A Wish I Wish for My Children

 

I think a lot about what type of adults my children will grow to become.  How what I do influences them and shapes them and all the choices they will make as they travel that bumpy, exhilarating, confusing and amazing road to adulthood (the road doesn't get much better after that, but I digress).

I wish every night that I help them navigate that road by being a good example.

Not so they'll be "good" adults.  But so they'll be good people. 

Here are six things I consciously try to model each and every day.  I am by no means successful every day, but I hope they notice these little acts of what I feel should be a minimum of human behaviour when I display them, and hope they grow to understand why I feel they are so important.

1.  Kindness.   Always kindness.  Two wrongs don't make a right.  If someone is being rude or hurtful, ask if they need help, ask if they meant something different, and if these are not options, don't engage.  Step away.  We never know what someone else is going through and to throw more negativity toward what might already be a bad situation isn't ever going to help.

2.  Share joy.  Living in a city, we tend to walk around in our self absorbed bubble, where we go through our day just to get through to the other side.  Many of us don't even realize how negative we've become!  But sometimes, the smallest of things can turn a person's day around and remind them that while we are in a city, we are really all just part of the village.  Smiling at someone you pass on the street, holding a door open, asking someone struggling if they need help, these are all acts that show not everyone lives in the bubble, and maybe, if we are really lucky, they might even pay it forward.

3.  Take stock.  Remember what you have, before you focus on what you want. It doesn't matter what it is you want, before you covet, count your blessings.

4.  You are enough.  That's all I have to say about that.

5.  It is okay to fail.  Get up, dust off, apologize if necessary, and try again.  Always try again.  

6. When offered gum, accept.  Always.  It might be a hint, it might just be a piece of gum.  Either way, better safe than sorry. Okay, so this might not be an act of humanity exactly, but it brings up a good discussion.  Sometimes people go about things through the rear door instead of blasting through the front.  Instead of hitting the nail on the head, they coax it in, maybe they pre-drill, or maybe they worry the force of the hammer will break the nail.  What ever their reason, listen to people. Look for the message between the lines.  Judge lightly.  Know they mean to help.  And accept help graciously.

And take that piece of gum.  Really, just do it.

Cheers!

Marina

Michaelmas Story

Here is my mash up of two popular Michaelmas stories.

This is just an outline, as it was a verbal telling of an outline in my head.  It is a rather long, detailed story, and at first I was worried it would be too much for my kids, aged 7.5 and newly 5, but they were riveted the entire time and asked for it again after I was finished!  I love successes like that :) 

***Feel free to use this story with your family at home, but if you share it with friends, kindly link back to this page.  Thanks!***

Way up in heaven lived an angel named Saint Michael.  Michael was the keeper of heaven, made sure that all kind souls had a place in heaven as angels, and protected them from harm.  One day a dragon, flying high in the sky. He flew so high that he ended up in heaven. He was an angry beast and when he saw all the kind and happy angels he tried to extinguish them with is fiery breath.  Saint Michael told the dragon to leave, but the dragon refused.  So Saint Michael fought the dragon to protect his angels, but the dragon knocked him down.  Stunned for a moment, Michael gathered all his strength and bravery and raised his sword, which shone brightly with the glow of the stars.  

Michaelmas

This is the first year we'll be celebrating Michaelmas, and I am very excited about adding this celebration to our year!

We are currently in the middle of a language arts block, so I'm weaving it in to our circles and main lessons.  The kids really thrive on stories, so they have been the main focus of all our circles so far this year, and the stories of Saint Michael and George and the Dragon are such great stories I really couldn't wait for the end of September to get here. 

Saint Michael is known as the Saint who conquered the "dragon" in heaven, a saint who gives strength to people, and a Saint who represent victory over evil.  Some stories say during his battle, he banishes the dragon from heaven, and the dragon falls to earth.  Michael then creates an earthly body of his spirit in George to fight the dragon on earth and protect the people from evil.

I love the focus on conquering the dragon, celebrating inner courage and strength.  During the week we will be focusing on identifying some of our personal dragons and how we can overcome them.  On the feast day, September 29th, we will have a small knighting ceremony to celebrate conquering our "dragons".  

I couldn't find any stories that had both stories woven together, so I had to create my own. I found some inspiration from this free ebook on waldorflibrary.org .  It has a few nice stories to tell young children.  I find they really focus on harvest, and less so on courage and bravery, so I really just took snippets and ideas to weave my own story together.

The kids came inside from their outdoor time early and were super excited to jump in to the new set up!  The props stay out and the children play with them reenacting the story all week long. We don't have a nature or seasonal table, so this is my compromise.   Mondays used to be a drag to get back in to our rhythm, but now they wake up excited about the prospect of a new story for the week.

I used a variety of the toys we had at home as props, but I did purchase a dragon because the one I attempted to make just wasn't cutting it.

The villagers hiding from the dragon in the castle. 

George and the princess battling the dragon.

George getting knighted by Saint Michael for his kindness, courage and bravery.

When Saint Michael knights George, I taught the children our verse for the week and introduced it to them as the Knights Oath.

For main lesson work we moved to the table and drew shields with the oath written on them.  My kindergartener really wanted to write the words herself, and I was really impressed with her attempt!

My second grader wrote the entire poem, but was thrown by the shape of the shield, so it came out a bit jumbled.  He is currently working on re-doing it on a larger piece of paper, because he isn't happy with the final main lesson book product. But for a kid who has really weak fine motor skills, I'm pretty proud he persevered through the poem, without complaint.

Typically he does a picture summary of the story we are focusing on and then prints a written summary a few sentences long (not copy work, his own original sentences describing his picture.)  I hadn't planned on the summary work today, mostly because I knew there was a lot of work in the shield and verse, but he still really wanted to draw a picture.

Michael and George conquering the dragon.

The kids were very excited about this story and played with the props all afternoon.  I am really looking forward to focusing on building our character through this story and working on some inner dragons.  The children really connected with that theme of the tale, which actually surprised me a bit.  I thought it would be all knights and dragons and battles that would stay as their focus.

Tomorrow I will post the story I told, in case anyone else wants a story with a bit of a different take.

What will you be doing to prepare for the Feast of Saint Michael?

Cheers,
Marina