Giveaway Winner

Hi everyone!

Thank you everyone for participating in this give away :)

The winner of the Lavender's Blue Homeschool Curriculum is post number 24, Mary U!

Please contact me via email by using the contact form on the right and I will connect you with Kelly.

For everyone else, Kelly's 50% off sale for her grade one curriculum continues through Thursday July 24th, so jump on over and indulge in the savings!!

Curriculum Review and Give Away: Lavender's Blue Homeschool Kindergarten Curriculum

***All opinions in the post are my own and are without compensation.  I'm just sharing the joy I found through this curriculum :) ***

A year ago, I made the best homeschooling decision I have ever made.

I switched to Waldorf from a more classical approach.

And I didn't know what I was doing.

At all.

After spending time on some of the Waldorf facebook groups, I felt like I needed to buy so many things to make our new lifestyle a reality. I felt overwhelmed by the "must dos" and "do nots" I was seeing all over the computer screen, I thought that maybe this wasn't going to work.

But after digging through the superficial blogs and facebook posts, I found a blog that really resonated with me.

One of the very first things I read about homeschooling the Waldorf way that made me feel confident that it was a path I could take was this blog post, written by Kelly from Lavender's Blue Homeschool.

It centered around music and movement in the kindergarten years, one of the things I was aching to add back in to our lives after a very stressful classical year.

After spending the night reading through every. single. blog post Kelly had written, I knew not only that Waldorf was the way I wanted to go, but that I really wanted to try her Kindergarten curriculum.

My main concern though, was my rising first grader and my newly four year old.  Would I be able to use the kindergarten curriculum with both of them?  After many emails back and forth with Kelly, where she answered all of my million questions with warmth and understanding, I knew that this was the curriculum for me.

Kelly's Kindergarten Curriculum is a four season curriculum, with each season lasting 12 weeks. Each season starts with a general introduction to building a Waldorf - inspired homeschool and life style.  I knew right away that Kelly was a great fit for my family when I read this, just five pages in:

"Teaching kindergarten is more about creating a healthy home life than anything else,
and the essentials will express themselves differently for every family. They don’t lend
themselves to a structured curriculum - they will come from the heart and soul, culture
and traditions of your own unique family. The goal is not to be some kind of clone of
what you think a Waldorf family looks like or what you see at the local Waldorf fair, the
dreamy online toy catalogue, or the gorgeous blogs and books that you read.

I will give you ideas to think about, but then you can rely on your heart and intuition to
decide what works best for your family and helps your child thrive. You will learn this
by doing it, living it, always observing your child, and adjusting as you go."

                                                                                                           ~ Kelly Erhman

I immediately felt that this was something I could do, and something that I could tailor to meet the needs of my family, and not make our family meet the needs of a curriculum (although I didn't need to change anything at all to meet our families needs!).

Kelly gives an introduction to all the major aspects of a Waldorf kindergarten, taking you through the how-tos of things like beeswax modeling, water colour painting, telling stories, and handwork. Her explanations are simple and easy to follow, and really leave you feeling like you can do it. Most importantly, Kelly focuses on how to create a joyful and magical kindergarten experience, by building the home life and creating a strong base that will carry you through early childhood and beyond.


The curriculum focuses first and foremost on creating a rhythm in your home and centers around circles that are full of beautiful folk tales, songs, painting and modeling, finger plays and hand crafts that are seasonal, but secular. What I really loved about the circles is they are something that has grown in to a tradition for our family.  My children eagerly anticipate the stories each week and spend the whole week re-enacting them and singing the songs from circle.

My concerns about blending kindergarten and first grade were unfounded.

My first grader enjoyed the circles and activities just as much as my kindergartener, and the curriculum has taught me how to carry a circle so well that I feel confident I will be able to continue for all the upper grades as well. The weekly painting and modeling activities have all been hits with my children and the hand crafts have gently built my children's ability to the point where they often pull out supplies and make things on their own. The hand crafts have also become a special way for my children to create a home made gift for the ones they love.

What I gained more than anything else was an understanding of Waldorf beyond the pretty toys, gnomes and Elsa Beskow books.  Kelly's curriculum gave me the base that I needed to build a strong rhythm for my family, a home life that centers around calm and joy, and a mindset that sees the wonders of early childhood and embraces it.  The ongoing support I receive from Kelly has been invaluable and it got me through those first weeks of transition and through any time that I have felt like I needed help getting back on track.

I have recommended Kelly's Kindergarten Curriculum to many of my friends, and now I have shared with you the joy it has brought to our family!

I am especially excited to announce that Kelly has worked hard and long all year long to put that same care and gentle guidance in to a grade one curriculum!

To celebrate the launch, I an honoured to host a giveaway, my first here on the blog.

The giveaway is for a complete kindergarten OR first grade curriculum!  You get to choose :)

All you need to do is leave a comment below about why you think a Lavender's Blue Homeschool curriculum would be a good fit for your family.

This giveaway will run from Sunday July 20th to Wednesday July 23rd, 2014. A person will be chosen at random and announced here on the blog on Wednesday evening, 8:00pm ET.

Please note: Anonymous posts will be disregarded, so make sure to put your first name and last initial!

Kelly is also offering a great discount on her first grade curriculum.  Until Thursday, July 24th, enter the coupon code YES and receive 50% the purchase of the first grade curriculum!  A great deal! Click the button below for more information on the first grade curriculum :)

Cheers!

Marina

Weekly Rhythm

(This is the second post in a series of posts about rhythm.  You can find the first one here )

"How do you find time to clean your house?"

That is one of the most frequent questions I get and see floating around the internet when it comes to homeschooling.

Being in the house every day, it does tend to get a tad messy.  I once had a friend say that nice thing about working all day and having the kids in school is they don't have time to make the house messy.  Good point!

So, when we are spending the day homeschooling and living in our houses, how do we find the time to clean? 

This is where Waldorf is my saving grace.  One of the first things Waldorf stresses is for wee ones to take part in many of the housekeeping chores that take place each day.

Steiner encouraged parents and teachers to let children fold socks, sweep the floor, wash dishes, etc.  All these things help children develop a sense of awareness over their body and how it works.  It provides them with purposeful movement and different sensory experiences, and it shows them that they are a valuable part of the home environment and that they have something to contribute as well. I know from my own experience that doing chores and being given that responsibility has really helped build my children's self esteem.

Also, I find when my house is scattered and messy, my brain is scattered and messy.  And if mine is scattered and messy, I can only imagine how my littles feel. 

But where do we find the time? 

To keep your clutter and dust bunnies from taking over the house, you need to fit it in to your daily rhythm, by creating a weekly rhythm.

A weekly rhythm is made up of things that don't need to be done daily, but find a place in your lives at least once a week.  For my family, a weekly rhythm is two fold:  homeschooling and homekeeping. 

Our homekeeping rhythm goes like this:

Monday - clean bedrooms, change sheets, vaccum bedrooms

Tuesday - clean dining room and living room

Wednesday - clean bathroom

Thursday - clean office

Friday - Sunday there are no specific cleaning chores to do.

Now, with all that written out, I do need to say that I do some laundry every night, because the electricity is cheaper.  And I also have daily chores that get done to help with upkeep. These include tidying in the kitchen after each meal, wiping down the bathroom before I go to bed, and because we have a dog, I vacuum the first floor each day.  These are a part of our daily rhythm.

Both the children help with chores each day. They put away clothes, they scrub the bath during their bath time, they actually fight over who gets to scrub the toilet or wash the floors (I kid you not), and they are both responsible for keeping their toys in their proper spot and helping me when things need to be organized a bit.  They have been a part of chores from the beginning and take pride in the responsibility.

But doesn't it take longer?  Don't they sometimes do things not quite right?  

Yes.  It typically takes longer.  And yes, there will be streaks on the bathroom mirror and random dust bunnies that didn't get caught, but those can be quietly and quickly fixed, and those are lessons in themselves.

Gentle reminders and cleaning tips are well received in this house because of the gentle way they are given.  For example: "Oops, one dust bunny was hiding out under the tv stand.  You know how I get those guys?  I switch to the arm instead of using the wheel.  Here, try it!" And that's that.

And because we stay on top of things on a weekly basis, it typically only takes about a half hour in the afternoon to get everything done that needs doing on that day (we only have about 1100 square feet of space total) leaving lots of time for all the other things we'd rather be doing.

In order for this to work we also have "tidy as we go" and "everything has a place (except for that pile of papers I've been shifting for the last four years)" as mottos that we TRY to live by.

And have no fear, if you were to come by any random day, you'd be greeted by a dining table full of books and crayons and a living room with swords and lego and playmobil scattered.  BUT, it will get cleaned and tidied and when we wake in the morning, we start with a fresh slate.

I'm all about the fresh slate :)

Our weekly homeschooling rhythm is totally different, and very fluid.  It is totally focused on experiences for the kids, and while we try and do these things on the specific days, it doesn't mean they aren't done on other days as well.  It is just that these are things the children picked that they really enjoyed doing and wanted to make sure there was time for them each week.

Monday is bake day

Tuesday they are at a nature program

Wednesday is art or music

Thursday is typically a walk to a library or board/card game playing

Friday we are typically on a hike.

The weekends are family time and while we still follow a pretty typical daily rhythm, we don't have anything scheduled for each weekend.

It is important to remember that you can not have a solid weekly rhythm unless your daily rhythm is solid.  I hear of so many parents struggling with rhythm because they try and do everything all at once.

Start small.

Start daily and work up to the bigger stuff.

The mess will still be there in the morning.

I promise.

Marina