Homeschooling 1st Grade

So, I've been hard at work the last couple weeks working on Liam's 1st grade curriculum. Because even though I have bought 4 different curriculum, I am impossible to please and have to make my own.

1st Day Back to School - Waldorf Homeschool Kindergarten

So, I originally started writing this post back in September of 2011. I had almost completely forgot about this blog I didn't think anyone read it, and tons of stuff have been going on around here. More on that later. But I looked up organic car seat covers and my article about it was the 2nd one that came up! I was so shocked to see that there were 83 comments! I never would have expected that. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and I hope you will find lots of interesting information. I'm going to try to write more. Although, it is a bit difficult now that we've moved way upstate to the country and don't have internet lol.

So, on the exciting things that have happened to us. My husband is now in his final year of pre-med at Stony Brook University and is very hard at work studying for his MCATs to get into medical school. We looked into moving upstate. At first we were moving to Syracuse but then we got accepted into the family dorms at Stony Brook. It was great to be out of the in-laws house and finally have our own place. We were very close to our friends from the Waldorf homeschool co-op, and there are tons of great things to do in and around Stony Brook (to the right is a picture of Liam sticking his feet in the pond at Avalon a wonderful nature park near Stony Brook). But, unfortunately living in the dorms really wasn't working for us.

So, we started looking upstate again. this time looking around Waldorf schools. We found a great Waldorf school called The Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School (GBRSS). And found a gorgeous 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house with all wood floors, with a wood oven in the playroom, right across the street from a
playground and 2 houses down from the library, way in the country and close to the GBRSS, for $500 cheaper a month then we were paying to live in the ugly dorms.

Will still had school so he couldn't move up right away. The plan was for him to transfer in the spring. So, the kids and I moved up while Will moved back in with his parents to finish his last semester. We enrolled Liam into the 4 half day Kindergarten at the GBRSS. Unfortunately, after 3 months up there Will was layed off and we had no income for 2 months. Luckily, we found another house for rent 3 houses down the block for half the rent. We moved in on Ella's 2nd birthday.

Liam has a great time at school and he made his teachers cranberry popcorn strands for Christmas presents. But unfortuneatly the school was too far away and too expensive and it seemed like our whole lives revolved around bringing Liam to school what Ella and I were going to do all day in Great Barrington (it was too far to drive back and forth) while Liam was at school and then coming home and getting ready for the next school day. The school was lovely but living in the country I felt that homeschooling would be a better option for us. So, we pulled Liam out in February.

The next month I found out I was pregnant! So, it looks like our Busy Little Green Family will be getting bigger after all. We are going to have a homebirth this time. I promise I will write a whole post about that.

Liam will be starting 1st grade this September (serious schooling) so I ought the Christopherus 1st grade curriculum and we will be doing some variation of that this upcoming school year. I will post about our process registering to homeschool, and why I choose Christopherus.

Well, that's all I have time for right now. I am going to have my first sono in a bit so I have to get ready for that. Thank you again to all the readers and I hope I can continue to provide valuable information on how to be a Busy Little Green Family.


Hey! Welcome back everyone I hope you all had a great summer.We sure did! We were outside every day rain or shine. We spent lots of time jumping in rain puddles and taking walks around the block in the rain, especially when hurricane Irene hit! We were outside in the rain and wind, Liam was filling his rain boots with water and throwing it at me! Liam had swimming lessons we had a great time going to the co-op every Wednesday and I got lots and lots of Waldorf books and homeschool supplies. I also bought a lot more woolies for the kiddos and myself.

Anyways, I feel pretty confident about the year ahead and I thought I'd let you know how our first day was :)

Way back in May I had bought some 5mm silks and acid dyes from Dharma Trading Company in the hopes of making some playsilks, streamers and headbands to sell at the fair. Well that never happened but I was left with 16 yards of this silk and fire engine red, sunflower yellow and caribbean blue dye.

I never did anything with it till a couple weeks ago when we were planning on dying silks at the homeschool co-op when I decided to make a silk mobil like the dancing fairy mobile kit nova natural sells for $25.

I cut the silk into 5-1/2 x 5-1/2 squares and then dyed them Red, Red-Orange, Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow, Yellow-Green, Green, Blue-Green, Blue, Blue-Violet, Violet and Red-Violet.

Then I went to Joann and picked up some 100% wool batting, 100% wool cream colored yarn and because I couldn't find any regular wooden rings so I used an embroidery hoop. I had a 40% off coupon and the yarn was buy one get one 1/2 off.

Here are the silks I dyed I think the colored came out pretty well. I dyed everything that had yellow in it yellow first. Which is blue green, green, yellow green, yellow, yellow orange, orange, and red orange.

Next I dyed everything that was red but not yellow: red, red violet, violet, and blue violet. This way I wasn't "yellowing" the red. Then I put into the red dye the red orange, and orange and quickly dipped the yellow orange in. I think I should have left the red orange in the red a little longer because it looks almost the same color as the orange

Finally blue, first I dyed the blue then I took it out and put in the blue green, green and quickly dipped the yellow green. Then I took out the green and later the blue green. Then, I had to make a new little batch of blue dye, because the dye had turned green, and I dyed the blue violet, violet, and red violet.

Phew! Finally time to start actually making the mobile!

It was pretty simple just a bit tedious. But, Liam enjoyed it and he played with each fairy for a little while after he had finished.

Liam put a small ball of wool inside each square, and then tied a piece of wool yarn around it to make each fairy.

Then we tied two pieces of yarn folded in half to the inside of the embroidery hoop and then tied a small loop knot on top to hang it up. Here Liam is making sure that it will hang straight.

Then, I threaded the yarn, tied a knot in the bottom of the yarn and pushed it up through the bottom of the "fairies" through the wool and out through the top of the fairies head. 

Next, I tied the fairy onto the embroidery hoop. 

After the first fairy I hung up the mobile so I could make sure they were evenly spaced. 

Hurrah! Here is the finished mobile. I love it is is absolutely beautiful and very magical looking.

Took it out side for better light but it was pretty windy. Liam loved watching the fairies dance in the wind. 

So, we've had this mobile for about 2 years and 3 moves. And it is starting to look a bit shabby. Ella loved pulling the fairies off the mobile when she was about 18 months old, and Liam used them to make puppet shows. So, I will have to redo it. I think I will probably tie the fairies back on to the hoop with fishing line or something like that. The yarn I had just ripped way too easily. If you try this project good luck! The silk is still beautiful and I think it was worth it.