Waldorf and our family

Dailiness
I have found that my children sink more deeply into imaginative play when I am up and about tending to our home. When I am truly present to my daily tasks, I think I free them a bit to relax and just play. When I can find joy in some of the daily tasks of home, I provide them with a security that all is well. They relax and go about their own work of play. I tried to express this in Old Fashioned Play.

Morning
I have always been a morning person. I get up at least an hour before my girls. That's my time for sipping coffee and blogging. Porridge Sundaes is my daily morning breakfast offering. I like knowing that my girls are beginning their day with something warm.

Peace
Crafting brings our family peace. When I take the time from my day to pull out all the supplies for a project and sit down with the children, there is an incredible feeling of peacefulness that comes to us. There's almost a hum in the air--we're that connected and gathered. It's what I think of when I imagine the term Living Crafts.

Television
Television is not a part of our family. I have recently re-thought our reasons for not having television. The reasons have changed, but the decision has not! Television and Our Family

Play
I love it when my children engage in deep, creative play. Often the best play is when I am working alongside them in the house or garden. Old Fashioned Play describes my desire to create a space for play, not a script.

Secret Places
Our sad, unwanted tree house has finally become the children's after they made it their own. In When they've made it their own, I talk about the importance for children to have a secret place with which to root their childhood.

Wants and Needs
If they see it they will want it This is so true. In this post, I write about how much simpler our girls' Christmas wish lists are when they don't see all the catalogs.

Stories
Telling stories is a bit of a challenge for me. Last fall, Lou and I fell into several evenings of story-telling about The Little White Cottage. We both found ourselves a bit more centered and sleeping more deeply. Stories also helped Lou get over "her mountain" this past summer.



The titles of these topics are drawn from Katrina Kennison's Mitten Strings for God. I used this book as a way to organize my thoughts around how the Waldorf philosophy and our family life have connected.