Mormons and Michaelmas

Several years ago, when I was still in college, I took a Christian History class. Being at BYU, there was definitely an LDS lens to the class. On the first day, the professor got up and asked us about some of the things we were jealous of in other religions. We talked about things other churches did or had that we wished were more a part of our own Mormon culture and worship. It was an interesting and eye opening conversation that first led me to start thinking about how this Mormon thing doesn't all have to look the same and that there are things in every religion that are worthy of incorporation into our own spiritual life.

A few years later I was introduced to Waldorf education. Festivals are very important in Waldorf family life, and while each family gets to choose which festivals they celebrate, the majority of Waldorf resources focus on certain festivals in the Catholic liturgical year. Most notably, Michaelmas, Martinmas, St. Nicolas Day, St. Lucia Day, Advent, Epiphany, and Candlemas. As I learned more about these festival/feast days, I realized that there was a really beautiful yearly rhythm to it and that each festival helped prepare me spiritually for other holidays.

Martinmas is the perfect beginning to Thanksgiving. Advent prepares my heart for Christmas, Candlemas is the perfect reflection on a world shrouded in darkness waiting for the coming light of Easter.

With these thoughts in mind, I wanted to introduce my Mormon friends especially to these festivals and a few others that are special to our family and that I believe incorporate beautifully into the LDS religion and will enhance your spiritual journey through the year.

So let's begin with the first big festival of the school year! MICHAELMAS.

Michaelmas is the celebration of the archangel Michael throwing Lucifer out of heaven before the world began. It is often kind of merged with the legend of St. George who defeated a dragon. So, often the pictures and stories have to do with Michael defeating Lucifer depicted as a dragon. You can read the Catholic version of the story here. As you do so, I hope you'll be able to see how similar it is to our understanding of premortal life. It doesn't take much to tweak the story just a little bit to tell to your children about the war in heaven.

Michaelmas is the perfect time to reflect on the importance of our own free agency. After all, isn't that what the war in heaven was all about? And more importantly, what are we doing with our free agency? Have things crept into our lives and become dragons in need of slaying? Now is the time to fight back and vanquish your pet sins, weaknesses, and addictions. Michael and all the hosts of heaven defeated Lucifer, you can conquer your dragons too.

Ways to celebrate Michaelmas with your family.


Found at http://bobbinsandbrambles.blogspot.com/2010/09/michaelmas-bakingdragon-bread.html (There's a recipe there too!)

Make dragon bread (bread shaped like a dragon.)
Act out the story of Michael throwing Lucifer out of heaven.
Make golden capes and wooden/cardboard swords and shields to battle dragons with.
With your older children, talk about what dragons in your life you would like to conquer.
Read this beautiful book about St. George.


Just so you know, celebrating a festival the "Waldorf" way is not a huge affair. You don't treat it like Christmas or Thanksgiving where you spend all month gearing up for it. You might build up to Michaelmas for a few days while you sand down your swords. But it is really supposed to be a very simple celebration. Tell a story, sing a song, eat a special kind of food, do a craft. That's it. You're done. (And if I'm being honest, we won't be making the swords this year.)

Reflect.

Now much of what you find for some of these Saint's Days (especially Michaelmas) read like prayers to these saints. As Mormons, I know this is a concept most will feel uncomfortable with. But in this series, I'm going to try to provide you with a few poems or songs that you can use. Here's the one I like for Michaelmas.

"Brave Saint Michael is my guide
as free and fearless forth I ride.
With courage like Saint George of old
I dare to fight fierce dragons bold."

November Plans for Second Grade

November is going to be a bit of a mixed up month. We'll spend a week with Thornton Burgess animal stories, a week on St. Martin and Martinmas (a really beautiful festival about helping those in need), another week on Thornton Burgess stories, and then a week for Thanksgiving.

Circle Time

Pledge of Allegiance

You’re a Grand Old Flag

Saint Martin  from Autumn Songs by Jodie Mesler

Over the River and through the Woods

November

The loud winds are calling,

The ripe nuts are falling,

The squirrel now gathers his store.

The bears homeward creeping

Will soon all be sleeping

So snugly till winter is o’er.

Spanish

This month we will be focusing on Peru. November 3rd is the celebration of Cuencan Independence Day.

Here is the outline of the story I'll tell. this is just an outline. Embellish, get into it, but this just helps me remember the words and how we'll learn them. I don't know how to add accents and markings like that when I type, so I apologize in advance.

Ernesto wakes up and says Buenos dias to his animals. Perro, gato, pez. Then he opens the window (abre la ventana) and asks Que tiempo hace hoy? Have children tell the weather in Spanish. Today Ernesto is visiting his friend Daniela. She is from Peru and her family is celebrating Independence Day for their home city of Cuenca. When Ernesto gets to Daniela’s casa, her mama was still in la cocina cooking up a storm. Her padre was in el bano, getting ready, and her hermano was in his dormitorio, reading un libro. Daniela and Ernesto decide to ir a caminar (go on a walk). They walk through the bosque (forest) behind Daniela’s casa. There are many arboles (trees) and their hojas (leaves) are falling to the ground. (Review some color words here. Rojo, anaranjado, marron, Amarillo). While they are walking they see many pajaritos (little birds) and even a buho (owl). So they sing, El Cucu. http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=1315

When they get back to Daniela’s casa, her mama has just finished making tortitas de Manteca (shortbread cookies.) So Daniela and Ernesto play a hand clapping game.  Tortitas de Manteca. http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=2082

Before Ernesto leaves he makes sure to say gracias to Daniela and her familia.

Music

Recorder lessons 5 and 6 in Living Music From the Heart volume 2 by Jodie Mesler

Handwork

Jane will be knitting a scarf to give as a gift that uses the pattern k2, p2.

Science

We're learning about Sea Otters this month to go along with our main lesson. I have some books (fiction and nonfiction) and our aquarium has a great otter exhibit that we'll visit.

Spelling

k12reader.com lists for grade 2. Weeks 9-11.

Main Lesson

Week 1 - Two Thornton Burgess stories about Buster Bear and Joe Otter. One day on parts of speech (nouns and verbs).

Week 2 - Story of St. Martin. Retell and summarize with nouns and verbs highlighted, write out a St. Martin verse for practice

Week 3 - More Buster Bear and Joe Otter stories, one day on parts of speech and another verse for writing practice.

Week 4 - Mostly break for Thanksgiving, but hopefully some Math lessons/practice. We'll see.

All Main Lessons are accompanied by an art lesson, either painting, block crayon drawing, or beeswax modeling.

Service

Week 1 - None, because of Halloween on Monday throwing off our groove.

Week 2 - Tie a blanket and give it away.

Week 3 - Donate to the Food Bank

Week 4 - none

On Celebrating Martinmas

During the week of Martinmas, we'll be making these wet felted lanterns. I would also like to have some friends over to make lanterns with tissue paper and mason jars, eat a yummy fall stew, and go on a lantern walk after dark. To do this, you just light your lantern, go outside and walk around your neighborhood and sing songs about fall and the coming winter, darkness and light. This is also probably when we'll tie blankets to give away.

September Plans for Grade 2

I'm so excited about our upcoming school year. All my lesson plans are created using the curriculum found at waldorfessentials.com through the Thinking, Feeling, Willing program plus some other books and resources from around the internet that I'll make note of as we go along. If you have any questions or want to share, feel free!


Circle Time

Gathering Poem

Pledge of Allegiance

Thirty Days Hath September

We’ve ploughed our fields

We’ve sown our seed

We’ve made all neat and gay.

                Then take a bit, and leave a bit

                Away, birds, away.

-A Journey through Time in Verse and Rhyme

Michaelmas Song from Jodie Mesler's "Autumn Songs."

Class One Song from A Journey through Time in Verse and Rhyme

       This is a really fun poem with four or five stanzas about different animals getting ready for autumn. I plan on having the kids memorize it and then put it on as a short play. We'll rehearse it and take turns pretending to be the animals and finding costumes and everything during Circle Time.

Spanish

For Spanish this year we are going to focus on a different Spanish speaking country each month. We'll learn about a holiday there, a game, a song, and make a recipe from that country. This month's country is Puerto Rico. My kids take a weekly Spanish class and do some online Spanish work starting in second grade, but I design these lessons to introduce them to culture and try to build vocabulary even though I don't speak much Spanish myself.

The way I do this is by telling a story every day about Ernesto the gnome. Every day, he wakes up and says 'hola' to his perro, gato, and pez. (Have the kids say hola perro. hola gato. hola pez, along with you.) Then Ernesto opens the window (abre la ventana) and looks outside and says, "Que tiempo hace hoy?" (what is the weather?) Have the children tell you in Spanish what the weather is like outside. (We learned weather terms last year.) Ernesto decides to go visit his friend Gabriela. I won't give you a line by line layout of how this will go. But Gabriela is from Puerto Rico and she has dos hermanitos (two little brothers) who need to go to sleep (dormir). So Gabriela teaches Ernesto a game outside.

Game - Cheki Morena  http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=3760

Then Gabriela tells Ernesto all about a holiday coming up Grito de Lares. (There's lots of info about this online, do some research and decide how much to tell your kids. But it's basically Puerto Rican independence day.)

Then they sing a fun song.  "Brinca la Tablita." http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=3217

Have the children learn the following words in Spanish by giving reasons why Gabiela and Ernesto have to sing this song all these different ways and have the kids sing the song these ways.

Yell = grito

Whisper = susurro

Talk = hablar

Sing = canta

Whistle = silbar

Hum = tararear

Recipe: tortilla de gueneitos.  http://www.elboricua.com/Tortilla_de_guineitos.html

Handwork

Learning to purl. Make a dishcloth with just purl stitch.

Music

Lessons 1 and 2 on recorder from Jodie Mesler's "Living Music From the Heart vol. 2"

Main Lesson

This month our Main Lessons will be focusing on Saints Stories.

St. Francis

St. Jerome

St. Christopher

St. George

St. Michael

We are going to try to do a weekly act of service based on the stories of these saints.

Week 1 - St. Francis - make a hummingbird feeder

Week 2 - St. Christopher - clean up a stretch of the local creek

Week 3 - St. George - donate to the women's shelter

Week 4 - St. Michael - make cookies for firefighters

All lessons are accompanied by painting, drawing, or modeling from the story and summarizing in a Main Lesson Book.

Math

We will keep up on our math facts by practicing addition and subtraction on our walks and playing the several math games I purchased this summer.

Science

This year we will focus on marine biology. This month will be fish. I'd like to go to the aquarium, buy a goldfish and observe it, and read books about fish (both fiction and non fiction.)

Spelling

We will again be using the weekly spelling lists from k12reader.com http://www.k12reader.com/second-grade-spelling-words/