Nature Table

So I decided to finally establish our nature table.

I was inspired by the story about nature images in children's literature, and by a visit to our local private Waldorf school, which also sells delicious little gems and visual treats for adding interest. The pre-pre-k classroom we visited of course had a beautiful nature table.

Bubbles? Puddles? Gazing stones?

Starboy and I went foraging for nature in the yard to get the table started. The wind has been blowing, and Starboy noted that "The nature is cold today."

We don't have much growing in our yard, except for weeds and those kinds of plants that miraculously survive despite months of neglect, even in the shade.

I'm pretty sure this one is a weed.

Our nature table is a giant cutting board from HomeGoods (TJ Maxx), covered with a handmade playsilk (last year's eighth grade fundraiser at the Waldorf school's faire). I couldn't find a tray with short sides that I liked, and we didn't really have one to set aside, so the cutting board seemed like an inexpensive way to go. Our house is small and we may need to move the table around, so it seemed like a good idea to make it portable. Also If we put it away for a while, at least we can use the board to carve a Thanksgiving turkey or something. Or an enormous amount of vegetables.

I wanted Starboy to participate and feel like the table is for him. We added on Starboy's pond with fish to the side, and a duck swimming in it (the duck actually is basked in autumn sunlight, but we're not going to worry about that detail, especially since it looks like a unicorn shot with golden arrows anyway). They both seemed kind of spring-y, and it gives the little frogs a place to play.

So far it's not that impressive looking, overall, but as a process it's a great experience for him, and a creative outlet for me. I'd love to have some more trees, and I plan to work on some felt plants and birds. A work in progress.

The only challenge has been keeping the cars out of the nature table. Starboy tends to test things out by running cars through them. He's having a hard time understanding that cars aren't a part of nature—especially since we drive them through the pines to our campsites and park them there.

Song of the Snowdrop Fairy

We've been reading seasonal fairy stories to calm down at bedtime and fight the cortisol surge when we miss the time target (which apparently is 6:30 pm. How we are supposed to manage that, I don't know.). Starboy likes reading with the headlamp.

After just a couple of days of this, Starboy opened the book and said in a careful, tiny voice,

"Deep sleeps the winter!

Spring is far away...

Fair maids of February

Stand in the snow."

Another favorite is the Spindleberry Fairy, with her red berries, but he has not learned her song yet.

Nature Images on Your Bookshelf

The New York Times recently commented on a study of Caldecott books that featured a natural setting or wild animals. KJ Dell'Antonia writes:

"What they found probably doesn’t surprise any parent or child for whom the world of “Blueberries for Sal” is completely alien: where once children’s books offered essentially equal illustrative doses of built and natural environments, natural environments 'have all but disappeared' in the last two decades."

Take a look at your own bookshelves—what images are you offering your children? It's an interesting thing to think about, isn't it. Starboy's favorite books feature trains and cars. He loves to read a model airplane magazine. Although I'm glad to say that new interests include a tomten who guards a farm, a hedgehog and a knit hat, and flower fairies.

I would guess that maybe 40 percent of our current shelf features strong nature images, but some of those also have buildings and "development." And do we read those books 40-50 percent of the time? Sometimes yes—sometimes no.

I do look for books with beautiful illustrations, preferably those created by hand, rather than computer. They are getting harder and harder to find. Nikki McClure's "Mama, Is it Summer Yet?" uses a beautiful scherenschnitte technique, but those bold paper cuts are scanned and color is added digitally.

I think it's important to balance kids' reading experiences with what they are interested in, what is familiar, and what they need to see and learn about – or, in the case of fairies and tomten, just wonder about. Are we, as a society, limiting our children's reading experiences only to the familiar? Or is that just a symptom of urban sprawl overall? How has the decrease in family farming as a lifestyle contributed to what we see and imagine in stories?

Families that embrace Waldorf philosophies at home often host a seasonal Nature Table, to bring the outdoors inside. To some extent this seemed silly to me: We have plenty of the outdoors outdoors, why should we have it indoors as well? Ah, to keep in touch. To feel its texture. To remember the sweet scents. To be inspired by life's rhythms and cycles.

And so it should be with reading. Or we will sterilize ourselves with the unmindful wandering that obligations and "progress" enticingly encourage.

Can you recommend books that your family enjoys, whose stories touch on nature?

Felted dryer balls

Well, don't these look fun? You throw them in the dryer and they cut drying time and static. And add a fresh scent, if you load them with a few drops of essential oil. Super easy project.

Some people wind a ball of 100% wool yarn, then cover it with roving. I just used the roving. You have to fluff it up first, or the fibers won't grab as well.

I wound it into a ball, not too loose and not too tight. I think I would like it a little tighter, but that would use more roving.

I chose pinks and purples because most of them will be gifts. So much of the roving won't be seen inside the ball, I wonder if it would have been cheaper to use white in the center (or some other color that was on sale).

Each ball needed to be tied inside pantyhose so it would stay together in the washing machine. These balls are about the size of a softball, so they will end up about the size of a baseball. The hose are knee-hi's from the drugstore (69c per pair)—they won't be re-used, so I got the cheapest ones I could find. The balls are actually more fluffy before the washing, but these have been washed already.

I threw them in a regular load of towels, hot wash / cold rinse. Then into the dryer with the towels. I knew I had a good felt because the hose had to be peeled off the ball.

Static-free laundry, here we come. It's important to remember to clean the lint trap when using the balls, to avoid a fire hazard.

Car eggs

Every morning Starboy and I have the same conversation:

Starboy: "I want some Os. I want some Os wit milt."

I haven't mentioned this before, but Techman's side of the family runs a pretty serious cereal gene. It's a breakfast, it's a dinner, it's a dessert topping, it's a floor wax. They love their cereal. Starboy has been afflicted as well.

Mommy: "We can't have milk right now, with your snotty nose. How about some eggs?"

Starboy: Lets out wail, drops to knees, pounds floor, starts to cry.

Mommy: "Oh, you wanted some Os. That's disappointing, isn't it. Let's see what we can do. Let's have some eggs first and then some Os."

I always hope this will work. Usually he's so hungry that it does. Not always. Today I kicked it up a notch.

Mommy: "Would you like some car eggs?"

He perked up.

I mixed the usual concoction: one egg, basil, dill, salt, and as much spinach as I can fit in the egg and pass off as "seasoning."

I buttered the car cookie cutter, and poured the egg mixture in the buttered pan while holding it down on the pan.

Starboy climbed up into his tower to supervise.

A good portion of the egg snuck out the bottom. I tried to scrape it away while it was cooking, then I trimmed the rest with kitchen shears at the end. The scraps were presented as the "road."

Starboy ate the road then asked for the car to be cut up so he could eat it. I felt badly about doing it, though, and offered that, since it was a car, he could pick it up and eat it like a cookie.

He gobbled it.

Then asked for Os. "With no milt."

And toast. With jam.

And juice.

And more Os.

And then a third serving of Os. Growth spurt, much?

Delicious and Sturdy Garlic Rolls

These are my favorite rolls.

They are from the Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen. I swear she had a tutorial. With real photos from a camera that allows lensing and actual depth of field. And maybe color-corrected lighting. But I can't find it. And God help you to try and get in and out of that site with a singular mission; it's almost as bad as Pinterest, with the options for wandering. So you're on your own, with this outline.

Maybe print the recipe out, first. So you can follow along. Or bring it up on your iPad so you can hold it next to your laptop while you contemplate your family's Waldorf simplicity, mixing quickly with the mixer rather than kneading by hand, which would cause issues with the pinching, scrolling and tracking.

'Cuz you're crunchy. That's why you read this blog. And maybe drink Coke.

Oh wait, that's me.

First, you should know, that recipe makes enough bread to feed an entire fire station. Actually, it makes twice that much, because I usually half the recipe and that's the amount we took down to our local station for their Thanksgiving dinner last fall. That's a serious amount of garlic goodness.

You can save the dough in the fridge all week, and make fresh rolls each night. But my 4 1/2 qt. stand mixer can't handle the whole recipe. (Note: Are you registering for a wedding? Replacing your old model? Get the 6 qt mixer. ) So I make half the recipe and bake it all. These rolls are sturdy. They'll last most of the week. If you can.

Also, I try to put a little whole wheat flour in the mix, so the bread is not total junk food. I've experimented with this, and I've found that the recipe can bear about 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour to 5 cups AP flour without getting gummy. I realize this isn't a health improvement so much as it's a rationalization. But we do what we can.

The dough will be shaggy when mixed. Make sure you take a spatula and turn the dough entirely upside-down in the bowl to get all of the dried flour off the bottom. Unincorporated flour makes nasty nubbies in the finished bread.

My ancient house is drafty and I have no counter space, so usually I turn the oven on for a couple of minutes, then turn it off, and then I let the dough rise in the oven. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a lid, or else the top will get all dried and crunchy and that does not make for nice bread. Trust me on that one. I've tried it both ways and the crusty top adds up to Bubble Roll Fail.

While the dough is rising, make the butter mixture. For the "seasonings," I use about 1/2 tsp. each of dried basil and oregano (remember this is for half the recipe, 6 1/2 cups of flour). I usually use salted butter, so I don't add the kosher salt. I also use 1/2 tsp. dried garlic, which is double the amount suggested. And, because this is what makes it the best. bread. ever., I add 1-2 tsp. chopped rosemary (fresh or dried).

Starboy is starting the butter here, but I forgot to make the beauty shot of the sauce.

After rising for two hours, the dough will smell yeasty, look springy and seem a bit alive. Remember the Valentine's Doughnut Fiasco? The problem was that dough didn't look anything like this.

Grab hunks and form golf balls.

Fill the pan with the dough balls that have been dipped in the butter mixture. If your balls are small enough, you might need a second baking dish (I use a glass pie pan). Dump the rest of the mixture on top, then sprinkle fresh parmesan on top before baking.

These are great with dinner, but they also are a fantastic snack sliced very thin, spread with peanut butter. They are not, as they say, a low-calorie food.

Here's the recipe again from The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen: Garlic Butter Crusty Bubble Bread.

Better Butter Battle - By Machine

This could be a stick of butter. But not yet.

It just takes shaking and agitation. And shaking. And shaking. And shaking. And shaking....And shaking. And shaking. Supposedly for 15 minutes. Or not. I shook some more. And more. Aaaand...a little more. More. And, more.

Here is minute 22.

small felted balls

I wanted to experiment making some small felted balls. This would be a trial run for making larger dryer balls for the Bounce-loving Techman, and as gifts.

I started with some roving. You have to really fluff it out to get a lot of fibers available to grab each other during the shock of felting. It is important to pull the roving apart rather than cutting it. Cutting it will cause cracks later.

I rolled the roving loosely into a ball, then filled a small, reusable leftover container with about half a drop of dish soap and a couple of teaspoons of water. After experimenting a bit, you'll see how much water works.

Shake-a, shake-a, shake-a. This is supposed to be all you need to do.

However, ALL of my balls got some sort of crack. Even when I didn't cut the roving. I found that if you stuff a small, thin layer of new roving in the crack, then wrap it around the ball using a little water as "glue," you can heal the crack pretty well.

Aaaaaand, shake.

It worked! These balls were really cute and Starboy loves to play with them. Mine turned out light and fluffy. I have seen others that are more smooth and dense. I wonder if this is because the roving initially was wound much more tightly? I will have to experiment.

If you make a number of these, you can string them together with needle and thread to make a great garland.

Painting outside the box

We joined several other families at a playdate on Saturday for a Waldorf charter school that is forming on our side of town. We are very excited at the possibility of Starboy exploring the world through Waldorf eyes at school. Starboy chose to use the natural pigment paints on the boxes, as well as colored masking tape. He had a chance to see the paint resist the tape, and soak into the lines of the cardboard.

Planes, trains, automobiles and ... the blimp

Starboy thinks you can see the Goodyear Blimp at pretty much any time. And—he sort of does. The airfield is about a half hour south of downtown, and we must see the blimp once or twice a month. He actually recognizes the sound and can differentiate it from all other aircraft. ("No, Starboy, I don't think that sound is the blimp, that must be—Oh. You're right! Look, the blimp!")

So today's trip to the farmer's market, where the blimp swam overhead like a daydreaming goldfish, felt just right.

Watercolor playdate

Mary Jane came over for a play date last week. She loves art, so I try to offer an art or craft project when she comes.

The kids used liquid watercolors on wet watercolor paper, with cutouts of butterflies to stick on. Wet-on-wet watercolor painting is a traditional Waldorf activity. And we have learned to use tissue paper shapes in Miss Molly's classes (I put a little glue in the paint so they would stick when the paint dries, but some of the butterflies tried to fly away and had to be re-glued on.). But I admit, since I hadn't planned ahead, the butterflies, and pretty much the whole setup, we first saw in Miss Molly's class.

Bleeding tissue paper, Miss Molly says, adds an additional level of interest to the child's work and to the finished artwork. Then I gave the kids some salt so they could experiment with what it would do. Starboy put all of his salt in the same place on his work. (The grid lines are from using a milk crate as a drying rack. Note to self: clear off outdoor art table so we can use it as a drying rack.)

Then I brought out the bingo markers. Neither of them had ever seen one. They figured out what to do right away.

I had no idea the markers were going to splat like crazy. I thought they would make dots, like Do-a-Dot markers. When they figured out there was a splat factor, they experimented with how big of a splat they could make. Luckily the watercolors are washable, and the wall that Techman painted was easily cleaned while the watercolor splashes were wet. There are still splat marks on the floor (and the clean laundry I hadn't put away, that was five feet from the project. Note to self: finish chores.)

Mary Jane added salt to her bingo marker work, but Starboy was too busy splatting to add salt.

Wouldn't this make great handmade wrapping paper?

Technology double-standard

Teacher Tom takes the "limited technology" argument to another level, saying that even though Silicon Valley executives protect their children from technology in the earlier years, they have no problem schilling it to others. Read the full essay here.

More motor skills - sidewalk chalk

Starboy's latest thing is drawing roads on the front sidewalk with chalk. This requires a lot of input from Techman and me, and a lot of art direction. Starboy tells us where to put the roads, gas stations, railroad crossings, Home Depot, Yosemite park and more. We hop-to.

Starboy is learning to connect the roads with chalk lines of his own. He does a great job.

Sometimes he actually plays cars on the roads, but mostly it's about creating something outside.

Hands-on Learning the Waldorf Way

"Limiting technology" is a theme you'll see here at Mostly Granola. I love to veg out as much as anyone else, but I think there are more constructive things we can focus on, and I think for kids it doesn't have any place at all, when learning is so much more concrete through experiences and activities that include the senses.

A story in the Feb. 2, 2012 issue of the Monadnock (NH) Ledger-Transcript talks about how one Waldorf school offers experiential learning:

"Today, Waldorf schools continue to champion the integration of the senses. It’s not uncommon for students to draw their math lesson, or sing their French conjugations. And though the model has been around for almost a century, it’s beginning to gain attention for its tendency to eschew technological innovations for educational approaches that may seem old-fashioned....

(snipped)

"Awareness of the self is another underpinning of the Waldorf curriculum, and students’ are encouraged to focus. Most notably, Pine Hill classrooms are completely devoid of technology — no computers, no smart boards, no speakers, no cell phones. Pine Hill parents are encouraged to minimize their children’s screen time at home, too."

Check out the whole story here.

Counting and 1:1 correspondence

Starboy has been working on counting this week, and on his 1:1 correspondence, another important math skill. He asked me to count the water bottles with him in a Tessy & Tab magazine. I brought out some glass beads so he could practice his 1:1 correspondence, and he quickly figured out he could color-match as well. (I made sure the beads were available in the same pattern as the picture. It looks like the pink bottles gave him something to think about, as he matched the clear beads to them last.)

He played with the setup for at least 15 minutes. And in case you were wondering, the total number of water bottles is "eleventeen."

Seeking Simplicity

Starboy and I applied to a preschool today. And nevermind that that kills me. We're just getting to know him, and now he's got to go off to school? Already?

I checked out the preschool last year, so this year wouldn't be a stressful push. It's a great school: Play-based, constructivist curriculum, co-op, great outdoor campus (these things are possible in Southern California), a fantastic mudpie kitchen, and outdoor sound garden (pots and pans to bang on), and chickens.

Are we the only ones in California without chickens?! I digress.

This school, which I'll call The Constructivist Co-op, is our second choice. We like another play-based school with a greener campus a little better, though it's a close competition. The other school is more specific and clear on its mission, while this one has more difficulty describing what it intends to do. The Constructivist Co-op nags at me a little: the yard is a lot of dirt and cement, and everything seems a little grungy. Which it should be, right, if kids are playing—but I feel like every week or so things should get hosed down so the kids can play with "new" toys sometimes. That's very Montessori, but it's a lovely thing for children to feel like some stuff is a new beautiful thing to explore. Of course there is much to be said about poking around in the dirt, as well.

So these things bother me, but I should be able to get around them, especially since maybe I don't have all the information, and so we applied anyway. And Starboy enjoyed playing in their playhouse, and massive sand pit, and mudpie kitchen, and play tent, while we visited. The facilities are great.

Some other moms and kids were there as well, some had come to play and others had never left after the school day. I overheard them talking about sleep training. Ugh. Sharing good iPhone apps. Ack. Nevermind that I was glared at when I answered my cell phone.

There is an extensive dress-up area, and a good half of it is princess dresses. Disney princess dresses. Gag!