- The Marshall Family
A forum post: A Glimpse into our Home School (2008)
Since there are several people on this list interested in what it is like to home school, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into our home school. During the summer we tend to do more school because it is too hot to be outside except for the pool and the beach. Also, I'm planning for next year and trying to catch up with all the stuff I meant to do this year but didn't get to yet, lol. A few weeks ago we introduced fractions (particularly for Grace) and Katie finished learning cursive handwriting. So for the next few weeks while to go on to other unit studies, we'll be practicing those new skills. Also we have swim team practice every day and violin practice every day with lessons once a week. We're taking a break from horse back riding for financial reasons and plus it is just too bloody hot. We'll start back up in September.
Grace is a 4th grader going into 5th. Katie would be a 3rd grader going into 4th in public school but I have kept her a year behind according to Waldorf principles (her birthday is May but her due date was June 1st). In reality she has done combined 2nd and 3rd this year and will be doing 3rd/4th next year.
In the Waldorf curriculum we do blocks or unit studies. 2nd graders do a unit on animal fables and 4th graders do a unit called Man and Animal which is sort of a zoology unit where the relationship between human beings and the animal world is emphasized. The idea is that we look at how animals are specialists, adapted to their environment and the human beings are generalist who adapt the environment to suit us. In W. ed, we don't go in too much detail on taxonomy or scientific details at this age. We focus more on observation and in getting an understanding an appreciation for the natural world and how human beings fit (and don't fit) into that. For these blocks, I will tell a story and then the following day the children will write a story summary and do an artistic rendering from the story, a drawing, painting or modeling project. Also, 4th graders do local and state geography so we are focusing on animals found in Florida. With that explanation I'll post what I posted on one of my Waldorf lists.
Here is what we're doing at the moment. I've been grappling with Man and Animal for quite a while, trying to get it right. Well, last week I did two Fables for Katie (but all the kids listen), both of them
featured rodent characters. We also did that mouse reflected on the shiny floor form drawing from Live Ed! and learned the poem, "I Think Mice are Rather Nice". Once we knew the poem orally, I had them write it down as a dictation exercise. We modeled mice from beeswax for the mouse story and rabbits from beeswax for the rabbit story. Then Grace read some books on her own from the library on mice, rats, rabbits, and hares. Then we discussed the books and looked at the pictures together. We looked at their teeth and compared them to human (and ape) teeth. We also looked at eyes and ears and discussed predator vs. pray in that context. I had the kids close their eyes and listen to noises with their hands cupped around their ears (to make them bigger like mouse ears) and then without hands.
This week we're doing carnivorous mammals of Florida. I told the aesops fable of the Lion, the Tiger and the Wolf and changed it to the Florida Panther, the Bobcat, and the Coyote. We did a jagged form drawing that resembles carnivore teeth which I called "the jaws of the wolf". Grace is reading books on
coyotes, foxes, wolves, bears, and Florida leopard and cats. We'll discuss them and also look at teeth and digestion. We'll look at our dog and cat's teeth. We're working on drawing our dog for an Icelandic Sheepdog art contest so we'll send those drawings in too. But I still need a poem. "Tyger, Tyger" is the only one I've come up with. Any ideas? There is a wolf sanctuary about an hour from here and we might try to drive out there if we're really ambitious. For reading time, I'm reading them Kipling's Jungle Book.
The following week will be birds, Eagles in particular and Blue Herons I hope because we've been watching them next in our neighborhood all spring and summer. There is a swan form drawing in the same Live Ed! book which I might use. Does Florida have swans I wonder? I hope so because I found some cool swan books and Grace just read The Trumpet of the Swan. I'm not sure what fables to choose for this week. I could change the stork and the jug to the Blue Heron and the jug. If I can't find a good Eagle fable, I'll tell a Native American Eagle story I found in Keepers of the Earth (Joseph Bruchac). We have Bald Eagles and Seahawks that live near us and we see them fairly regularly.
After that we'll break for folk camp so we'll see what happens but I'd like to fit in a week on ungulates and another on reptiles at some point.
The cool thing is that I'm doing only Florida animals and so tying it in with regional Geography as well. There is a great zoo back in Jacksonville where we used to live and they have a huge Florida area
called Wild Florida. We'll head out there too if we get a chance. We'll have a talk about Florida habitats and the food web at some point. Since wetlands and pine scrub are the basic habitats, I may
focus on Wetlands and use this opportunity to introduce the water cycle. If I can co-ordinate this with a visit to Ichetucknee Springs, so much the better.
I'm pretty happy with the way this is (finally) coming together. I'm happy to hear comments or suggestions!
More Articles by Lisa
Another Forum Post: Digging a Hole (2006)
My 3 kids are digging a hole in the back yard. It is getting quite large. They are convinced that it is going to be a swimming pool. They've asked me to get them some concrete to line it with. I've refused. They've asked me how to make concrete. I've given vague unsatisfactory answers to this. They've been trying to make their own concrete with some VERY messy results.
When they get tired of digging, they have to fill a metal tub with water and wash themselves before entering the house. This keeps them busy for a while and often I turn on the sprinkler at the same time.
The other day I filled this self same tub with water and let them wash and hang out to dry all the doll clothes. Then I put the playstands on the patio (in the shade) and they played house for hours after the clothes were washed and drying on the line. I kept bringing out cut up fruit and water so they wouldn't come back inside.
After lunch is a good time for a story. In the summer if you have a lot of time on your hands, it is a good time for a LOOONNGGG story. We are reading George McDonald's The Princess and Curdie having recently completed his The Princess and the Goblin. After story and nap/quiet time is the hardest time of all expecially here where it is too hot to go out. This is sometimes a good time for crafts or an outing or a playdate.
Life as a Waldorf-Inspired Military Family
It is greatly ironic that I should have ended up as a military wife. I grew up with the most liberal of parents, a father who was a registered conscientious objector in Vietnam and is a philosophy professor and a mother who something of a hippie earth-mother before that sort of thing was popular. My parents’ marriage dissolved when I was three years old and my life took many interesting twists and turns along the way, living in various blended family situations with one biological parent or the other.
To this day, I am wildly liberal when it comes to political ideology, yet at the same time, I have a deeply conservative soul. I have always believed in personal responsibility, in honesty, in prudence, in good manners. I don’t like surprises or danger or rash decisions. My sister says that to understand me you have to know that I “believed everything I was told as a child and that I was a Girl Scout for a long time”. My parents’ divorce only deepened my conservative nature. I wanted to know that I had a firm foothold and sought to create stability for myself where I found it lacking. I loved school with all its rules and routines and I adored my teachers. I became a nurturer and wanted nothing more than to grow up to be a mother and a teacher.
When I was old enough to date, I chose reliable, intelligent, trustworthy men; while other women looked for “long haired rock-and-roll cowboys”, I looked for a guy who liked the symphony and early bedtimes. It was in Antarctica of all places that I met my Navy Pilot husband and knew that he was “the one”. Geoff was the first real grown-up I ever dated. He had a successful career, a stock-portfolio, and even an insurance policy. One thing I asked him about early on was whether he was interested in his wife being a stay-at-home mother and I was happy to hear that he felt strongly that that was the best way to raise children. Our timing was impeccable; he had enjoyed huge success in his career and was ready to find a partner to share his future with. I was a graduate student and frankly, a bit of a mess. I was floundering academically, not sure at all what I was doing. I was anxious to get married and start a family and was wondering why I had ended up in graduate level science instead of teaching which I had always been drawn to.
When Geoff and I married, he told me, “You don’t have to join the “knives” club” meaning the Officers’ Spouses’ Club, for he and I both thought I would not be that interested in befriending the other military wives with whom I assumed had little in common. What I found was the unexpected blessing of being a military wife and stay-at-home mother. I was a home-maker in a community of home-makers. We all came from different backgrounds with different stories but what we shared brought us together for a common purpose, the realization that it was our job to hold our families together while our husbands serve their country and that, no matter what, we were always there to support one another.
Had I not been a military wife, I might not have found this kind of supportive community. All of my girlfriends from civilian life are professionals who have full-time nannies to care for their children. When I take my kids to the park in the N.J. suburb where my mother lives, it is just me and all the nannies, and it is clear that I am not part of their circle. Moreover, the diversity of the military community is also a blessing. I like having my ideas challenged and challenging others. Being friends with so many women I would otherwise never have crossed paths with, finding mentors among them and being a mentor for others, has made me a better and more understanding person.
Another aspect of military life is the constant moving. My children have been fairly lucky, they have only moved 3 times but even that is difficult for a child. Heck – it is difficult for me too. Knowing that, each duty station is only a temporary home, causes us to place a strong focus on our family. It places the responsibility squarely on my shoulders to be THE homemaker, in other words to make “home” be wherever we are. Whether Daddy is home or not it is up to me to be the strength at the center of our home. Rituals are important in this regard, children need to know that certain things will be the same no matter what. At the same time, flexibility is also important. What our life looked like in a village in England is a lot different than what our life looks like here on the Florida panhandle. The climate is different, we eat different foods, we travel less and swim more, etc.
More than other people, military families have little power over many aspects of their lives, where they live, deployments, vacations, even, for the military member, what sorts of vaccines or medicines are administered. It is easy to feel defeated in the face of this lack of control. What the military wife has to do to keep the family together is take ownership of the things she can control. And this is where Waldorf has served me well. Waldorf has helped me to refine my vision for what I want our home life to look like and to feel like. It has helped me to see myself as more than "just" mother and wife, but as professional home-maker with an important mandate to fulfill. My responsibility is to be mindful of the needs of each member of the family and keep those needs in balance as part of the organic family organism. Understanding child development, from a Waldorf standpoint, has helped me to meet the needs of my children, their need for rhythm, for warmth, for play, for beauty, and to let go of extraneous things. I know that the grounding influence of Waldorf has helped me cushion my children through the bumps of moving and family separation.
After the last move, two years ago, we became home-schoolers for the first time. Home-school, by necessity, takes the focus on family life to an even higher level. Further, it has given us back an additional sense of control. We don’t have to live near a Waldorf school (and figure out how to pay the fees) in order to give our children the education we want for them. Now we know we can do this right here in our own home – wherever that may be. This is the last stop for us as a military family. My husband has served his 20 years and has elected to retire. Now we are seeking a place to settle down and set down some roots. We will consider returning to a place with a Waldorf school but now we have the confidence and experience to know that wherever we end up, we have the know-how to “bloom where we are planted”. We will relish having greater stability, a home where we can plant a tree and watch it grow, friends we can get to know for more than a year or two, and forging a deeper connection to place and community. All the while being mindful of not forgetting the myriad lessons military life has taught us.
Lisa Marshall
Pensacola, Florida
May 1, 2008