8th grade 2012-2013

Let's start with 8th grade curriculum this year....
I have the challenge of working without a Handwork room, our school is bursting at the seams and they needed my room for a classroom.  We are double tracked all the way to 4th grade now!  Great for our school, not so great for classroomless me :(
Oh, but it is just a challenge, and with some clever maneuvering , we will make it work!  Woodwork may be put on the chopping block (sorry, couldn't resist) for now, as that is a space hog.  Perhaps some simple whittling (I digress, let's stick to 8th grade, right?)

So, since we will be working in one room, my assistant and I have decided to split the class, one half working on sewing and the other working on inkle looms.

We will begin the year together going over the sewing machine, it's role in the industrial revolution (did you know that in Sacramento, where I live, one of the major streets, Howe Ave, is named after Elias Howe of sewing machine fame?  He is also buried here)  We will put the "human sewing machine" together, and take one of my vintage sewing machines apart, oil it, and put it back together.
It is nice for them to see the mechanics that really have not essentially changed since the invention (with the newer machines one can't see inside.)
After this, we will split the class of about 30 (I don't have the class list yet, could  be more or fewer, but I order and plan for 30 to be safe).  I am storing 5 sewing machines for 15 students to share in their classroom, each student making pajama pants.   I use a simple pj pant patern with elastic for the waist.   The other 15 will be working on inkle looms.  After a few months we will switch.
I have to leave a few months at the end of the year to work on a gift from them for the school, TBA.  (last year was a quilt wall hanging)

My source for the inkle loom is

 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Inkle-Loom-Mini-Maple-Right-Hand-with-Shuttle-5-foot-warp-PBT-/390436470281?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5ae7d3be09#ht_1533wt_1189

Pine box traders mini inkle loom.  Great price, and they deliver so fast!  I ordered 12...might have to order more!  They are just the right size, and will make a strap 5 ft long.  Love it!
I haven't decided whether to use yarn or embroidery floss...maybe both!

Year 1012-13 planning

Raffia Hat Making

Here we go again!  Planning the next school year is a little daunting sometimes....especially because I like to mix it up a little, while some things never change, I have pretty much carte blanche to add any projects that strikes my fancy, and fits a particular class.  For example, at the end of the last school year I stopped everything we were doing with the 6th grade and started raffia hat making....I saw it as a homeopathic remedy for a bit wild and out of control class (well, more than a bit actually....).  I saw all that wild rafia having to be formed into some semblance of organization, and I thought that was exactly what I would like to see happen with this class...to pull themselves together into something harmonious, useful and beautiful.  Did it work?  Well, actually it did.  Pretty cool.

Sources:  http://www.franksupply.com/raffia/supplies.html#naturalraffia
I ordered the 35 lb. hat grade raffia, which will last me for years!  I also ordered the book Raffia Hat Making by Ann Fennell from the same source.  Pretty basic stuff.

Skills needed:  Braiding skills, for more advanced students, a 4 strand braid was used.  I like that better as it lays flatter.
We just braided and braided and added more raffia and braided and braided and then starting with a spiral sewed it all up (like a rag rug) and formed it the way they wanted.  It is surprising how each hat turns out differently, and not always the way we want!  We will still be doing this at the beginning of this year, no-one finished (some took the project home over the summer)

Now, go out and make a hat!

Empty Nest Book Reviews

Enpty nest book reviews.

OK, so I am not turning this blog into an "empty nest" blog, but I do intend on including more personal musing mixed in with the usual handwork thing.  I think that doing that will make me a little more interested in posting more often, because frankly, it was getting a little boring trying to just stay on handwork related subjects all the time.

So, just wanted to say a few words about a few books that I have recently read regarding "empty nest syndrome", feeling that I needed some affirmation about what I was going through, and this is what I found:  In general, these books did not make me feel better, but worse.

 Beyond the Mommy Years, How to Live Happily Ever After...After the Kids Leave Home  by Carin Rubenstein, Phd.  Well, this one was full of well investigated situations of cross sections of women from all over and how they deal and cope with mid-life empty nest.  The title is misleading, it is NOT a how to book.  It left me feeling both hopeful and hopeless, and actually made me feel kind of anxious with statements like "the fifties are a last chance decade"...yeah, like I needed that.  Read it if you want, it was pretty matter of fact.  The chapter on sex was depressing as heck.

The Empty Nest, 31 parents tell the truth about relationships, love, and freedom ater the kids flly the coop  edited by Karen Stabiner.  Read this if you want to cry for days.  I was feeling pretty good about things, then I picked this book up and had a crying breakdown that lasted for the entire book.  It was torturous.  So, if you need a good cry, which you probably are not a stranger of if your kid(s) just flew the coop, this is your book.  I wish I never read it, it took me days to get back on a happy track!  This is what I call a " misery loves company" kind of book.

133 Ways to Avoid Going Cuckoo When the Kids Fly the Nest by Lauren Schaffer and Sandy Fleischl Wasserman.  This book is a quick quirky read.  It is a humorous look at the ENS, and I think does the job quite well.  Fun to read, good advice, nothing that will leave your heart in tatters on the floor.  Great advice, some I took on, like NOT making knee jerk decisions the week after your kid is gone, like throwing all his stuff out (which I almost did), moving (which I thought about), quitting your job (gave that some thought), etc.  Very pragmatic advice, I wish I had read it before so that I didn't fall into booby traps that would start the water works (like sitting in my son's room crying, shoulda closed that door for a while until I was ready for that one!  That said, the fact that it was in this book made me feel a little less crazy, and for the record, I can easily go in and out of my son's room without a breakdown a month after his launch)

Anyway, that is about all the books I will read on this subject.  Did they help?  Not really, but the last one did a little bit and made me laugh when I didn't think I had a laugh left in me!

Well, I had one more read left in me evidently!  Just finished Fun Without Dick and Jane, Your Guide to a Delightfully Empty Nest by Christie Mellor.  This book is a possitive look at life after kids, and won't allow you to look at things in a negative light.  Pretty uplifting overall, I would have tossed it if it started to get wallowy in misery...(she also wrote "The Three Martini Playdate" and "The Three Martini Family Vacation", so if you read those, you know what you are in for!

Now to finish up my handwork curriculum, I intend to have everything set and ordered by week's end. Next post will be all about that!  Onwards and upwards !!

(oh, and the picture is my son in his 6th grade play as Merlin)

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.