September Kindergarten 1

Here's an overview of what our Waldorf inspired September kindergarten 1 homeschooling looked like.

September Kindergarten 1

Our monthly Froebel gift to play with for September kindergarten 1 is Froebel gift 1, which is colored balls with and without string loops. Remember Froebel is not Waldorf, it's my own add-in. He predates Steiner as the inventor of kindergarten and a lot of our modern toys and games.

Week 1

We have lots of week 1 highlights, besides the first day of school fun. We made applesauce, learned about fire safety, had an intro to modeling beeswax and made little wax apples, and watched a monarch butterfly emerge from a chrysalis. We had a story about the apple tree who wanted a star then did apple prints with red and yellow paint.

Our favorite nature walk was splashing in puddles. We found an acorn and red and orange leaves for our monthly nature scene. We also added an apple seed we found when preparing to do apple prints.

Super Sam at the apple harvest and helping to put out a mysterious fire

The Super Sam story from Waldorf Essentials involved an apple harvest and finding a mysterious fire in the forest, which the gnomes helped put out using a bucket and nearby stream.

We made hammock bunk beds for the gnome home.

Week 2

This week we would have flown a kite, but the weather didn't cooperate, so that's waiting for another day. We're planning to attend a kite festival soon.

We did a Tippy-Tippy story for wet on wet watercolor with yellow and red. We played with some skin crayons and talked about not using pens on our skin, but that lesson hasn't sunk in yet. We learned how hard it is to scrub crayons off of floors and walls, first time at 5 years old! The tired afternoon behavior issues continue.

The surprising favorite activity this week was origami. We used my old Easy Origami book and I made figures with her help. There was lots of discussion about shapes and fractions and how some of them resembled kites during the folding. We especially liked the origami figures you can play with such as the Tumbling Man and Jumping Frog -- physics lessons!

Another origami figure we liked was a red hen, so we read The Little Red Hen in Spanish, La gallinita roja. On our nature walks, we visited neighborhood donkeys and ducks. We added a green walnut and feather to our nature scene, along with our origami creations.

Super Sam had nice weather to fly his kite with Papa. There was more talk about fires and how forest fires could start. We still don't know what's causing the problems in their forest.

If you're wondering how I made the kites fly, it's 28mm wire. The end is curled into a spiral circle for the gnome to stand on and hold up the kite. The kites are made of construction paper, toothpick pieces, and some clear tape.

For the gnome home, we finished our hammock bunk beds and started working on a fall braided rug.

Week 3

We were out checking the milkweed and chestnuts in our yard one morning when we got the signal -- it was time to try our kite! We hurried to the park to fly it and had SO much fun!

We watched the collected walnuts in our nature scene change from green to black. We collected leaves and did some leaf rubbing artwork.

Super Sam and the gnomes were in the crystal palace to hear the king speak (wearing his leaf crown), and they met George. He has come to help with the dragon problem. Sam is hoping he gets to see the dragon.

The braided rug for autumn kindergarten 1 is making progress, but not done yet.

We spent some time this week making stick puppets of Tom and Tabby cat and a stop sign. We started our social skills stories (Teachers Pay Teachers, non-affiliate), which are about these two cats learning to be nice. The story and drawing this week involved learning to take turns... not the lesson we need at the moment with coloring furniture and throwing things across the room, but those lessons are coming!

We spotted some dragons in the sky during our trip to Sunfest in Ocean City, Maryland.

Sunfest in Ocean City, Maryland included a kite festival at the Kite Loft

We went to the kite festival at the Kite Loft and received one of the free kites they were giving away for 60 kids. It's a lot simpler than the big fancy ones in the photo, but we love it, and it was incredible to be out there flying it with so many beautiful kites.

Week 4

This week we added more origami to the nature scene, including samurai hats and a lobster. I had no idea it would become a favorite activity.

Super Sam finally met the dragon. It turns out he had the hiccups and the forest fires were accidental.

The king healed the dragon with a special stone (a beach pebble from our trip), and he agreed to use his fire to help bake Michaelmas bread.

We are gluten-free, so instead of bread we make popcorn. The hot noisy air popper is a lot like a dragon. We made some egg-free apple cookies, too.

We also celebrate Michaelmas by singing songs around the fire in our little outside fire pit. Our favorite dragon-themed books are Who Wants a Dragon?, Dragons Love Tacos, and Over at the Castle, which I sing to the tune of "Over in the Meadow."

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