Making Our Own Rhythm

I woke up this morning at 6:20 and did my usual morning thing. It wasn't as deep as I would have liked, because Max jumped out of bed the minute I walked out of the room, and prayer and scripture study are just a little bit harder to do with a four year old climbing all over you.

Then I got another surprise. I went to tell Max something and...I had no voice. I've been fighting garbage in my throat for a couple days, but today it became full blown laryngitis. Those of you who have been doing Waldorf for any amount of time know that this is a bit of a problem. Circle time, story telling, transition songs. Those weren't going to happen today. At least not for me.

On the bright side though, today was a great day to start my New Year's resolution to stop yelling.

Luckily for our rhythm, today is a special day for us. It may not sound very Waldorfy, but on Tuesdays we play board games!

When I first discovered Waldorf, it felt like a box that I had to make my family fit into. But after a while of trying to "bring Waldorf to my family," I realized that I was also bringing my family to Waldorf. And as a family, we like board games.

So, when I looked at people's weekly rhythm, they always had cooking day, bread day, sewing day, mending day, etc. Well...we have a board game day. And it's fantastic...until someone cries, which is pretty much inevitable.

So today, after morning chores (Actually made the kids do it today) we went on a walk, came home and played some board games. This part of our rhythm has gotten hard lately, though. Baby Tommy wants to be in the middle of everything! So playing games is shortened, because it generally results in a screaming baby. And it did again today. But that's okay. We did enough. Dad finished reading Magic Treehouse to the kids, and I gave myself grace.

Oh, and I didn't yell either. Go me!

Let's Play Four-Square!

For Four-Square you will need:

chalk
4 people
a nice size patch of concrete
a bouncy ball like a basketball or volleyball


1. Draw a large square about 6-feet wide and divide into four squares. Number the squares in clockwise order 1-4.
2. Each player stands in a square. The player in square 1 is the server. They start out the game by bouncing th ball once in their own square and then toward another person.
3. After that each player must bounce the ball towards another player. The ball must touch in the receiving players square and be returned to another player before it bounces a second time.
4. Continue play until the ball bounces a second time before being returned, or bounces out of bounds. The last person to touch a dead ball is "out". They move down to the number 4 square and everyone fills in behind them, moving up to the next available spot.
5. The point of the game is to make it up to the number 1 spot and stay there as long as possible. You can play as long as you want!

Let's Play Marbles!

Do you know how to play marbles? I bet your kids will love this forgotten game.

You will need:

chalk or string

marbles (make sure to have at least one "shooter" which is larger than the other marbles)

1. Draw a circle 2-3 feet wide using chalk or a string.

2. Set all marbles except shooters inside the circle.

3. Try to knock the marbles out of the circle using the larger "shooter" marble.

4. Try and hit the marbles inside the ring by kneeling outside the circle and flicking your marble out of your fist with your thumb.

5. If you hit a marble out of the circle, shoot again. If not, it is the next person's turn.

6. Continue play until all of the marble's have been knocked out of the circle.

7. Keep the marbles you knock out, the person with the most at the end is the winner!

You can play for "keepsies", which means you get to keep the marbles you win, but younger children might not enjoy that very much.

The Hat Game

This game is a lot of fun for young babies and toddlers. If you have a young baby put them in the center of the circle. Once they get a little older they can have fun putting on and taking off the hats as well.

Collect all the hats in your house (or at least a good number of them if you happen to collect hats)
Have everyone sit in a circle and put on a hat. Yell "Switch!", you can either pass the hats around the circle or all throw your hats in to the pile and grab another one.

That's it! I know it sounds simple, but young toddlers and babies love seeing their family members in different hats, especially silly ones!

Plate Dancing

Miss J learned this at her GG's house and has loved doing it ever since. It is a great way to get your kids moving when they can't go outside. I give each child two paper plates and then turn on some fun dancing music and we dance while doing fun patterns with the plates. It is a good way to do some structured exercise and teach movement and control. I dont know why the plates make a difference, but they definitely do!

Paper Cup Phones

Paper cup phones are a classic kids activity.
You will need

2 paper cups
two paperclips
inelastic string, thread, or fishing line
a pencil or sewing needle

Punch a hole into the bottom of each paper cup using the pencil or needle, thread your inelstic string through the hole in each cup (one cup on each end of the string) and secure to a paperclip inside the cup. This keeps the string from falling out of the cup. To use draw the string taut. One person speaks into the cup the other person put their ear to the cup and listens. Instant fun!

Do you have older kids who want to understand the science behind this?

Sound travels as a wave. Though technically not the same kind of waves, you can illustrate the idea of waves travelling through a medium with water ripples or by taking a jump rope and having one person hold still at the end while you make a wave travel from one end to the other by jiggling the handle. ***Technically, a sound wave is a compression wave (water ripples are circular waves, and jump rope waves are longitudinal waves). A compression wave can be illustrated using a slinky stretched out across the floor, shove one end back and forth and watch the compression move from one end to the other.***

A sound wave has to travel through something because sound is a vibration and has to pass from particle to particle. This is why there is no sound in space (contrary to sci-fi shows) Sound can not travel in outer space because there is no air, there is nothing but empty space, so the sound doesn't go anywhere.

Sound can travel well enough through air, but it travels even better along a solid. This is why you can whisper into a cup phone and the sound will be heard at a greater distance away than possible without the phones. When you speak into the cup, the bottom of the cup vibrates with the sound, these vibrations (or sound waves if you like) are then passed on to the string which vibrates (if held taut) all the way to the other cup. The string passes the vibration off to the bottom of the cup which then vibrates the same way the first cup did, thus transmitting the sound from one person to another.

Once again, in order for this to work the string must be pulled tight and really shouldn't be touching anything other than the cups.

See, science can be fun!

Want to turn it into an experiment? Try different kinds of thread or string, some elastic, some inelastic. Which transmit the sound the best? Hold the string limp and then tight, which works best? Try tying another cup phone onto the string, does it work?

Artsy Pizza

A child's experience with food can be just as important as the actual eating of the food. Make a child's first experience with a certain food a good one and they are more likely to eat it. I think it is especially important to get your kids involved in the kitchen. When kids know where food comes from, what goes into preparing it, etc, they are more likely to take pride in their food and hopefully eat a little healthier!

Now Pizza isn't something that most kids turn their nose up at...but vegetables can be another story! However, Pizza can be the perfect vehicle for getting some fruits and vegetables into your picky eaters tummy!

Now you can make this as simple as you want, or really play it up and turn your kitchen into a pizzeria complete with dough tossing, red checker tablecloth, menus, use your imagination!

Think of as many toppings as you can (healthy ones preferably), try and get as many different colors on your table as possible. Here are some ideas.

White sauce (Alfredo) Really make it artsy and put paintbrushes in the sauce

Red Sauce (tomato)

tomato chunks

pineapple

mushroom

pepperoni/bacon/sausage/chicken/or make it a meatless meal!

cheese (white and yellow)

peppers, get one in every color!

red onions

olives

Spinach*

Broccoli*

cauliflower*

peas*

corn*

carrots*

* You may want to steam these before putting them on a pizza

For the crust I like to use premade Pillsbury stuff or Rhode's rolls, but if you want to make your own more power to ya! I also like to bake my dough for about half the suggested time before putting toppings on them, it keeps them crunchier.

Now give each kid their "canvas". Tell them to use the ingredients on the table to make a work of art (word it however you want). Sit around the table and talk about what each of you are making. Family dinners are about more than just shoveling food into our mouths. Have a conversation!

Stick the pizzas on a cookie sheet, put it in the oven and bake!

Will this be messy? Yes! Will it be fun? Yes!

Bon Appetit!

Wishing Tree

This is an activity for older children who can write, or at least dictate to you what they want to write. I got this idea out of a parenting magazine and have always wanted to try it. They called it art, I don't know about that, but it still seemed fun.

Turn a tree in your yard into a wish tree. Put up a sign that reads "Wish Tree" and some directions of what to do. Somewhere by the tree and sign put a container with your "supplies". All you need is some scrap paper, a writing utensil and string. The idea is for people to write down a wish and hang it in the tree. You probably want your family to write down some wishes and hang them in the tree first so that people get the idea.

This would also work really well as a Thankful Tree, Why I Love America Tree, etc. depending on the time of year and what you want your family to think about.

Don't have a tree you can use? You can draw one and hang it somewhere inside your house, or use some sort of necklace hanger, or even bring a few branches of a tree inside your house and set them up. Have fun seeing what your kids or neighbors are wishing for!