Sharna's visit

My eldest niece has come to stay with us. She arrived on her fifteenth birthday, "How fast they grow!"

An hour after she arrived we had a dinner party for her birthday. There were thirteen people here in my very small home celebrating with her.

On the following Tuesday the children's great granny visited. Sharna had not seen her for about four years, and really enjoyed seeing her.

Sharna has been doing pottery with James. She has done about 18 classes so far. James has offered to teach her at no cost, as she has an affinity with clay.

The children did woodwork and Sharna joined that class as well. She made a jewellery box. She has wittled before so enjoyed the different aspect of woodwork.

The next day Hannah and Sharna did a creative writing course. They learned a lot and enjoyed the morning. Hannah enjoyed the class especially as there was a nice looking boy there! How quickly they grow!

Adult socks

My beautiful niece is staying with me. Autumn is coming and the weather is cooling. So back to the knitting! I am using pink and chocolate brown to give the impression of warmth and love. I hope you enjoy my pattern.

Adult socks
Materials:
100g of sock wool.
A set of 4 needles, 2.75 mm.

Method:
Cast on 60sts. Put 20 st on each needle.
Knit in the round.
Rib as long as you like. I like a longer rib so I do a min. of 10 rows.
Change to knit stitch and knit 40 to 60 rows.

Heel
New round.
Knit 13 sts on first needle.
Slip last 14 sts from end of third needle. (27 sts)
Work backwards and forwards on these 27 sts.
Row 1. purl.
Row 2. Slip one, knit one etc. till last stitch which is a slip st.
Row 3. Purl.
Continue with row 2 and 3 another 10 times, 20 rows in total.

Turn heel
Row 1. Knit 17, knit two together in the back of the stitchs, turn.
Row 2. Slip one, purl 7, purl two together, turn.
Row 3. Slip one, knit 8, knit two together in the back of the stitch. Turn.
Row 4. Slip one, purl 9, purl two together. Turn.
Row 5. Slip one, knit 10, knit two together in the back of the sts.
Continue until you have 17 sts.
Knit 9.
On needle one: Knit 8. Pick up 12sts. (20 sts)
On needle two: Knit 33 sts.
On needle three: Pick up 12 sts, knit 9 sts. (21sts)

Shape heel
Row 1. knit.
Row 2. Needle one. Knit to last two sts. Knit two together.
Needle two. Knit sts.
Needle three. Knit two together in the back of the sts. Knit to the end of the row.
Repeat row 1 and 2 till  60sts in remain.

Foot
Knit till length required.

Shape toe
Needle one, 15sts.
Needle two, 30sts.
Needle three, 15sts.
Row 1.
On needle one: knit to last three sts. Knit two together. Knit one.
Needle two: knit one, knit two together in the back. Knit till last
three sts. Knit two together. Knit one.
Needle three: knit one, knit two together in the back.
Row 2. Knit.
Repeat last two rows till 24 sts remain.
Graft sts.

Extracurriculars

Extracurricular activities are a very interesting topic if you homeschool. Some say it is vital for socialization, others say that the less running around you do with the children, the better. I think both are very valid points!

I feel that when the children are young you should have a strong home rhythm, with as little going out as possible. Nature walks, celebrating our festivals and visiting family is what we enjoy as a family. We limit visiting family to once a month as it is a long drive and the children get exhausted. But we love our family visiting us. Family is a big part of our lives as they are special. We wish we saw Oma and my aunts and uncles more.

Now that the children are getting older we allow certain extracurriculars. Once a month they do woodwork.

This is a new thing this year and they are really enjoying it.

Caleb with his drawings
for the art badge

Hannah is a girl guide and Caleb a scout. Sheth is not interested in cubs at this stage.

They do pottery with a master potter. They love it so much that they are saving their money to buy their own wheels.

Swimming class 2011

They do swimming in summer. This has just stopped, thank goodness as it was all getting a bit much.

The other thing they do is horse riding. Caleb and Hannah have been doing lessons for about three years now. Sheth does random lessons when he feels like it. They won't be riding for the next year or so with their teacher, my good friend, as she is pregnant. They will be riding with friends though.

This may seem like a lot of extracurriculars, but the only reason they do so much is that:

a. Pottery is one block away from us.
b. Horse riding is one block away from us in the opposite direction.
c. Swimming is a ten minute drive away, but all three children do their lesson together and it is a once a week lesson. We only do this for twelve weeks of the year.

The guides preparing
for Kontiki

d. Girl guides and Scouts are thirty kilometers away. This is once a week on different days. I go with Hannah and Greg goes with Caleb. They love it so much that I would never want to give this up!
e. Caleb has been selected out of almost 90 children to be a Table Mountain National Park: Junior Ranger. We are so proud of him! He does this one Saturday a month. He gets picked up by bus and dropped off
again. This is very exciting as he had never gone on a bus before.

If you noticed the older two do the extracurriculars that are longish drives. Sheth stays home and doesn't go with.

I enjoy my free time when the children go to pottery. It gives me time to clean, read, watch a programme or do school preparation - whatever is the most important to me on that day.

Socks age 4-7

So autumn is on the way and Sheth has grown out of four pairs of his socks. He is a spoilt bum and therefore won't wear bought socks. What that means is that I am knitting!

I thought you may like the pattern.

Socks age 4-7
Materials:
50g sock wool.
Set of 4 needles, 3mm.

Method:
Cast on 48 st. Put 16 st on each needle.
Knit in the round.
Do 6 rows of rib. Your choice of rib will do.
Change to knit.
Knit 40 rows.

Heel
Knit 11 st from needle 1.
Slip last 12 st from needle 3 onto same needle as the 11 st you knitted. (23st)
Put the remaining 25 sts onto two needles.

Working on the 23st.
Row 1. Purl.
Row 2. Knit.
Row 3. Purl.
Repeat row 2 and 3 ten times.(21 rows)
If you want a reinforced heel then on every knit row do slip one, knit one etc. till last stitch which is a slip stitch.

Turn heel
Row 1. Knit 15, K2 together in the back of the sts. Turn.
Row 2. Slip 1. P7. P2 together. Turn.
Row 3. Slip 1. K8. K2 together in the back of the sts. Turn.
Row 4. Slip 1. P9. P2 together. Turn.
Row 5. Slip 1. K10. K2 together in the back of the sts.
Row 6. Slip 1. P11. P2 together. Turn.
Row 7. Slip 1. K12. K2 together in the back of the sts. Turn.
Row 8. Slip 1. P13. P2 together.
15 sts left.
Knit 8.

Knit 7 on needle one. Pick up 12 sts along side of heel. (19 sts).
Knit 25 sts on needle two.
Pick up 12 sts along heel, knit 8 sts on needle 3. (20sts).

Shape heel
Row 1. Knit.
Row 2. Knit sts on needle one till last two remain. K2 sts together.
Knit sts on needle two.
On needle three. K2 together in the back of the sts. Knit till end.
Repeat row 1 and 2 till 48 sts remain.

Knit length according to the child's foot.
I am knitting 55 rows for Sheth's foot now. Size 1.

Shape toe
Needle one must have 12 sts.
Needle two, 24 sts.
Needle three, 12 sts.
Row one.
On needle one. K to last 3 sts. Knit 2 together, knit 1.
On needle two. K1, K2 together in the back of the sts. Knit till last
three sts. K2 together, K1.
On needle three. K1, K2 together in the back of the sts.
Row two.
Knit.
Continue with last two rounds till 20 sts remain.
Graft sts!

Happy knitting.

Ending first month of school.

We are finishing off our first month of school. It has been a good month. Sheth has done a two week block on form drawing. He is now doing his second week of language arts. He has read his first three readers and is enjoying it.

 Sheth is enjoying the story of the prince who needs to learn wisdom before he can become king. He has learnt the first two parts of wisdom, the O letter and the E letter. He has three more pieces of wisdom to go!

Caleb and Hannah are finishing up there first block on "Man and Animal". We have had a lot of fun modeling our animals with bees wax.

We have done wet on wet painting every week based on the animal that we have learnt about. Grammar land has been really good, as we are understanding our first five parts of speech - the noun, article, pronoun, adjective and interjection. Our Main Lesson books are looking really pretty with all our colours. Caleb said we don't have to do an interesting border around our page as our writing looks beautiful.

Next week Hannah and I will start a three week block on Form Drawing. This should help with improving the neatness of her handwriting.

Caleb will be doing a three week block on free hand geometry. We did not have time to do it last year so we are doing it now. Later on in the year we will do the grade 6 block on geometry. I am using the book "A Journey through Waldorf Geometry" by Melisa Nielsen. It covers grade 5, 6 and 7.

Sheth and I will carry on with the Christopherus grade one curriculum.

Eating our harvest!

When we moved to our house in the Western Cape we were blessed with a large garden. This is great as with three active kids you definitely need one.

One of the first things we did was plant Cape Honeysuckle along the fence line as there was only grass. I love plants and flowers. The Cape Honeysuckle attracts the Malachite Sunbird which is exquisite!

Our next project was planting a vegetable patch.

We now have the veggy patch and we have planted leeks, onions, clumping onions, eggplants and
lettuce in between our hedge plants.

We have harvested over 8 kg of jam tomatoes, an endless supply of swiss chard, beetroot, leeks, which I have frozen for soup, and green peppers, which I have frozen and given away. We have eggplants coming out of our ears.

The grapes that we are eating off of the vines, that were here when we moved in, are amazing.

Tonight Greg has made mushroom soup with the field mushrooms we have harvested out of our garden and the leeks that are also home grown!

Yum Yum!

First week of school

On Monday 31 January, we started school for the year.

It was also Sheth's birthday. He turned 7 and got his birthday crown.

This is a very special crown as he may now enter into the kingdom of knowledge. This is a very exciting thing for Sheth!

On Monday the two younger children start school with a 2 hour pottery lesson. They have the most fantastic teacher. His name is James.

James is a master potter and a natural teacher, which probably comes from being a missionary for 25 years.

Caleb does his maths and reading while the other two do pottery. Caleb does pottery with James early in the morning as he is having intensive training so that he will be able to work with James at the markets. We then moved onto our main lesson.

We are doing a joint main lesson with Caleb and Hannah. We are doing "Man and Animal" it is a zoology block. We started with the human, learning about the head, trunk and limbs. We then moved on to "The Seal" by the end of the week.

I am using the book "The Human Being and the Animal World" by Charles Kovacs. I highly recommend all of his books, they are written in story form which the children love, with all the facts that they need to know, and because it is in story form my kids take it in easily and remember it.

Then, "Surprise, surprise!", granny arrived for Sheth's birthday. The children were overjoyed! I did not tell them, so they were really surprised.

Caleb had made a delicious bread with cheese and sundried tomatoes for lunch and I had made two carrot cakes, Sheth's choice.

Granny came with us to swimming lessons. The kids really enjoy swimming and are sad that lessons stop at the end of February. Caleb went to horse riding shortly after we got home from swimming.

All in all, our first day of school went very well.

One last thing to do this evening before bed, and that is to make 40 rolls for the Coffee Shop. Caleb makes the 2 batches of dough, and when they have risen I weigh out the dough and make 40 rolls. This takes long, so I watch a movie while I work.

Time for bed and snuggling! Good night.

Tuesday arrived and Sheth was starting his first day of official school.

We started with circle time, learning our versus and practicing our counting and times tables. We do this using bean bags to keep the children attentive.

We use Caleb's "clock" tables and practice our multiplication and division bonds. Sheth does this with us and I give him addition and subtraction. He also does basic division and knows his 0 x table, 1 x tables, 2, 5, and 10. Teaching Sheth Waldorf maths
has been such a beautiful experience for me. I wish I had taught Caleb and Hannah in the same way but I can't look back all the time.

So what I am doing is bringing it to them as much as I can now. We also play lots of card games which help with getting speed into their addition and subtraction.

After circle time Sheth does his main lesson with me and Caleb and Hannah do maths. Sheth's main lesson that we are working on is Form Drawing. We are looking at the straight line and curved line in nature. We found the curved line in the tractor tire we use as a sand pit, in the flower petals and lots of other places. We found the straight line in the tree trunk, in grass blades and all over.

Sheth then drew curved and straight lines in the sand with his left hand then right hand, then proceeded to use his toes. He also used water to drip sand and make balls - the curved line.

What a busy morning we have had, time for tea and cake. Then, the older two and I work on our main lesson while Sheth plays.

We are now starting to do Afrikaans for the first time, we have been learning to speak it but now it is time to do work in it. The kids are excited about learning Afrikaans so the lesson goes well.

Time for lunch and lie down!

Well, the other thing we are doing is a book called "Grammar Land". It is a story about the 9 parts of speech. It is a fun and exciting way to bring this to the children.

When we do our summaries for our main lesson, we write our nouns in blue, articles in brown, pronouns in purple, verbs in red, adjectives in yellow, adverbs in orange, prepositions in green, conjunctions in peach, and interjections in pink.

This concept comes from the Waldorf curriculum. The kids enjoy doing this as their work pages look like 'rainbows'.

That's about it for this post. I will write more about class 1, 4, and 6 at a later stage. Maybe even putting on my planning schedule. And a brief overview of the books I am using. Till later!

Map work

Wet on wet painting