On the first day I gave each of the girls a flower and welcomed them! They were excited. They had new crayon rolls and main lesson books with their name on and they were happy!
I proceeded to tell them the story of a ship and the long journey that it was going on and how the captain welcomed his passengers as they set off ;-)
Then we began.
I decided a couple of weeks of form drawing would be a gentle way to begin so we began with a lovely form drawing story I found online, at waldorf teacher resources, about a brother and sister eager to start 1st grade. Each day we told the story with a small puppet show and talked about the form and then the following day we recalled the story and drew the form. We practiced the form on the chalk board and in the air and with big chalks outside. We walked the form too. Then we brought it too our main lesson book.
The form drawings were gentle but still at times the girls found them hard, but the magic set it when the day after we drew the form they would see the form all around them and they would keep running to me and saying 'look mummy a spiral' and this haooened with so many of them I was amazed my self.
After we finished the short form drawing block we went straight into the letters block. I had prepared myself with help from waldorf essentials curriculum and I have tweaked it to suit our needs. We began with the story of Simeli Mountain and have continued since by introducing the story and drawing a block crayon drawing wherein in the next day we have found the letter being introduced. And along with that we have though of words beginning with the letter and looked at poems and also songs about the letter. In fact the poems we have read from LMNOP and simultaneously we have read the wise enchanter. A book I highly recommend. Then I found some lovely letter songs on a you tube site called 'kids123' gentle acoustic songs many of which we learned and he girls really enjoyed listening to them. I often hear them singing them to themselves.
Alongside our drawing block we have done some painting although not much. Started learning the recorder and began with knitting. His has been something they have nigh really enjoyed. And we have completed one project of a small cat and have just started small little bags. I have chalked out a few more projects too, a ball, recorder case, bunny and a gnome, as well as a small scarf, to keep is busy.
We have been busy too with a weekly French class with our local homeschooling community, and recently a Hindi class and math club. All of which are gentle and slow and through songs games and chatter we are absorbing and learning new languages and concepts.
From the letter block we have eight letters to go, then we will move into the quality of numbers for a couple of weeks before returning to the vowels. And then into the number block with probably math gnomes stories. We are still very much into the magical realm here!
We have taken things very slowly and had lots of breaks and interruptions which I think has been a blessing as we did start a little early, with her girls being only six and a half. Now in April they will turn seven and we will be in the thick of our number block by then I hope!! But as we creep up to seven and look back to when we started in October, already things are getting easier, especially for one of my girls who could probably have waited a little longer to begin but her sister has enjoyed each and every moment. We have found a nice rhythm now and they know what to expect so it's moving eell. In fact even though we have not finished all the letters officially they have already started reading in their own and are really progressing white fast. I have been surprised. They are loving the idea of reading to themselves and both express impatience of wanting to get really good quickly!!
So far Peter and Jane are fulfilling their needs!
The other day a friend introduced me to a website which has a large collection of books for early readers, so I have been able to check that out to help us decide which books we want to get hold of next.
Life is good, some days have been a struggle, but slowly we are being able to achieve the small goals in front of us and I have realised that what we don't do today we can catch up tomorrow. It sure helps me relax and deal with any inner anxieties.
