Nursery Days at Little Acorn Learning

I haven't posted in a long time. The last few months have been very busy and have come with extra work, some personal challenges and I've needed to focus on home and myself. It's my favorite season of the year and I haven't had a good chance to slow down and really appreciate the beginning of autumn the way I would like. It's a time of change and refocusing for me. It seems September always is - right around Michaelmas time. In Waldorf Education, this time of year is a time for us to face our dragons and a time of new growth... I've noticed it to always hold true for me. I've worked hard to focus on rebuilding my work with children and have begun advertising to fill up my little in-home nursery school.  My next goal is to carve out time to continue my love of writing and promoting my e-books.

I am running a Waldorf Friends class and we have been having a great time together enjoying the rabbit, chickens, outdoor play and crafts.

This particular week we began talking about weather and learned about the sun.  We sang songs, made sun art, talked about the color yellow and circles and read stories about the sun.

The children worked to warm up their beeswax and we made little suns together to take home.

 

My hope is to continue to grow my little school and eventually employee staff (and maybe one day move it out of the lower level of my home), while also building upon my writing and curriculum e-books. It's a lot to do but I'm passionate about both areas of working with children so I hope eventually I can create what I envision with a team of others helping me.  For now, it's a modest start toward a bigger dream.

For those of you who live near Brookfield, Connecticut, I am in the process of interviewing to fill our little classes and eventually part-time and full-time nursery school positions.  More info here:

http://littleacornlearning.com/childcare-and-nursery-school-in-brookfield-ct/

Little Classes in My Home and Our Backyard Farm

Last week began a series of little classes I am offering in my old daycare space to children in town and in my neighborhood.  Nature Detectives is VERY full and each week we focus on a new subject of learning about nature.  Last week was The Sun and Sundials to celebrate the Summer Solstice. It was so nice to have neighborhood children walking to my house and friends of mine dropping off their children to spend the morning learning with us.

 We made pretty woven suns in miniature format from the tutorial in our Midsummer Festival E-Book (by the way, there is a SALE right now for only two more days!)

We also played fun nature games and made pocket sundials.

 The class is so big I employed my teenager to help as well as my friend who does the outdoor programs with me through Park and Rec.  It is so nice to have such a big response so soon... but it was also a lot of prepping and difficult to find enough activities to keep the children engaged for the full two hours.

 We also made simple paper plate sundials and tested them outdoors.  

My little Nature Detectives!  It's so funny how big my own daughters are compared to these children now. They are still willing participants in all of my classes but it's pretty obvious they are growing up and away from our Little Acorn days. 

 I also held my first Learn to Crochet class with a small group of girls last week.

Crochet is NOT easy to teach but once they mastered how to hold the yarn and hook, they were able to learn the chain stitch and made a VERY long chain that we turned into necklaces and belts. 

Tomorrow is week two of both classes.  I worked hard tonight preparing in advance and hope it goes ok.  

I also have a Mommy and Me Learn to Crochet Class starting on Thursday night. That should be really fun.  

In between, I've been working in the garden a lot.  

The chicks are getting SO big and they LOVE it when I take them into the garden to free range.  I let the bunny out too and it's so cute to see them all in there together. 

I think I may have two roosters though. They are still too young to know for sure but their combs are huge compared to their same breed sister and it's pretty obvious there is a distinct difference in the way they look, their size and also the noise they make. We will have to see how it all works out but I won't be keeping roosters... so we may be down to only 6 chickens. I knew I should have gotten more! 

Learning Together in Nature

This little video says it all.. this is exactly why I love doing what I do so much.  It was taken the very last day of the Forest Preschool session and is such a beautiful memory for me to capture. 

 I love that the weather is warm and we can be outside so much again.  School is still in session until Thursday but the girls have been enjoying playing in the back woods, in the garden area and in our pool after school each day.  It makes striving for media-free more realistic in our home when the weather is nice like this.  Those very cold nasty winters are hard to handle sometimes.

  

One of the wonderful parts about running outdoor programs in town is that my own children get to come to work with me.  I take Maia and Bree to Nature Club on Saturdays with me and I love being able to share these outdoor learning moments together and still help provide for my family financially. 

 We did so many fun things together in both the forest preschool and nature club programs.  We learned about life cycles, went on fun scavenger hunts.. leaf hunts...

Played outside with new friends in the fresh air for hours...

Collected some bugs, climbed some trees... 

 Found some cool discoveries... 

Identified trees

  

by sorting and analyzing their leaves and looking up which species they came from.

It's been busy... and fun... and soon I will be starting new classes in my home such as Nature Detectives where we will make sundials, dissect owl pellets, learn about metamorphosis and create a weather watcher.  I also will be teaching a learning to crochet class and a waldorf friends class for smaller children.  

I'm excited about the great response to these programs in town and I'm also trying to keep my online writing active as well as the photo contests and newsletters for Little Acorn Learning and my e-book sales.  I've been working on my new website for over a year now but have not been able to put the hours into it that I need to launch.  It's busy but I've missed focusing on my work this way and as long as I can keep a good routine in place, I think I will be able to create some balance.