheet music and a sample to listen to. I think I've got it figured out.

As of today I have my own little channel on YouTube and my very first video (huge learning curve for me!). Moonshine was quite eager to have her flute playing and vocals recorded for the experience. Anyway, I hope you like it. And if you would like to hear more of our songs, please let me know and we'll try to put more up soon.

Also, if you use it to enliven your own homeschooling lessons, I'd love to hear about it.

Songs on Sunday

The rain kept us in all weekend.

We spent most of Sunday singing together and playing music and then recording it. We had such a blast!

It all started when Sunburst realized that her rat Ronia didn't have a signature song. A while ago Einstein, the dad, made up a reggae song for Sunburst's rat Pepper, and all the kids sing back-up on it. It's very cute. But poor Ronia, Sunburst felt, was feeling a bit left out. So Einstein came up with the chords, and Sunburst set to work creating "Redwall-style" lyrics with three verses and a chorus. Here's just a taste:

"If'n you see a rat who's sweet as can be
Who can cuddle like a babe an' seem so free
Eat like a hare an' go like a flow
An' have a belly white as the snow

Yer lookin' at
Ronia, Ronia
Love 'er, hug 'er, hold 'er
Ronia, Ronia..."

We were having so much fun that we decided to change the words around into a birthday song for Einstein's mom. Yep, we're one of those families that will call on your birthday and sing the most ridiculous things just to show you how much you're loved-- our style falls curiously somewhere between the Partridge and the Addams families. (Did the Addams Family ever sing?) Anyway...

There was quite a bit of flute music going on, too. I've been writing a lot of songs lately to go with Moonshine's lessons, but I've been struggling with finding the time it takes to write them all out in musical notation. Now that Moonshine has really taken off with the flute, she has been delightedly compiling each song she learns into her own music book. This is great fun, and such a joy for her! Except that she has to wait around for me to write them out. Waiting for mom is... well, not so much fun.



My ultimate plan with having Moonshine compile this music book is so I can eventually teach her to read the music that she already knows, like I did with Sunburst. Ergo, it's important to have the songs all written down properly.

Enter the new love of my life-- Finale Notepad. I don't have a ton of free time to sit around and write things out, but I can enter them into this software, tweak and tweak, and play it back until it sounds right. I was so inspired by how quickly this process went, the songs just came flying. The program is easy enough for Sunburst to work on her own. And it's a great way to self-check your own musical writing, at least for me, because sometimes I screw up. It's true. Or worse yet, I make a song up and completely forget it an hour later. I hope that's a sign of a full life and not an aging brain. ;-)

Here's a simple little math song:



Don't forget to notice the clever title. ;-)

Have you seen Jack-in-the-Green?

Thomas Crane & Ellen Houghton, London Town, 1883


I was just over at A Polar Bear's Tale-- she is always putting such inspiring artwork up-- when this one in particular caught my eye. I had no idea that Jack-in-the-Green was associated with the first of May. To me it has always been a song... still remembered from childhood. And always, it makes me think of my dad.

He and I were blessed enough to see Jethro Tull play live, twice. Though my dad has been gone six years this May, I can still hear him singing along.

I found a nice little video of Jethro Tull singing Jack-in-the-Green, 1982.

Seven songs to learn by tomorrow

picture from www.sengers.ch


I just received the songs we'll be singing at the lantern walk tomorrow night. God help me. They are all in Swyzerdütsch!

My neighbor was sweet enough to bring them over this morning along with some turnips to carve for the children's Laterne.
(And if she's reading this, "HALLO! DANKE VIELMAL.")

Luckily, a couple of the songs we are familiar with...in English... of course the English versions of these songs are different than the high German versions. And then I must add that the Swiss German versions are even more different, even so from the high German, including different notes. Is it too much to ask that they use the same notes?

We're going to spend the day working on it... in between writing and cleaning and cooking and blowing our noses...

Here's but one of the songs.
I think it says something about a turnip light... and when the wind blows the light out, you go home. But ask me how to pronounce these words, and my eyes go round and my mouth drops open.

Rääbeliechtli, Rääbeliechtli, wo gahsch hii?
I die tunkli Nacht, ohni Sterneschy.
Da mues mys Liechtli sy.

Rääbeliechtli, Rääbeliechtli, wo bisch gsii?
Dur d Straass duruuf un s Gässli ab.
Gäll, Liechtli, lösch nüd aab.

Rääbeliechtli, Rääbeliechtli, wänn gasch hei?
Wänn de Büswind blaast
und mer s Liechtli löscht,
dann gann i wider hei.

Seven songs. Many with multiple verses. I'm only freaking out a little bit.


The above turnip lantern is borrowed from the Swiss Räbechilbi site. For more turnips, go visit the site HERE. They are amazing!

If you know the author/copyright owner of the Rääbeliechtli song, please let me know so I can give them full credit. Thanks!

Weekly particulars

Our little weekly schedule looks a lot like Aleisha's master plan, just what you'd expect from heavily-borrowed goods. Ours is still a work in progress.

I love the music practice in the mornings, directly after tidy time. It gets the job done when Sunburst is still an interested and willing party. She's working very hard on learning to read music, and doing an outstanding job at it, I must say. But it's heady work, and the mornings work best for that.

The other cool thing about our week is that we have so few "scheduled" activities away from the home. I've carved out huge chunks of time that can be "lesson time," which I haven't bothered to define very well on the map. With a nap-defying, self-asserting toddler in the house it's hard to say when the lessons will actually occur. Obviously I try to get started early, but sometimes it just simply doesn't work that way. So we have the freedom to just roll along and fit things in as we can without any time crunch to be anywhere.

We do have to be at our local homeschool park day, however. It happens once a week and we wouldn't miss it-- all the dirt digging, jump roping, and bug watching. And directly from there Sunburst has her horse lessons. We come home exhausted, but often, she still wants to do "school." I know, I know. She's an odd kid. So instead of planning a lesson, we have delegated that time "Old Time School."

I've been instructed that if I'm not going to wear a dress, I at least have to put my hair into a bun. Sunburst, however, puts on her Prairie clothes and bonnet and comes at me with her McGuffey's Third Reader and Speller. Or sometimes she'll surprise me and ask to do a maths worksheet. It's odd how much kids like to do worksheets, so we keep them around just in case.

Our only other exciting planned activity is for Moonshine. She badly wanted to take a gymnastics class, but I couldn't find one for her age group that wasn't in the middle of dinnertime. And so... one afternoon a week, for 30 minutes, we have homeschool gymnastics.

"Welcome. My name is Miss Fiddlesticks, and today we're going to learn how to do a cartwheel."

Now, I can't do a cartwheel to save my life. Especially with my messed up foot, but with a class size of one, I can fake it. Plus, I'm the lucky sort of teacher who has a chief assistant demonstrator, Miss Sunburst herself, graduate of the gymnastics bar of fame. Or something like that. She took gymnastics for a couple of years anyway, and was quite adept at all manner of body contortions. She's fairly choleric though, rising to meet each and every challenge until she masters it. And as long as Sunburst was a helper and not a classmate, she was allowed by Moonshine to be part of the scenario.

We started out with a circle, sort of. I sang a greeting song I remembered from a parent tot dance class back in 2001. Then we did another song/movement game from that same dance class, that goes something like:

"Here we go skipping, skipping, skipping (or running, hopping, jumping, etc.)
Here we go skipping all around.
Here we go skipping, skipping, skipping
Here we go skipping and then we stop.
Give a little clap.
Now we all fall down."

We went on and on until we got tired, and then out came the gymnastics mat. We bought one for the girls to use years ago when I caught Sunburst trying to do front handsprings into the living room windows. There is a reason that there is a "burst" in her name.

So out came the mat and Moonshine rolled down it and did somersaults and asked to learn backwards rolls... and it was amusing. We worked on cartwheels, sort of. It went well. But Moonshine is less about the actual activity than the feeling of the experience. She wanted dialog.

"Miss Fiddlesticks, how did you hurt your foot?" she said, eyeing my still-bandaged foot. "Were you in a car accident?"

"Ah, no, " I said, trying to think up something fast. "It was a dog accident, actually."

She considered that for a moment. "My mom has a hurt foot, too," she said, and her eyes flickered and grew big and bright. I think in her imagination I actually became Miss Fiddlesticks instead of her mom. It was fascinating and weird all at once. And she went on to discuss with me in great detail the car accident and everyone's injuries and how the best part was having a sleepover at a friend's house. If I recall, there wasn't much sleeping involved... but it's nice to know she has processed it and found a bright side.

We ended our class with a goodbye song, and as I waved her off she circled back through the house and yelled, "Mom, I'm home from my gymnastics class!"

Growing a knitter

Moonshine, not to be left out, will officially be kindergarten-age this coming Fall. She learned to knit last summer on a circular needle when she was a mere four-years-old. Again, I think it's part of the monkey-see, monkey-do phenomenon around here.

Her first official project was a doll, knit flat in garter stitch, and sewed up the side.

She gave me her vision (color, stripes, and hair) and I helped her pull it off. While she did a lot of the knitting and told me when she was ready to change colors, I helped her make that color change. I helped her knit. I put her dropped stitches back on the needle and untangled the yarns a dozen times. I did the sewing and the embroidering and the hair. She was four. Even Lance Armstrong doesn't ride alone.

She quickly moved on into a dishcloth, her first solo project. And she knits a little every week, or as the mood strikes her. She declares that she's "Going to finish it today," every time she sits down to knit. She usually manages to get through a row, two at the most, in one sitting. She's learning how to not freak out when she drops a stitch, put them back on, or just sit and wait for help. Important lessons.



She's been working on it for almost a year now. "It's a present for you," I'm constantly reminded, "so just pretend you don't know what it is."

In the past week she finally started finger crocheting (crocheted chain made with fingers.) Sunburst has tried to teach her many times, but it didn't take. Last week she finally grasped the concept and worked steadily (and proudly!) for an hour on her super long chain. If she's interested in the next year we may try to teach her finger knitting (not to be confused with finger crocheting) and how to work a Knitting Nancy to make I-cord.

And here's the knitting song I promised last month. Sorry about the blur. It's from an old public school 3rd grade songbook called Singing and Rhyming by Lila Belle Pitts.



The lyrics read:

Learning to knit is so much fun. You put on two, then take off one.
Missing a stitch and back you go. And then you start another row.

Faster and faster on I go. I love to sit and watch it grow.
Only one thing that puzzles me. When I get through, what will it be?

The Gamble of Song

Welcome to The Singing Lottery, where every morning we each draw a song out of a hat, open our hearts, breathe deeply into our lungs, lift our heads to the heavens and SING. Together. I know it sounds strange, but hear me out.

This is my answer to the impossibility of a daily circle time. We would love to have a circle every day, and it sounds good in theory. But that lengthy, involved, lovely, composed circle with all the songs and fingerplays and recitations just isn't something we can do everyday in our house, especially with Kitty Bill competing for attention.

But... I still want my girls to sing. Daily. Together. In a lovely, harmonious way. As a guided activity, which is very different from the normal and contstant outpouring of their own creative song that happens throughout each day. In this I want them to listen. To memorize. To sing together. To work together, and to start the morning with song. Every day. United and present and lyrical and healthy.

I think it's IMPORTANT, but you don't have to take my word for it.

“Music is a strange thing. I would say it is a miracle. For it stands halfway between thought and phenomenon, between spirit and matter, a sort of nebulous mediator, like and unlike each of the things it mediates — spirit which requires manifestation in time and matter that can do without space.” --Heinrich Heine
"We need no convincing about how phenomenally good music makes us feel. There's nothing esoteric about the fact that when we sing, our pupils dilate and a rush of endorphins (our body's natural painkillers) surge through our bodies. Singing increases oxygenation in our bloodflow, tones the nervous system, heightens our immunity, and affects glandular secretions. Healers often use sustained vocalization of individual pitches for the purpose of resonating specific body areas to realign and rebalance." --Naturally You Can Sing

Singing promotes deep breathing, oxengenates the blood, stimulates brain activity, releases 'feel good' endorphins, reduces stress, builds self-confidence, enhances memory, and boosts creativity! --Beth Lawrence, Viva La Voice

"Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful." --Plato

Sounds great, doesn't it? Singing daily for health and inner peace and connectedness. It's a communal exercise. Turning it into a game like The Singing Lottery brings in the element of surprise, mystery, and fun. What will we sing today? My girls can't wait to find out! But of course there are rules, too.

The Singing Lottery Rules
1. Anyone can contribute a song to the hat.
2. Each song must impart a sense of goodwill, joy, spirit, and/or welcome.
3. The songs can be in any language.
4. Each person has to draw at least one song from the hat.
5. After each participant has drawn a song, the singing commences.
6. Each participant must sing standing up (posture and breath are important.)
7. All songs will be sung together, as a group.

We're having great fun with it, currently singing selections from Sing Through the Day, This is the Way We Wash-a-Day, Teach Me German, and the musical play of Peter Pan. Moonshine in particular has been heard repeating the songs throughout the day. Not just Moonshine though, me too. I can't help myself. It feels good.

What will you sing?

Feel free to play along.

I am Robin Red

Sunburst has been learning to play the pentatonic flute since February. I've been using David Darcy's booklet/cd set Playing the Pentatonic Flute and the Pentatonic Recorder to teach myself so that I can teach her. I can't say enough wonderful things about this booklet. It has changed the way I think about music and my own musical capabilities.

For instance, I now think capable as opposed to incapable. I live with Einstein who is a musical genius. He can, and does, play anything he can get his hands on. But he can't teach me... he's my husband after all, and I have this Complex about music. Or shall I say had. I no longer play secretively in the laundry room. David Darcy has brought me into the light.

And now I can give that to Sunburst.

Our second form drawing block was based on a story I made up about the adventures of Robin Red and his search for Spring. With that in mind, I found myself being challenged to write a song of my own for Sunburst to play on the pentatonic flute: Robin Red. It's simple-- using only the notes A, B, and D. But simple is key, I think. It met her where she was, connected to her heart, and took her playing up a notch.

She struggled with it for a couple of weeks, but after her experience meeting a Native American flute player, she returned to this song with renewed vigor and quickly mastered it. Her own musical confidence grew by leaps and bounds with this song, as if she's now swiftly flying along, too.