Workbox Wednesday: Nicholas

Here's what Nicholas kept busy with today.
An alphabet magnet book.

Playing The Very Hungry Caterpillar game with Daniel.

Reading "Each Peach, Pear, Plum" with Katie Grace.

Painting with blue.

Going on a penny hunt created by Michael.

Repeating a pancake game we made up yesterday.

Making patterns.

Talking about Ash Wednesday.

Putting favorite things away in a Lent box.

Making a robin finger puppet.

And taking over the world with ROBOTS!

Wordless Wednesday: Building

Draw a house... draw a tree... draw a person..

Asking a child to draw a picture of a house, a tree, and a person is a pretty common assessment technique, and one I've been using with my own little ones for years. You can use it with anyone age 3 and up. There's actually an entire psychological evaluation centered around the exercise, but I don't quite take it that far, LOL!

The Waldorf community has a different take on the house--tree--person exercise. A 1999 edition of Gateways makes the following connections:

1. The house-- a picture of where the child is on earth. From that place the child goes out and comes in again in the process of meeting the world.

2. Tree-- indicates the child's connection with his etheric body... The tree is connected with the spiritual world and the earthly world, above and below. It is also a home.

3. Person-- shows the human being with an astral body. The house and tree in the pictures also indicate aspects of the human being.

I love the fat, round, tall characteristics of Nicholas's drawings. The lack of detail, the starkness, the archetypal quality to them. It's a fun exercise to keep these tucked away, asking for new ones to be drawn every once in a while.

Workbox Wednesday: Nicholas

Happy Workbox Wednesday!

We've been talking a lot about halves and wholes lately, so first we played a little game where I drew a half and he finished it. Nicholas said they were "treasure boxes," LOL!


And then he used pattern blocks to use two halves to create a whole.


He made a beautiful window transparency with fairy fleece.

I don't know if you can tell, but I have it on good authority that it's a gnome standing in the sun.

He had a great time with finger puppets.


And then big sister joined him in making a beautiful stained glass lantern.


It looks lovely on our King Winter and Jack Frost nature table.


Circly Os are fun to draw!

What can you make with a box? A ship named the Jolly Rodger!

Next was a fun matching game.

And then he added a rainbow gnome! Nicholas loves gnomes.

Time to polish the banister with beeswax!

And then a shape matching game.

I was really surprised when Daniel did it too!

Nicholas has been working on a gnome mobile all week. I'll be sure to post a picture of the finished product, but here's a sneak peak.

And finally, a bag of mixed nuts is the best investment I've ever made. They're food! They're animals! They're spaceships! They're fun!

And that's how Nicholas spent his morning. I hope you had a day full of play as well.

Life's good when you're Nicholas...

I cannot begin to tell you how thankful and blessed I am to be able to homeschool, especially when it comes to Nicholas. He's simply not ready for an academic kindergarten. In the shelter of our home, however, he's free to explore and learn at his own pace, which is alternately slow and completely frenetic.

Some themes this week were the fairy tale Needle, Shuttle, and Spindle, the letter N, heavy and light and long and short, and winter.

Sewing a little pillow for one of his animal friends...

Making beeswax icicles to decorate the sleepy bears' cave on the nature table...

Making a letter N from pieces of yarn...

Building a home for winter animals from blocks...

Making long and short playdough worms...

Red wet-on-wet watercolor paintings after a story about little red berries who were born to decorate a bare winter garden...

Begging everyone in the house who can read to read another chapter... another page... another paragraph of Harry Potter.


Exploring heavy and light with the balance...

I hope you had a happy week full of playful explorations as well!

Nicholas: The letter L, The Elves and the Shoemaker, and The Mitten

Nicholas has been busy this week!
For circle, we've been exploring how the animals care for themselves during the winter. We've been using the "Winter Woods" circle from Winter Seasons of Joy. Nicholas's favorite animals are the bunny and Mr. Squirrel.


As a tie-in to the story, we're also telling the story of The Mitten.

Bunny ears and bear ears, hiding in a blanket "mitten".

A mousie mask too!

Acting out the mitten with a story basket.

We're working on recognizing the letter L.
Nicholas practicing L. We haven't done a whole lot of writing, but since L is basically 2 straight lines, we gave it a shot. As Nicholas said, "HEY! I can do that one!"

What starts with L?

We've told the fairy tale The Elves and the Shoemaker alongside it.

After hearing the story several days in a row, Nicholas dictated a summary to me, which I wrote down. He then illustrated with a pair of shoes.

Building a letter L from blocks to make a ledge, and then placing shoes on it just like the elves!

Cobbling shoes, just like the elves!

A natural "tie in" (pardon the pun!) was beginning to learn to tie shoes. We started with the knot at the beginning.
Tying is easy,
It's kind of teasy,
You start by taking each end.
Cross one over,
Send it through.
Pull it tightly-
That will do!

You can tell he's my melancholic child!

As a very pre-pre-pre-pre-reading exercise, we've talked about beginning, middle, and end using objects from nature.

Window Stars!

Nicholas and I enjoyed making window stars this morning. You can find a simple tutorial here.

He then made a Christmas tree transparency by using star and hole punches to punch holes in a Christmas tree and then gluing a sheet of yellow kite paper behind it. It looks beautiful in the sunshine, but unfortunately, all we got was a rainy cold picture!