Tag: waldorf

Advent Week 1 :: The Light of Stones

This post is a part of our Tiny Advent series. All of the posts are housed over on this page for your convenience. We hope you follow along and enjoy the series. Come on over and share your photos on our Facebook page and tweet about it with #tinyadvent @tinypeasant. Thanks!

Welcome! Each week’s post contains the following:

// Family Discussion Points // Poster // Memory Verse // Centerpiece Decorating
// Crafts // Gift, Acvitity & Act of Kindness Ideas

To see our advent calendar tutorial and download our gift/experience/acts of kindness lists, head over here.

THE FIRST LIGHT OF ADVENT

The first light of Advent is the light of stone– Stones that live in crystals, seashells, and bones.

DISCUSSION

As we light the first candle on our Advent centrepiece, we will think of the light of stones. What light does this, the mineral kingdom, offer up? How might the stones and crystals have participated in the journey of a father and mother with child?

Brainstorm with your family. Some things we thought up:

// They would have been the very foundation the couple walked upon.

// Provided shelter to the weary travelers in the form of a cave.

// Provided nourishment in the form of minerals like those found in salt.

POSTER

Print out this free 8.5 x 11 First Light of Advent Poster to rest on your mantle, piano, or hang on your wall, to remind you to think of these things this week. There are three more to add to your display over the coming weeks.

MEMORY VERSE

Those who wish to add on some verses, you can download and print our Memory Verse Cards. Each week has one simple verse related to the week’s light. The verses were picked by the lovely Heather of heatherboersma.com, who is offering her own amazing Advent series for grown-ups called We Will Wait.

Just cut out the cards, and work on the Week 1: Light of Stones card.

CRAFTS, GIFTS & ACTIVITIES

Below are some of the ways that we will be exploring the mineral kingdom in our home this week, in addition to some of the other Advent ideas mentioned in the first post in this series.

ADVENT CENTERPIECE

Settle into your weekly Advent rhythm with a mug of something warm while you work on your Advent centerpiece. You might like to try our recipe for Nourishing Hot Cocoa. We decorate our centerpiece, from our lovely friend Krista of Birch & Brush, with seashells and stones in this first week.

ADVENT CRAFT – STONES/MINERALS

1. Mineral Crystals using simple household items. These make a beautiful seasonal decoration for your wall, window, or tree. Get the full how-to here.

2. Felted Stones using found stones and wool roving. This is a lovely sensory activity with warm water, bubbles, and fibre. The stones can be paper weights, or decorations. Get the how-to here.

3. Painted Shells & Stones – a super simple activity with few materials and little prep!

ADVENT WEEK 1: GIFTS & ACTS of KINDNESS

These are the items that are in our sock advent calendar – so some items such as the first three will actually be in the socks. The others will be little notes that might lead the kids to find the supplies for the craft, or just telling them what we’ll be making for that day.

Gifts

1. Stones – set some aside for crafting and use others to fill about 2-4″ in a glass hurricane vase or glass bowl for an activity in week 2.

2. Seashells

3. Bone – found artifacts or jewelry made from found items such as sheds or teeth

4. Mineral bath salts – set these aside for next week when you can add herbs to make a beautiful gift!

Acts of Kindness

1. Volunteer at or donate to a shelter.

2. Donate nourishing sea salt to a local food bank.

3. Offer to shovel & salt the sidewalk of a neighbour.

Please share your “the light of stone” kindness ideas on Instagram (tag @cityfolkfarm and #tinyadvent) or our Facebook page, or share in the comments below. Thank you!

Bonus:

Watch an Andy Goldsworthy video in which he uses stones to create beautiful works of art. Head outside and create your own stone art, as you think or pray about Advent. Note that Rivers and Tides features not only stone, but also plants and animals, so I recommend showing just the parts that fit with each week of Advent. Definitely watch it as a whole as well, though. Truly a beautiful film that has been a family favourite for years.

This post is shared as a part of Simple Lives Thursday.

Originally published December 2, 2013.

November 25, 2014
Tiny Advent // Sock Calendar + 25 Gifts

This post is a part of our Tiny Advent series. All of the posts are housed on this page for your convenience. We hope you follow along and enjoy the series.

The Make:

We have made this calendar our family tradition for a few years now. We get new socks for each family member, and make a pattern: one sock for each family member; repeat. Each day the person who fits the sock, takes it down from the calendar, and finds what is inside. It might be a note with an activity to do together, an act of kindness, or a small gift. We often include a Bible verse with a tiny gift that is related to what we read. At the end of Advent, everyone has a couple new sets of socks, so this is a fun and practical investment!

What you’ll need:

/ Socks

/ String or twine

/ Circle stickers in the colour of your choice to mark the days

/ Sharpie to write the numbers on the stickers

/ Clothes Pins

The How:

/ Lay your string or twine out on the floor.

/ Create a pattern with your sets of socks, and attach them to the string with the clothes pins.

/ Add your numbered circle stickers to the clothes pins

/ Hang your sock calendar

What to fill all those socks (or paper bags, boxes, pockets, etc.) with?

25 Gifts:

To make this project extra easy on busy mamas, I made a list of 25 gift ideas, in checklist form. Just print off the list and collect the items. Follow, adapt, or scrap in favour of what you know will work best with your little ones and how you approach Advent in your home. Download your printable copy here.

4 Lights Gifts:

A slight adaptation of the previous list, this list is divided into the four weeks based on the light of stones, plants, animals, and humankind. If you’re following along with the weekly posts, this might be a really great option for you! Download your printable copy here.

Gifts from the Shop:

Birdwatching Checklist – FREE

Children’s Crafting Kits

This post was shared as a part of Thank Goodness It’s Monday, Simply Natural Saturdays, Mama Moments, and Montessori Monday.

November 21, 2014
Advent Week 1 Activity :: Felted Stones
A great sensory activity to do as part of Advent Week 1 :: The Light of Stones and the whole Tiny Advent series.

Materials
- smooth stones
- wool roving in desired colours
- sewing thread in same colours as roving (optional)
- large bowl or pot
- warm water
- natural dish soap
- nylons/pantyhose
Instructions:

1. Wrap stone in roving.

2. Optional: Hold roving in place by wrapping thread around it in many directions and tie.

3. If you used the thread, add a final layer of roving to cover it.

4. Place the stone with roving in a piece of pantyhose, tying both ends carefully so as not to catch any roving in the knot.

5. Dip the package in the warm, soapy water and give it a squeeze, repeating a few times. Then gently rub it on your hand on all sides for about 10 minutes. When the felt starts to feel less squishy and loose, you can open one end and check on it. Once it is almost ready, you can take it out of the nylon and rub some more.

6. Use as a decoration or a paper weight.

We also did some rocks and minerals learning to go along with this week of advent. We watched a Brain Pop video, as well as some you tube videos about rocks and minerals in the home. The kids collected some items from around the house and had a great time. I’d like to have an actual rock set with the scratch test and a basket of books on rocks and minerals, to go along with our activities for the first week of advent.

This post was shared as a part of Simply Natural Saturdays.
December 5, 2013
nurturing young artists: art supplies part one

I’ve always been drawn to quality goods. Does anyone else inevitably pick out the most expensive item when shopping? At times that high price tag doesn’t actually equate to high quality, but our family has learned that investing in quality items is a good method of stewardship over the long haul. We can apply this to nurturing a love for art in our children through purchasing select, quality art supplies.

Why spend the extra money on art supplies for kids? Often as adults we are very product oriented. Our kids, however, are thankfully more process oriented, and working with quality materials allows them to enjoy that process more – it allows them a richer sensory experience, and it doesn’t hurt the product either. On the contrary, artwork will be more pleasing to the eye when created with nice materials, and your kids will notice the difference.

Below are a few of our tried and true art supplies. We keep them within reach so that the kids don’t have to request or schedule in art time, but can grab materials when they feel inspired.

Rock Crayons, by Clementine Art

These fun crayons, made of natural ingredients, are cheerful and inviting to children, and striking on paper. They’re also fairly affordable – a great birthday gift for a little (or big) friend.

Lyra Pencil Crayons

A staple in our home for years, Lyra makes the bees knees of pencil crayons! Ours are going on strong at about four years now. These pencil crayons are not only work horses that won’t break like regular pencil crayons, but go on the paper velvety smooth in such a delightful way. Kids love the feel of colouring with them, and the triangular shape makes them super easy for tiny hands to hold.

We keep ours in a pencil roll that I made a long time ago, which makes them easy to grab and go for outings and art sessions in the backyard or car. I dare say that these pencil crayons have been on more adventures than many people, including trips across and out of country!

Lyra also makes a wonderful set of skin tone pencil crayons. After years of cringing when the kids asked for a “skin-colour” pencil crayon, I was overjoyed to find this set in a lovely toy store in Berkeley. Now my kids are exploring a diversity of skin tones, as well as practicing shading on faces.

Wooden Marker Stand

For quite a while as a new parent, I fought against markers. I loved our natural art supplies and just didn’t think that Crayola markers fit. Maybe I thought that if the kids had access to these bright, cool, markers, they’d abandon the finer supplies we have, and not look back.

How wrong I was. We found this awesome wooden marker stand, filled it with these smaller crayola markers, and because of this nifty organizer, we’ve managed to only purchase new markers when they run out, rather than when they get lost. The kids are truly thoughtful and selective in their choice between marker, pencil crayon, paint or crayon, depending on the project at hand. I guess this is all to say, while I love providing high quality supplies, there is a place for mainstream materials like good old Crayola markers. Especially if you can find or make a handy marker stand.

Please note: All links leading to Amazon are through their affiliate program. I do receive a small amount of compensation for products purchased through my site, which I will gratefully use toward our homeschool supplies and expenses. I will only recommend products that we use in our own home and love, or hope to love in our home soon.

February 26, 2013