A new school year begins...almost.

Ha! I had high hopes for my blog, perhaps this school year will be the one! I am completely stressed out about this coming year, as my classes have increased in size, most around 30 plus, and I have no assistant, no handwork room (I go from classroom to classroom), and parents do not seem m to be very interested in helping out with the upper grades anymore. I am teaching handwork to grades 5 thru 8...so far. The budget cuts for our schools in Ca have been severe, and so we have increased our numbers of students. I have no idea how this is going to work, but work it will!

Lots of ordering of late, all the usual stuff, needles, fabric, thread, etc... I do love ordering! I want to buy everything and do everything! At the last minute, I looked into Naalbinding, and think this could work wonderfully into 6th grade, maybe 7th curriculum...I just need to learn how to do it! There are good tutorials on line...I had never heard of it, but evidently it predates knitting!

So, this year I ordered plain wool to be dyed for my 5th graders! The first month we will spend sanding and polishing our 4 needles for 4 needle knitting, and dyeing the wool...I am going to use koolaide to dye the yarn, which the kids will love. Yes, it would be nice to use natural dyes, but I decided on koolaide. First project is a hat. I let some students make the hat on two needles then sew it up, especially if they have never knitted before, and often I have many new to knitting students, and new to Waldorf. I do not need to stress them out or make them feel left out by not doing the same project as everyone else.

6th always begins with practicing stitches and making pencil pouches. We will adopt a farm rescue animal, and hopefully visit the farm sanctuary to visit our foster animal! This worked wonderfully last year! We have a new teacher that I have not met yet, so maybe there will be changes. Usually we make juggling balls too (I love this project)

7th and 8th, I have not decided yet...I need to look at the numbers. Smaller classes will get to do more, while 35 plus students might have to work as teams or....we only have 8 sewing machines! Woodwork is put on hold, I cannot be safe and teach woodwork to 35 students, obviously. Plus, there are not enough supplies for that many students at once. I am thinking of having a contest with groups of 5 or fewer to perhaps see what they can make out of old thrift store t-shirts...t-shirt re-con...Later on this.