Oh boy oh boy, I have been away from this for a while!

I put all my extra time into my son's senior year at Sacramento Waldorf School.

I am forever grateful that he decided to return to waldorf for his last two years of high school, and I think that decision was life changing for him in a very positive way.

He is now living in the Bay Area, he was antsy to leave home and be independent  from the day he was born it seems.

What a dynamic beautiful intelligent talented young man!  

I am in the throws of ENS (empty nest syndrome) for which I was totally unprepared!  More on that later, but it is getting better.  It has only been a month, the first two weeks were brutal (read:  laying in his bed sobbing for hours...uh oh, not good, but I have discovered not abnormal!)  Anyway, it is FOR REAL, and looking back the whole senior year was kinda was preparing me for this, lots of lasts (last first day of school etc.)  The absolute most emotional day was the senior walk through, where the seniors are honored by each class from K through 11th, and they sing them songs and offer flowers, and at the end each senior has a huge bouquet of flowers!  Loved and cried every minute of it!  

So, as far as HANDWORK goes, I am in the middle of fine tuning some curriculum for the next school year and putting in orders for supplies.  I promise to get back to that and posting more often to help anyone out there also teaching handwork!  It will be an interesting year, my first without having a son in school, so most of my attention will be teaching handwork.  I literally have to have everything nailed down by the end of this week, as my niece is getting married in Lake Tahoe just when school starts, so I don't want to have to worry about work and can fully enjoy the week of family filled events!

Lucet

Lucet

I think I will include this in the Handwork curriculum....I can also see a woodworking project out of this!

Western Waldorf Teacher's Conference

Wow, the Western Waldorf Teacher's Conference was AMAZING and all about handwork!!! My particular break away workshop was felting slippers.  Luckily, the green wood workers were right outside my window, so I feel like I got tutorials in both.  More pictures in a few days when I have more time, but here is a look:

(oh, and the insights from Angus Gorden of Ruskin Mill were so inspiring,   more on that later too!)

February Western Waldorf Educator's Conference

 Off to February Waldorf Teachers Conference!  I'm prepared to be inspired...already am after a rousing speech from Angus Gorden (I'm sure I spelled that wrong...) from Ruskin Mill !!!  This one is all about handwork and the importance of it especially in these days of so much media!  Oh, I am so excited!

 'A Radical Re-Visioning of Waldorf Education'
“To meet the future, we must turn the ship of Waldorf education one hundred and eighty degrees towards the arts, aesthetics, and the practical life.” – Rudolf Steiner
“...right education requires a co-working of teachers, doctors and biodynamic practitioners” —Eugen Kolisko.

In this conference we will work with the Kolisko imagination of the cross-disciplinary hub of pedagogy, health, and biodynamics. A Waldorf curriculum that is braided with biodynamics offers an opportunity for a new consciousness of the human being and the earth and a re-imagining of practical learning and aesthetics.

Materials from the earth, whether they are gold, beeswax, wool or wood, can be lifted through the genius of the hand towards service. Through the production of rose-gold balm, honey, felt slippers or a wooden stool an aesthetic emerges that inspires and reanimates practical learning and teaching. These deeds of transformation require sensory engagement and lawful movement— a right relationship to the three planes of space. We can observe the movements of how the practitioner performs will-intentions and movement-intentions that facilitate not only wellbeing, but also social health.

This educator’s conference should be seen as a coherent event in which the participant is guided to an understanding of the role of practical education and movement as a powerful aide towards incarnation. In the practical arts workshops the participant will enter directly into experiencing how will-developed intelligence engages the power of imagination and can deliver an inner sense of wellbeing. Ruskin Mill Educational Trust has actualized these insights and has implemented a practical arts curriculum over the last 30 years.

8th grade project to give to the school this year is a wall hanging quilt...this is the design they made:

First finished hat and wrist warmer set of the school year (5th grade 4 needle knitting)!!!  Look at the hand dyed yarn!  I love this, I love how every single child dyed their own wool!  Socks are next (the sock yarn was bought variegated yarn...pre-dyed).  Not every student will finish all three projects, but most will....this is a class of go-getters!

7th slippers and blacksmithing .

I sure haven't been keeping up on this blog!  Oh well, that means I have been very busy with students and handwork and a lot of fun in my personal life!

Anyhoo...here are some pictures of first, a few finished boiled wool sewn slippers from 7th grade.  They took to this project with such enthusiasm this year!  I would love to do wet felted slippers, but with 30 students it just doesn't work.  This is my second choice, and they really had some fun with it this year.

The next two pictures of the knife is actually my son's knife he made in his senior year at Sacramento Waldorf School in his Blacksmithing class.  He loved it, and he loves his handwork teacher.  The shape of the top is for a bottle opener...hmmm.  They had to go to the river to get the mud to make the forges, sew the bellows...chop the wood for the coals...I wish I had this class!