We've been slowly getting back into our home school co-op rhythm this month. Two weeks ago only a few people were able to come, and we mostly just built castles and drew pictures. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course. Last week I was inspired to tell one of my favorite winter stories, and our other activities fell into place around the story.
The story that our day was based on is a folk story about why evergreen trees keep their leaves. I use this version, with a few changes of my own. The biggest change I make is to use trees from the valley, like aspen, cottonwood, willow, spruce, pine and juniper. I just love this story, with it's theme of kindness and helping, and it sets the stage nicely for learning about how we can help take care of birds in the winter time.
Here is what we did last week:
As usual, more information on our Waldorf-inspired home-school co-op can be found here.
Arrival
As the children arrived we began to prepare our snack. This week, since we were talking about birds in the winter, we made seeded foccacia bread. Foccacia bread is so easy to make, and always a hit with the littles. I just use my basic pizza dough recipe, and when the time comes the kids help spread the dough in the pans, "paint" it with olive oil and add seasonings, seeds, and any other toppings we're using that day.
As you can see, even our youngest littles can participate in this process! Speaking of the youngest, River and Cohen (exactly one month apart) are so completely adorable together lately. Here they are "helping" in the learning tower:
Seriously. So. Much. Cuteness.
Circle Time
Once our bread was finished, when headed to the rug for circle time. I could not find my circle time cards (I'm still not sure where they are), so we just did some of our usual circle time verses and sat down for a song and a story.
Last year I made some little finger puppets for The North Wind Doth Blow song, so I brought those out again. There are several different verses added on to the original nursery rhyme, here are the ones we usually sing, adapted for our area (since robins fly away South where we live):
The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will the sparrow do then,
Poor thing?
He’ll sit in the barn
And keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing,
Poor thing.
The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what shall the robin do then,
Poor thing?
Oh do you not know?
He left long ago,
For a country much warmer than ours,
Poor thing.
The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow.
And what will the door mouse do then,
Poor thing
Rolled up like a ball
In his nest snug and small,
He’ll sleep till the weather turns warm.
Poor thing.
The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will the children do then,
Poor things?
When lessons are done,
They’ll jump, skip and run,
And that’s how they’ll keep themselves warm,
Poor things. Poor things. Poor things.
After the song, I told the story of the little bird and the evergreen trees, using the robin bird puppet, an evergreen bough, and a stick from our backyard as props. We also talked about the differences between winter trees and summer trees. Here is a photo of our little story teller with the puppets (of course). Please ignore the dog hairs clinging to the felt...
Art Time
After the story the children found a place at the table to color/draw a picture of the story. Their pages were filled with trees and birds...
Snack and Play time
The foccacia bread was a big hit. I served it with little bowls of olive oil and spices and the littles ate it up. This is all that was left of two pans of foccacia bread:
Activity
While the children played after snack, we set up the day's activity - cardboard tube bird feeders!
The children took a place at the table and each one got a couple of carboard toilet paper tubes. We demonstrated how to spread peanut butter all over the tube and roll it around the birdseed, and then they got to it. Both butter knives and hands were used to spread the peanut butter, and much licking of fingers ensued...
This craft is so easy and so fun! You don't even need to attach a way to hang them, since you can simply slip them on a branch.
Here is one of Mason's finished feeders on a branch on our tree...
We had a lovely morning talking about winter birds and winter trees!
