Lovely Children's Books

We recently discovered children's books by Elsa Beskow and love them!  While I had seen her artwork before, I had never actually read one of her books until I began research in the Waldorf theories of education.  One of her most famous books is  The Story of the Root Children, which tells about the little flower "children" waking for another spring and sleeping in the autumn. Our favorite is  Peter In Blueberry Land, in which Peter has adventures while searching for blueberries and cranberries for his mother's birthday.  I think Aidan enjoys it especially because he had so much fun picking blueberries last month. I look forward to reading more of her magical, imaginative books to the boys and loosing ourselves in her artwork.

Shucking corn

On Fridays we tend to go to a nearby fruit/vegetable market where the boys enjoying picking out their favorite foods.  Yesterday, to Aidan's delight, we bought locally grown corn. This afternoon, I put the boys to work shucking.  When he pealed back the husk and silk to reveal the plump yellow corn, Aidan was thrilled to see the corn, in his words, "coming out."

After a few minutes, Shane grew frustrated at his struggle with the husk and began throwing his corn on the floor, but Aidan kept on and was even disappointed when there was no more corn to shuck.  

At dinner, Aidan quickly ate his corn with his hands.  Or as he says, "like a farmer!" (Shane just stared at his.)

Time to buy more corn...

    

Dancing with Wind Wands

One of my favorite books for creative Waldorf toys is Creative Play for Your Toddler.

Today we made Wind Wands. We didn't have cane to wind into a circle so I used 2.5" rings that we had from making ring slings. I pulled out my ribbon tub and the boys picked out the colors they wanted.

After I cut the ribbon at three feet, the boys were anxious to have the wands in hand so I quickly tied on the ribbons and the fun began.

They danced and danced! (to VeggieTales music, of course)