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Sunday, September 22, 2013

2013/2014 Waldorf Homeschool Planner

It is complete!  I worked so hard to make a beautiful, simple, easy to use homeschool planner for myself (and others!) and here it is.


I love the artwork.  I made sure to change the graphics by season.  It is for sale at http://hyenacart.com/stores/nikkislittlehouse/ for an intro price of $15, which will change to $25. (and free bonus pages/forms coming soon if you purchase by October 31, 2013)  It includes 138 gorgeous pages of planning fun.  Lots of room for yearly, weekly and monthly planning.  Places for rhythm, form drawing, festival planning, notes, meal planning and more!

Sample of weekly lesson planning pages with each day colored with the Waldorf "color of the day"

Sample of monthly planning page with seasonal graphics

 Sample of 2013 planning pages with space for rhythm, notes, materials, etc

I am just in love with it, and I hope you like it, too!  Let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions!  ourjourney at blogspot dot com

Feel free to follow me on facebook as well!  



Monday, September 16, 2013

First day of school 2013

Our first day of school was September 16th.  Jujubee is 8 and in third grade (Waldorf 2), Cocobear is 4 and considered "preschool".

The gnomes joined us for our first day.  


Our art center and nature corner

I put our work for the week in these boxes so I have all the supplies ready to go.  They are labeled by day.   The two large boxes are for overflow, or any extra items.


Not much on our nature table yet. Our seashells from vacation, and pine cones from Mamaw's house.


I realized the night before we didn't have a calendar.  So, I made my own!

Our form of the week

Jujubee decorating her main lesson book cover pages.

Kaybug likes homeschool, too!

Cocobear checking out her hints for story time (We read the sheep and the pig)

Jujubee walking her form

Overall, the first day was fantastic.  Pretty surprising considering we just got back from vacation the day before!  But since we were already starting later than usual, I didn't want to waste any more time.  The year is looking good!



Sunday, September 15, 2013

Our final curriculum decision for 2013/2014

I thought I had it all figured out.  Oak Meadow 3 for our main curriculum and Waldorf Essentials 2 for our supplementing.  Then I got Oak Meadow 3 in and decided I'd rather go ahead and use grade 2 stories, so I sent it back and was able to snag a used grade 2 copy.

I tried and tried to make OM2 work as our main, but it was just too much going on at once for us.  We really enjoy the Waldorf approach to learning, and with OM, though it is gentle and art focused, there are so many stories going on at once. A social studies story, science story, a reader, a language arts story.  I attempted to make it into a block schedule like traditional Waldorf - still a no go.

Finally, I decided if it isn't broke, don't fix it.  We are using Waldorf Essentials 2 as our main curriculum, and adding in a few aspects of OM2.  So far, it is working nicely.  Jujubee really enjoys the OM reader - Ben and Meg, and we are using "Beginning Recorder" from OM as well.  When we come across a fun activity from the OM2 science, language, or social studies we throw that in if we have time, but basically we are using WE2.

Here is our school rhythm:

Monday:
Form drawing
Read a story
Model from story
Recorder
Read aloud from reader
Write in journal (I provide writing idea)

Tuesday:
Recall story
Draw and summarize in MLB
Math review during circle time
knit

Wednesday:
Story
Watercolor from story
recorder
Read aloud from reader
cursive writing practice

Thursday:
Recall story
Draw and summarize in MLB
Math review during circle time
knit

Friday:
Nature journal
Read aloud from reader

We are still ironing out our weekly rhythm as far as our daily chores go.  Things should calm down here soon after camping season is over and we will be able to stick with it more.

How is your year going?  Feel free to share your rhythm or link to your blog post about your curriculum choices and rhythm!