A Little Garden Flower

Getting with the program!

Erik and I finally got ourselves on Twitter :)  You can find us here:

https://twitter.com/WaldorfALGF

We'll have a special offer for our Twitter friends later today - be sure to become one of our followers.

Love and blessings!

A sample of our new math book!

Finally our math book is finished!  We are so blessed to have it come together so quickly.  We wanted to put together a book that kept the spirit of math at the center of each lesson, striving to keep it alive for your child and manageable for you.  You'll notice there are many topics covered in the first three years and then it seems like things taper off - that is only true on the outside, while on the inside the children are honing skills in grades four and up that they received the foundation for in grades one through three. The transformation of children as they learn these concepts is amazing, even on tough days!  I wish I learned math with this much care!

The book encompasses grades 1-5, has main lessons for all the main lesson blocks suggested by AWSNA to be covered for each year.  The companion materials include practice problems for grades 4-5 to draw your daily practice work from and includes the answers.

The book is $38.50 for the hard copy and $25 for the ebook.    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Introduction and how to best use this book                                                                                      

History of Waldorf schools and anthroposophy                                            

Chapter 1: Waldorf math: the nature of “whole to parts”                                                     

Chapter 2: Waldorf math through the grades

Chapter 3: Math Main lesson blocks              

• Grade 1
  • Teaching numbers and Roman numerals
  • Number qualities
  • The four processes
• Grade 2
  • Time
  • Times tables, four process review and number patterns
  • Money
• Grade 3
  • Linear measurement
  • Dry measure and liquid measure
  • Square numbers, cubed numbers, prime numbers, perimeter and area
  • Place value, carrying and borrowing
• Grade 4
  • Long multiplication, long division, averaging, factoring
  • Basic fractions
• Grade 5
  • Fractions, mixed numbers, reciprocals
  • Decimals and the metric system

Closing remarks                                                                                             

Appendix                                                                                                       

Sample from Chapter 1:

By now, if you are not well versed in Steiner’s work, you are probably wondering what on earth this “whole to parts” business is!  The best way to describe it in short is like this:

While 3 X 4 are 12, 12 is more than 3 X 4. 12 is 6 X 2, 2 X 6, 4 X 3, 12 X 1, 6 + 6, and so on. 

So how is that translated practically for a child? Well, it starts far earlier in the work we do and in how we speak to them when they are younger, but practically you can ask a child the open ended question of “what is 12?” and allow many answers because there are many answers, allowing them to see the big picture of all that 12 really is, rather than only giving them a small representation of 12 and then telling them later “and by the way, XYZ is also 12.” Discovering numbers for a child is an experience that comes very much from their core of how they understand the world around them.  They see the family as a whole, they rarely see just Mom, or just Dad when they are young (before 7 years) and so to bring them only pieces goes very much against how they see the world.

Steiner says in Teaching Arithmetic:

“The living thing is always a whole and must be presented as a whole first of all.  It is wrong for children to have to put together a whole out of its parts, when they should be taught to look first at the whole and then divide this whole into its parts; get them first to look at the whole and then divide it and split it up, this is the right path to a living conception.”

Sample from grade 1:

Now you may look at this lesson and notice it isn’t whole to parts!  You might be saying “Melisa, you told me that Steiner says it has to be whole to parts!”  No worries!  We worked from the whole (48) down to the parts with yesterday’s work, but today we are dealing with Plus, by his very nature he is a greedy little synthesizer!  He adds to his materialism constantly, he is a perfect example of what Steiner meant.  Balance today’s work out with whole to parts practice tomorrow!  Some further writing for today might be to write the names associated with Plus.  He is also known as Addition, but usually only his mother calls him that (“Plus Addition get in here!”)  Point out that when Plus adds things together they are called “sums.” You don’t have to worry too much about making them memorize it just yet, I do like to make colorful signs for the school room space, using recycled water color paintings for backgrounds and writing different “rules” as we come across them.  It does help to have them write it too. 

When Plus adds things together they are called sums.

Sample from grade 3, liquid measure:

Today you will start on liquid measure. (If you are using our grade 3 book then this section of lessons falls in April for our lesson plans.)  Some of this lesson may have come up while you were baking so now you’ll be able to give it some depth.  If you know anyone that owns a cow or dairy farm that will allow you to come for a visit, this would be a good time!  If visiting a farm isn’t possible then you will have to use your imagination.

First have your child make a chart in their lesson book for liquid measure (I am using a

US

liquid measurements.)  A chalkboard drawing idea could be a cow in a pasture.  There is a really sad picture of a cow that I made on the companion CD (I hope yours is better!)

Some fun and interesting cow facts to go with your math and farming:

The average cow gives 90 cups of milk a day!  How many gallons is that?

A cow must drink 2 gallons of water for every gallon of milk produced.  How many cups of water does the cow need to drink?

Not all female cows can produce milk, they have to be a mama first!

So back to our farmer, he’s thirsty after installing those new stalls and he wants a glass of milk!  His wife has milked the cow for the first time and has a beautiful bucket of fresh raw milk.  She hands the farmer a pint to drink and the children each a cup to drink.  How much of the gallon is left for her to make butter?

 

 

Sample from grade 4, factoring:

Today’s lesson will teach prime factoring – before the lesson it would be a good idea to review prime numbers and also to spend time reviewing cubed and squared numbers.  Prime factoring is really whole to parts at its very best!  You take a number and break it down into its prime factors.  It is fun and easy to do factoring when you use the method described below.

 

 

Some other numbers to try:

                        36 which factors into 2 x 2 x 3 x 3

72 which factors into 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 3

These can be fun and easy, just make up numbers and work them out together, it will be an interesting way to find new primes too!

 

Welcome to A Little Garden Flower

Early Fall Updates

The winds are changing and while the days still reach into the 80's here in south east Idaho, our evenings are in the cool 40's.  I am grabbing a sweater more often to run errands and enjoying the autumn breezes.  The children keep asking for snow... it doesn't help that stores already have holiday trees for sale.  I remind them to stay present and enjoy where we are - look at the trees changing, see how much the ducks at the river have grown, enjoy cooler walks to the farmer's market - they giggle and ask me then if it is too early to make a list for St. Nick!  I remember the days when life was about birthdays and the winter holidays... seems so long ago until I watch the wonder in their eyes.  Our older children are growing so fast and aren't always content with all of our beautiful wooden toys.  The big boys have bins with more Legos and my daughter is enjoying clothes... but then I pull out the handwork and they all come running, everyone needs an autumn gnome.  Our youngest of course loves his little wooden friends, although I did find a tiny Hulk figure living with the gnomes in the mushroom house - when I asked him which gnome invited the Hulk, he told me they needed help cleaning and he was strong!  So we balance one little plastic friend with a family of wooden gnomes, such is life.

UPDATES and HAPPENINGS:

New Products - we are proud to bring families the same fair pricing for Waldorf art supplies that they have come to love about our curriculum pricing.  See our storefor details on Mercurius supplies.

Conferences - we had a tough time with conferences this year.  The only ones we were able to gather successfully were our local endeavors, but we have not given up.  I know there are folks who would like conferences and workshops, we have talked to several people experiencing the economy crunch - we understand fully!  We are trying to see what options we have to make things more do-able for families of all incomes, including scholarship programs where possible. We are planning to reschedule southern California for October or November sometime since we would really like to make a family trip and combine the two.  Over the coming weeks we will be chatting with families in the area and finding out just what they want. 

Conference refunds - we are working through refunds for conferences that canceled, thank you for being patient.  For those who would rather have store credit please feel free to chat with us about that. We are even open to a variation of the two.

Referral program - How about free products?  anyone want that? We just started a referral program that could get you $10 off for each new customer you send our way.  All they need to do is tell us you referred them and we'll send you a store credit for $10! It is that easy, you can save up your credits and get a big chunk off of an order, or just use $10 at a time, you drive the boat - it is all up to you! This is our way of saying "thank you" for helping us grow. Make sure you pass along our coupon code to your friends, then you'll both get a deal!  I realized we missed a few over the last month so if you know you referred a friend and didn't get an email from us with a referral, please let us know!

Monthly coaching calls- We got rolling on these last month and then it hit me... we should be doing these for free! So we changed our focus a bit.  Now that families have had a few weeks to settle into homeschooling or to at least start planning, we thought we'd start the first Friday in October with Kindergarten and pre-k calls and move through the grades each week.  When we are done, we'll start again. Feel free to join in as many as you'd like.  Email us for details.  The call wills be early in the a.m. - 6 a.m. Mountain Time.  

Project Updates:

• Grade 6 - we are nearly done, it is available for purchase and we are sending out ecopies of where we are so far.  We had the project ready to go to print a few weeks back and experienced a huge data loss resulting in much of the book needing to be re-written - after the initial shock, I realized it was a blessing, the new work is more vibrant and full of life than the first one!  We are editing the finals and hope to see it go to the printer anytime. 
• Full curriculum packages - we are now carrying supplies and will be expanding our line in the months to come.  Our books will also begin carrying much more artistic content from full lessons to more work for mom, our packages are evolving more and more.
• A Journey through Waldorf Math - we love, love, love Harrer's book "Math Lessons for Elementary Grades" but we hear parents being frustrated about how to use this book to really serve them.  If you aren't used to the Waldorf way of doing math it can sometimes be a challenge, we are working to help with this challenge.  We are compiling a variety of lessons I have used to teach our children over the last few years and will be putting them together in a book with concrete lessons for grades 1 through 5, with some ideas for grade 6 as well.  For more in depth math in grade 6, we recommend "Making Math Meaningful Series" by Jamie York.
• "A Journey through Waldorf Music" - We have tabled this for now as we are planning to expand the project more over the coming months.
• Updated day planner - it has been about a year since we put out the first planner and we have listened to recommendations and suggestions from all of you and will be unveiling a new planner in the coming months - better than that... we will be giving away some planners during our Advent Celebration this winter..
• "Starting Your Journey" - this will be a free download for families new to Waldorf and/or homeschooling.
• "The Mushroom Doorway... Tales from the Gnomes" - we are obsessed you could say... these wee folk are so enchanting and I have been making up stories about them for years.  A taste of those stories can be found in our new book "Before the Journey" - this little book will focus on seasonal gnome stories.
• Supplements for both LDS families and Pagan families - these will be available for free as downloads.
• Updates and revisions - we hoped we would get to these over the summer but time got away from us!  We will be re-editing all the books over the winter months and adding some fun details to them where we can.  If you have copies of books we have updated, we will gladly provide you with a link to the new material.
• More ideas to come! Including a joint venture with Sigi (Coloring with Block Crayons) for a great DVD project.

We know the rest of the site is in serious need of updating... we are working on that this fall - stay up to date with new lesson ideas from our blog.  Keep checking back as we plan to tackle a different section of the site each week.

Needle Felting Fun  is our silly but informative video on needle felting - it is also included in our Before the Journey book set on the DVDs. If you would like to download it or purchase a DVD copy, please visit our store.

RADIO SHOW:  the show is growing and we appreciate everyone sticking with us as we make it all that it should be!  We will be back with our live shows soon, many more teachers and subjects to share.  Want to know what is playing right now?  Now you can listen from our blog too!
 

ERIK'S WRITING SERVICES: Do you sometimes feel like you are flying blind with knowing if your child is progressing in their writing?  Erik has a background in English, journalism, and film, he has worked as an editor and a newspaper reporter, and he lends his background to you! He can help you assess your child's writing and help you with the tools to move them forward becoming wonderful writers. For a full description of his services please visit the consulting section of our store. 

The Virtuous Woman, this book is being written now and will not focus on homeschooling, its main focus is MOM. Moms of all paths often have a hard time remembering that they are the beacon for their family, we all want to be seen as the "Virtuous Woman" described in Proverbs 31:10 - no matter what our religious background (if you don't know the verse, I highly suggest reading it, it can be viewed here.)  Becoming this woman and living it for myself first and then my family is turning into my life's work.  I have had so much fun sharing this topic with others.  The book will contain meditations for all faiths.  We are all ONE. The book will be available late in 2008.