Waldorf Member Question #22: CarSchooling

Dear Waldorf Parents,

The following is a little schedule I made up for one of the members of the Waldorf Enrichment Program Online to help her with some ideas for a carschooling schedule. I hope it is inspiring to you too during your summer of travel - even if that travel is just to the local park or pool!

Dear S,

I have made a sample schedule for the week to give you some ideas. I have used most my curriculum as you requested. However, I did want to also take into consideration what your children are working on right now and what they are doing outside of the Waldorf Enrichment. I have used the April lesson plans as an example since that is what you have. If you would like more details on something please tell me. I hope this is closer to what you were looking for.

General Outline

Monday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work - Take from circle time verses
Three hour wait
Circle Time - Can include yoga, verses, chatting, prayer, meditation, stretches, anything regular that you need to do each day when you get out of the car and need to center yourselves again.
Lunch
Story/Math (Set the theme for the week) - All three ages
Rest - This can be a walk, sitting, reading, whatever each person finds restful. You will need a rest a bit after the intense morning of working and driving.
1 hour car ride
Math Practice - All three ages
Tuesday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work
Three hour wait
Circle Time
Lunch
Story/Language (set the theme for rest of the week) - All three ages
Rest
1 hour car ride
Language Practice - All three ages
Wednesday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work
Three hour wait
Circle Time
Lunch
Story/Knitting/Handiwork
Rest
1 hour car ride
Math & Language Practice
Thursday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work
Three hour wait
Circle Time
Lunch
Story/Drawing & Art
Rest
1 hour car ride
Math & Language Practice
Friday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work
Three hour wait
Circle Time
Lunch
Science Story
Field Trip/Nature Walk - You can have more of these if opportunity presents itself. And you can combine these with other lessons. For example, on the knitting or handiwork o drawing day you could have a short lesson and then take a field trip OR you could do a longer lesson IN an interesting location, like drawing in the art museum, knitting in a fancy cafe or the library or a rose garden or on a boat...
Rest
1 hour car ride
Math & Language Practice

Notes: I included math practice daily in the car ride home because a lot of the math is verbal, memorization, practice and a state of mind, rather than the lesson itself. You said that they needed more math practice so doing it daily at the same time will help as math is inherently rhythmic so it will help to have it at the same time each day. Also, many studies have shown that movement helps to learn math and CAR movement is a good substitute for body movement. I find that movement of any kind increases learning abilities even if it is just a train or a car.

I used the April lesson plans to add the details...however, you can "plug in" other lessons you are doing or request me to send you additional literature for those lessons. For example, when I mention language work...this is a good time to bring in the study of history as you will be studying it through language.

Circle time can be anything you create - it is a time for centering and coming together as a family. Choose some verses and/or music from the lessons. Bring a Kinder-harp and/or recorder along with you and create your own circle time. It will take some time...but it will become something wonderful. If the kids don't like the singing at first you can do Yoga or prayer or just chat. You can make it 10 minutes long or an hour long...whatever suits you.

Note - I have started the week "easier" - peaked in the middle with more intense work and then ended with Friday being a more restful day. You may want to re-arrange this if you family has a different rhythm.

Now here are some details filled in from April for one week...

Monday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work - Take from circle time verses - Give each child a verse to work on - one verse and don't change the verse this week until they have "mastered" it in their own way. Then go on to the next verse. Start with the smaller verses or parts of verses. There are a lot of nice poets introduced in the monthly verses. This work will help them with their reading and writing skills.
4 year old - recite a verse to him and have him create a play to go with this verse. You can supply some clay or dough for him to make the figures that go with this verse. He can perform the "play" in the car or when you arrive. You can also allow him to draw it or color it if he prefers but the clay work is the best - you can use play dough if you are concerned about the effects of clay or homemade play dough on the car.
3rd grader - Write a verse in the main lesson book. Have him copy the verse from what you wrote and label the parts of speech - you choose - one day he can label the nouns, one day the verbs, etc...
7th grader - Write a verse or passage in her main lesson book - or have her copy one from her history or other book she is working on. Have her choose ten vocabulary words that she wants to work on that week. Have her read some of the lesson (choose ahead of time how much is suitable) and then write a summary of that in her own words or (this is fun) create a "historical fiction" account of what she read using herself, you and siblings as characters OR write a "modern" account of what she read - transposing all the events into what they would be in the modern day.
Three hour wait
Circle Time - Can include yoga, verses, chatting, prayer, meditation, stretches, anything regular that you need to do each day when you get out of the car and need to center yourselves again.
Lunch
Story/Math (Set the theme for the week) - All three ages
All: Nassrudin - which is more important...the sun or the moon? (circles)
4-year-old - Form drawing circles by tracing - block crayons to fill them in.
3rd Grade - Drawing circles and measurement of diameter/radius/circumference. Bring a tape measure and have him find things around you and draw a little sketch and write down the DIAMETER ONLY. of each of these things.
7th Grade - Geometry creation of Eastern Designs with circles.
Rest - This can be a walk, sitting, reading, whatever each person finds restful. You will need a rest a bit after the intense morning of working and driving.
1 hour car ride
Math Practice - All three ages
4-year-old - draw things WITH circles. Ask him to see how many pictures he can make from a circle. Sort of like the game "How many words can you make from this one word?"
3rd Grader - As you are driving have him tell you the diameter of each of the things he has sketched and have him figure out the radius and circumference from this information.
7th Grader - Have her finish her circular art and write a short evaluation of it or TELL you an evaluation of it. What has she learned about geometry from these patterns (there will be a lot and some surprises).
Tuesday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work
Three hour wait
Circle Time
Lunch
Story/Language (set the theme for rest of the week) - All three ages
4 Year Old - V, W, X - Have him act out the verses for these letters and find these letters in nature or around him. (See Sixth Sense Language)
3rd Grader - The Story of Creation (or other unit story you are working on this week...you can also choose from another story in the 3rd grade lesson plans if you want a more secular unit) - take the time to copy this story (or part of it) over in the main lesson book with the verbs in one color, nouns in one color and adjectives in another color. Choose some vocabulary words from the reading for him to write about OR tell you a story about. OR create a crossword puzzle with (I used to love doing that with words)
7th Grader - You said she is losing interest in reading. Perhaps a way to get her interested again would be to have her read a bit in her history lesson (or you can do what I did and READ the lesson yourself and TELL her the story (not read it to her) in storytelling style. You don't have to prepare this ahead of time. You could read the lesson while the kids are working and then TELL it after that. While you are reading it she could be reading a historical fiction novel of the same era. I have found this is a very good way to get children interested in history and reading again.
Rest
1 hour car ride
Language Practice - All three ages
Wednesday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work
Three hour wait
Circle Time
Lunch
Story/Knitting/Handiwork
4 - Finger-knitted Flowers (or other items...I have a list I can share with you)
3rd: Knitted rabbit (easy version)
7th: Knitted rabbit - start with easy version or hard version and move on...
Rest
1 hour car ride
Math & Language Practice
Thursday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work
Three hour wait
Circle Time
Lunch
Stories:4 years: The Golden Goose (Egg is almost a circle :) OR
The Pot that Died
3rd: The Dandelion
7th: Do You Know Why I Came Here Today? This story is actually intended for adults to learn from but it spans many many ages of people. Point out that in the story the people run a full circle of what they want to say, and end up where they started. What lesson can you learn from this? Can you incorporate this lesson into the mandala?
Story/Drawing & Art - Mandala (Art/Geometry)
4th - Take the circles from earlier in the week - create mandalas (see lesson plans)
3rd - Same
7th - Same
This is an activity that they all can do. Follow the lesson plans and you will find that each child can create their own mandala and it will be on their level of skill.
Rest
1 hour car ride
Math & Language Practice
Friday
1 hour car ride
Verses/Writing Work
Three hour wait
Circle Time
Lunch
Science Story:
The Butterfly Brothers (9-11)
A Drop of Water from Fairyland of Science or A Drop of Water from PRE/KG lessons.
How The Apple Blossom Came Back
Field Trip/Nature Walk - You can have more of these if opportunity presents itself. And you can combine these with other lessons. For example, on the knitting or handiwork o drawing day you could have a short lesson and then take a field trip OR you could do a longer lesson IN an interesting location, like drawing in the art museum, knitting in a fancy cafe or the library or a rose garden or on a boat. Another idea - take a craft or handiwork from the lesson plans that is difficult to do away from home (like henna or cooking) and find somewhere you can do something similar in town. Is there a cooking school in town? Can you bring some cooking supplies with you? The herb tahini balls can be made without a kitchen! Is there an Indian shop that does henna? Etc...
Rest
1 hour car ride
Math & Language Practice

More on Rhythm

Kristie,
I appreciated your broad answers to the consulting question about developing rhythm. I wonder if you could be a bit more specific about how you balance your family's rhythm with each child's flow. How often do you revisit your rhythm and readjust? Also, do you have your children get involved in designing the daily/weekly rhythm in your home or do you do that on your own? In other words, is there a "buy-in" in advance?
Thank you, M

Dear M,

Did the Organization and the Temperaments Lecture/E-book help on this question? I think you have that now - right? If I had answered this a couple weeks ago I would have said some things to that effect. However, I didn't have the charts available at that time when you asked the question and now I do...so I think that is more helpful.

Other than the charts/lecture that you downloaded from http://www.thewaldorfchannel.com/ I would say....

I revisit rhythms about once every three weeks. But that is because I am one of those Sanguine "go with the flow" and always fixing and adjusting things. Some other types seem to be able to find a rhythm and stick with it all year. But we are always tweaking things and the kids DO get involved. I create an initial schedule based on my OBSERVATIONS of them and I also let them create their own schedules for things too. So this is our recipe:

Recipe of Our Schedule

1 cup of mom writes the schedule out based on her observations
1 cup of mom writes a schedule based on their type
1/4 cup of child writes their own schedule for something like spelling words or other activities
1/8 cup of child suggests alterations to the schedule I created

Stir all together and make a chart. Post it in a public place. Allow children to comment on it and suggest changes. Let each change simmer for a week before any changes can be made because sometimes things need time to settle and it is not that the change is not working ... It is just that you may need some time to get used to it. After the chart simmers for a week you can enjoy it. After 3 weeks check on it and see how it is working out. If things need to be changed you can either add some spices to it, add more ingredients or completely start from scratch!

One example is we have a visiting schedule because otherwise our household gets overwhelmed with neighbor kids and I get overwhelmed with the question "Can so and so come over today??" Yikes! I started out allowing them to trade off every other week with a sleep over and then have kids over once a week on a certain day for each of them. As summer nears and we relax on school work I allow them to have people over more often. I also realized that a sleepover every weekend was too much for ME so I changed it to rotate with all THREE of us...so now, every three weeks I get a Friday that is MINE! No friends allowed. Sometimes we go out as a family. Sometimes I just laze around the house.

Does this help? If I left out anything you can certainly write back. You might also post some of the questions to the Members list. The question you had about a "buy in" is a good one. My kids don't really get a buy-in initially. But they know they can tweak things and that I will listen if they decide to create their own charts. A few months ago my son created his own chart on how to get his spelling done every week. I was totally shocked. But with no help from me he now has a plan and it is the same plan every week and he does it like clockwork every week! (He is a melancholic of course!). It might be fun to see what sort of buy-in other parents give their kids with the schedule.

That said, some days I just ditch the schedule altogether and we "Unschool"!

Blessings & Health,


Kristie Karima Burns, MH, ND
Mother to Mosi, 13, Sunii, 11, Sofi, 9
Living in Des Moines, IOWA after travelling the world :)


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Berry Surprise

This morning we woke up at home after being away for three days and after not looking at the garden much for a month because it has been raining for a month - and we had a wonderful surprise! There was a bumper crop of blackberries and black raspberries in our backyard!!!

That is what I love about NOT grooming our garden too much. It is like an adventure back there. We take out the worst weeds and we mow the lawn, but other than that we leave it wild and we never know what will come up each year! We also have some wild garlic coming up near the house and of course - tons of wild mint! I am so excited!

And what a welcome for my daughter! She has been in the desert all year where nothing grows and the first thing she noticed upon coming back to America was that A: It is GREEN! And B: It SMELLS like America! (hmm...I didn't know we had a smell LOL!)

Now we are off to eat blackberries with yogurt for breakfast. Yum!

Blessings & Health,

Kristie

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Organization Magic

(I WISH I had a before picture! Imagine the floor strewed with stuff and the bed was a loft bed but we cut off the legs and there were about 20 stuffed animals on the bed, etc...etc...)

You have probably figured out by now that I LOVE organizing things. But as I always say in my seminars on organization: "Organization is a point of balance you come back to but life is always changing. It is impossible to be organized all the time."

As I looked at my house two months ago this certainly looked very true to me. My organized house that usually took a brief run-though to clean, and usually looked in order was looking like a tornado hit it. And it wasn't that is was never organized. It was often organized...but it took a lot of work to get it to that point again every few days.

Something had to be done. So I looked into the first rule of organization. Did everything have a place and was everything in its place? It turns out part of the problem was that not everything had a place or the place was too small or not convenient so a lot of the things that were laying around were "homeless". And somehow homeless items always seem to invite company so...the cycle had begun.

So I looked at the things that did not have a home and realized that many of them we did not even use that often. So I went to the second rule of organization - do I have things that need to be thrown out? It turns out this was our main problem. And this is the hardest problem to solve because it involves taking everything out of drawers, shelves and rooms and putting back only what is still used and sorting the rest.

So we started the project. I thought it would take a week but it dragged on for 6 weeks. What kept me going was that I had a goal in mind and although there were boxes all over it was being done in an "organized" manner.

What we did was this:

1. We tackled five rooms at once - livingroom, art room, Suni's room, Mosi's room and Sofi's room. All these rooms were joined by a common hallway (or if not joined, at least near the hallway). I placed the boxes there.

2. I provided an endless supply of boxes with labels - garbage, Goodwill or charity clothing (each box was labelled with sizes so they were organized according to boy, girl and size), Ebay items, memory box items (old photos and art projects to keep), art supplies from bedrooms (so we could integrate them with the art room), and various other boxes as the topics came up. At one point we even had a box for memory album things because the kids had been working on them in their rooms and left supplies in there instead of the art room.

3. We dumped everything section-by-section in each room into the middle of the floor and the children and I sorted it all together (everyone did their own stuff and then I did a final sort after they sorted...because some things ended up in the wrong boxes LOL). We had boxes piled in the livingroom for 6 weeks. My friends were starting to give me strange looks and my kids were embarrassed to invite anyone over. I started wondering if I had made a BIG mistake!

4. Finally one day all the boxes were sorted. We had 40 boxes of things to go to Ebay, Goodwill, friends or storage. I put the boxes in the garage to deliver/sort later and we all re-claimed our space.

That was 5 weeks ago. Since then some major changes have shown up in our lives and they look like they are here to stay (after 40 days of something you can assume it is here to stay unless you work to change it...that is an old adage that runs true for many things)! Of course, I KNOW that having too much stuff causes clutter and makes it hard to clean, but I didn't realize the depths to which that goes (having moved so much in the past 20 years I never lived anywhere long enough to gather that much clutter) until I saw the change in myself and children.

Without the overload of extra stuff the following changes have happened:

1. Sofi, who has never had a clean room in 9 years suddenly is obsessed with keeping her room clean. Because she does not have an overload of stuff (but still plenty - whew!) she is able to clean her entire room in about 15 minutes which makes the time span more manageable for her. After she has things straightened up she has taken to 'redecorating" and moving things around - having fun with her new space.

2. Suni, who has always been organized, but has had trouble keeping things in place the past year, has had a meticulous room for the past 5 weeks. He reduced everything he owns to one shelf and 4 bins that fit under the bed and is quite happy.

3. I have not had to spend more than a few moments every day straightening up the house (of course deep cleaning takes extra time) and have been astounded at this change. It seemed that for a while I was always picking up things and putting them where they belonged. What helped the most was making sure all the art supplies, crafts and scrapbooking supplies were back in ONE ROOM. So now, they all have a place and they are all together in one room. This means that instead of having colored pencils all over the house they are only "all over" one table now. And the kids have been using the craft supplies much more frequently now as well.

Now I just have to list those four boxes on Ebay....sigh...

The other 36 have already been distributed to the appropriate homes.

I hope this inspires someone else to try the same thing. It really was difficult and seeing that mess in my house for 6 weeks was "painful" but in the end the results are something I can certainly live with for a LONG time! And like I said, I have never lived long enough anywhere to acquire so much so I really didn't realize what a gigantic impact all this extra stuff had on our lives and our state of being. Not only did the space change, but the Feng Shui changed too. Our entire lives are "lighter".

If you are interested in seeing any of the organizational videos I have done you can check out the "Homeschooling" link at http://www.thewaldorfchannel.com/

Blessings & Health,

Kristie

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