Serendipity Q & A

Hope wrote yesterday with several questions:

First of all, where did you find your nice, large blackboard?

I'm guessing it is Katherine's. I don't have a blackboard. Sorry:-).

Second question, what is the table top made of that the children are playing the Rainbow Gem Trading game on (it looks like little stickers)?
 
I bought the table unfinished at Ikea. I painted it and then I stenciled the top in a patchwork pattern. Honestly, I don't reccomend doing that. It's darling, but it's a little bumpy for writing and I admit to cringing now and then when stray crayon and pencil marks add their own charm.

Lastly, I have a far more complex question.  I have been printing out everything to put in a binder and I am having a real hard time figuring out where to begin and the order of things.  I can find lessons 3, 4 and 5, but when I printed out what looked like earlier info I ended up printing out several 20-30 page long documents some of which had a lot of info that overlapped and one of which looked like it went in backwards order. Since I am new to this I know the problem is me, but I was wondering if you could give me any lesson ordering tips for this.  There is so much great info there that I want to make sure not to miss anything.

This is a complex question. It's also a frequently asked question. Any time you click on an archive, you are going to see the most current post first. That means, the posts will be backwards in terms of how to present them. It's a very annoying way to have to read and to cut and paste. We know that and we're working on a great solution.  As we've expanded lessons and themes, the blog format has gotten unwieldy. Hang in there! Cindy is creating a webpage interface that will make it all much more streamlined.You'll be able to see the lessons listed in order and click on one lesson at a time.  She's away from her computer just now, helping a friend with a new baby, but we'll have a much more user-friendly format for you in the near future. For the math in particular, we've already begun breaking those long lessons into smaller chunks by topic. I think that will make it more intuitive. It's taking us some time but it will be easier to understand and easier to navigate.

This may be on your site somewhere, but I would also be interested to see a typical day for you as I am trying to figure out how waldorf (ish) homeschooling would work with a 5 year old and a 7 year old. 

I have some typical days from last year up at Faithful Over Little Things. I've been playing with some cool Mac features and plan to renew my journaling at Little Things and upload our daily lists, once we get around to settling into a school rhythm, but there are a few days there from last year. There are rough drafts of this year's days to download here.  Marisa has some days from last year at her notes blog. Paula has her days for this fall sketched out here. Colleen has planning thoughts here. Keep your eyes on the Serendipity-do-dah blogroll on the lefthand sidebar for other examples of Serendipitous days.

While I appreciate the beauty, the materials and some of the methods of Waldorf education, I am not a follower of Rudolf Steiner, his educational philosophy, or his religion. I am a practicing Catholic who is very clear in teaching the faith to her children. Please see this post for any further explanation of incorporating methods or materials that might also appear in Waldorf schools into your home. Take inspiration from what is good and what in in harmony with the true faith and leave the rest. If you can't discern, then leave it all alone.