Martinmas

Today during our learning time, we celebrated a very important festival, the festival of Martinmas. We had plans to celebrate with out Waldorf co-op, but since we are recovering from colds and since rain was blowing sideways at 25 mph when we woke up this morning - plans had to change as plans sometimes do.

So... I made some special snacks and we lit our morning candle. I told the story of St. Martin and the Beggar, and we sang some songs. My kids love to sing "This Little Light of Mine" which is a song from my childhood, and it fits perfectly with Martinmas in my opinion.

For our craft, we made paper lanterns. I had planned on making very simple lanterns without bottoms since our lantern walk would have to be inside and I didn't really want to walk with lit candles around the house. However, my kids were so insistent about how lanterns should look and behave that we finally figured out a way to make them so that tea lights could be used.





We walked around each room of our home singing "little lantern, little lantern, how your light it does shine. little lantern, little lantern, oh! your light it is mine!" All flames stayed lit and everyone was very pleased with the beautiful lantern procession.





Sometimes the most fun, relaxed celebrations are the ones that are not really planned out perfectly. We had such a nice time. The kids kept our discussion going all day long about how we (as a family and as individuals) could learn from St. Martin and shine our own inner lights out into the World.

superstar

We went to Charleston over the weekend, and it was so much fun!!! Unfortunately my camera wasn't working very well. I didn't get many good pictures, but this one is worth a thousand words (as they say).....

Sadly, we all came home with head colds. Looks like we will be spending a very slow-paced week at home...

nature walk Friday

lovely day at home

Face painting has become an everyday activity around here. After lesson time and chore time and lunch time, we have face painting time! Clover got some lyra face paint pencils for her birthday (thanks Gma & Gpa!), and she has so much fun painting everyone.




Sunny beautiful Autumn afternoons are always so wonderful. We play outside for atleast two hours every day (usually more!). Right now there are so many little anole lizards running around on our fence, in the log pile, and in the garden! Nova caught one all by himself today. It was a teeny baby lizard, and it almost got away because Nova was so surprised that he actually caught it. Clover caught a big one and passed it around.




We also did some baking. I roasted a gigantic cheese wheel pumpkin left over from Halloween and made two pumpkin pies with it. Clover made a batch of molasses cookies to put into the cookie jar that she made earlier this week. Because, really, what good is a cookie jar without any cookies?

Monday co-op

We had such a nice co-op meeting. What started out as a dreary and very chilly day became a lovely sunny blue sky day. We had a nice Circle time and enjoyed the leaf story (thanks Lora!).


For craft time today, we made leaf crowns! The kids went on a big leaf hunt and gathered some beautiful leaves. Then, they glued or taped the leaves onto their card stock crowns.



The crowns all turned out so nicely!! Nova insisted on having only yellow leaves on his because of his current favorite story, "Oliver Finds His Way" by Phyllis Root.




After craft time and lunch time, we took a lovely hike through the woods. The leaves are so beautiful right now.





A wonderful start to a wonderful week!!

Halloween

We had such a fun Halloween party this year! Lots of friends came over, and we played in sun and rain, had a costume parade, sang, ATE delicious food, and enjoyed our second annual trick-or-treat trail through the woods.

Potluck:


A pirate and a pumpkin elf and an acorn faery (my other little pumpkin elf never quite got his whole costume on):




The trick-or-treat trail through the woods with a marshmallow roast at the end!:






Hayrides with daddy Tim:


Some Halloween craftiness:



Thanks, friends, for sharing Halloween with us!! We are still enjoying the owl pumpkin, Tanya!!