Friday Book Review: The Flowers' Festival

First published in Sweden in 1914, "The Flowers' Festival" by Elsa Beskow was translated to English and published by Floris Books in 1991.

Ms. Beskow is immensely popular with Waldorf homeschoolers largely due to her focus on nature, *wholistic* writing style, and connection with the elementals. She is wildly imaginative and her gentle stories nourish our children's beings.

"The Flowers' Festival" is a sweet story about a little girl named Lisa, who lives with her grandmother in a cottage at the edge of a wood. The two are surrounded by a beautiful garden full of flowers, vegetables, and meadows. On the day of the Midsummer Dance, Grandmother leaves Lisa for a short time. Lisa gets to spend her midsummer with the many flowers she had planted while her grandmother tidied up their cottage.

Soon, Lisa notices that the flowers seem different somehow, almost as if they are trying to talk to her. She hears a sweet voice call her name, looks up, and meets the Midsummer Fairy who tells her about the party the flowers have on this special day and that they want Lisa to come, too! The Midsummer Fairy places poppy-juice onto Lisa's closed eyelids so that she becomes invisible (so as not to frighten the flowers).

The festival begins. The remainder of the book consists of meeting several lovely characters from all sorts of plant life - flowers, vegetables, even weeds. There is a bit of a scuffle between the flowers/vegetables and the weeds, until they work it all out. For the festival, they all gather round and tell sweet short stories, until they eventually fall asleep to the sound of a singing frog.

Lisa, too, falls asleep and her grandmother lovingly carries her into the cottage and that is the end!

This is a wonderful read to celebrate Midsummer! My girls particularly enjoyed the beautiful illustrations and the short stories told by the various birds, who were the storytellers.

Very sweet book - which also comes in a mini-edition (though I'm not sure if the text is the same or modified)! This review is for the full-size version of this classic book :D

Language Arts Block III: Lower Case Letters & Nature Stories

"Then the door of the cottage opened and to Lisa's surprise, all the house plants started cautiously coming down the steps, the two Miss Pelargoniums first, then plump little Mrs Myrtle, followed by grand Lady Fuchsia."

Lower case letters are introduced in either Grade 1 or Grade 2 in waldorf schools. It largely depends on the teacher and what was covered in the year/the progress of the students. Originally, I hadn't planned on "introducing" lower case letters until Sept of Grade 2, but to my amazement, the girls have picked them up organically through all the books we've read and sentences we have copied in our Main Lesson Books. So instead of doing our last LA Block on fairytales, I decided to take a page from Eric Fairman's Grade 1 book and combine lower case letters with a second Environmental Studies block using Nature Stories. We have had many, many fairytales and this is a wonderful opportunity to balance them out with more Nature Stories.

We decided to start with the lovely Elsa Beskow book, "The Flowers' Festival", in honor of spring and all the flowering plants. The book will be reviewed on Friday and is actually intended for Midsummer, so I thought it would be nice to review it early so that those who wish to get it from the library or bookstore have ample time :D

After snuggling on the couch to read the book together, we got out our lovely smelling modeling beeswax. When I visited the Steiner College Bookstore, I purchased some individual blocks by Stockmar (I think) and was impressed by how much softer they are than the Artimis brand by Mercurius. I would recommend seeking Stockmar out instead as little children get impatient waiting for them to soften. We stuck them under our arm pits and in no time we were ready and lovely flowers began to appear.

My expert modeler is Elena. She LOVES to work with her hands, always has and spends hours with Model Magic or any kind of modeling clay she can get her hands on. These are some of her flowers...

Tulip...


Two Tulips together...

A yellow rose...

Both girls engrossed in modeling...

And this was our final scene. Charley made the three multi-colored flowers on the left and Elena made the rest of them...we placed them on our seasonal table.

We continued with our next activity...

Wet-on-Wet Watercolor Painting...

Charley has a fascination with Mother Mary and has painted her on more than one occasion.

Our finished flower inspired paintings...

And little Jacky taking a snooze under his fleece baby blanket...

Still in our pajamas the next day - ah a benefit of homeschooling...

We decided to finish our PeeWee drawings for our seasonal book.

And today, we drew a spring picture from "The Flowers' Festival" in our special seasonal book that will be bound at the end of the summer.

I have chosen several stories to tell over the next couple of weeks and following Marsha Johnson's lead, I will introduce the lower case letters over the course of three days. Since the girls are already very comfortable and familiar with them, I didn't find it necessary to work as slowly as I did with the upper case letters and vowels.

Kristie Burns of Earthschooling has a lovely lower case letter alphabet book that her daughter illustrated, along the vein of the Waldorf Alphabet Book that we will also review together for fun! It is available here. I'll be using it later in this block and will talk more about it then :D

Blessings to you all!

Free Stories Today & Tomorrow - Wholesome Childhood

Today and tomorrow, Wholesome Childhood is offering some story collections published in 1907 from the "Junior Classics Library". These might be gems to pull for homeschooling your younger children.

Today's resource includes:

"Fairy Tales and Wonder Stories" (Tales of the American Indians, Tales of India, Tales of the Norseland, France, Spain, Poland, Russia, China & Japan, Fairy Tales and Aesop's Fables)

"Heroes and Heroines of Chivalry" (Tales of King Arthur, Tales of the Mabignonion, Tales of Early English, French, Italian and Spanish Chronicles, excerpts from Robin Hood & Don Quixote)

"Old Fashioned Stories" (Many excerpts from classic "living books" such as Hans Brinker, Little Women, Dickens, Hawthorne, great short stories, and Alice in Wonderland)

The link can be found here.

Tomorrow they will offer the other three that are available. They are free today and tomorrow so you can download them right to your comp and use when you need them :D

Here's the daily link so check tomorrow, too!

Our Newest Family Member!!!!

The girls at the Pasadena Humane Society

Sadly, our little PeeWee passed away on May 5th. We had him about 2 weeks and I'm not sure what happened as he seemed to be thriving. In any case, we gave him a proper burial and loved him as best we could...

I had been looking online at the local shelters, in search of a dog that was running out of time and that no one else seemed to want. Now that my babies are growing up and Farley is getting older, we thought it would be nice to save the life of an innocent animal. It's wonderful for kids to experience pet ownership and participate in the care and responsibility. Also an awareness of rescuing, instead of supporting breeding for money, can not be underestimated. There are way too many cats and dogs put down daily. It is heartbreaking.

Since Farley is older and not that big (and has a bit of the Napoleon complex), we knew we'd have to look for a smaller dog. I have been told that adding a younger dog will perk up an older dog and can even increase their lifespan. Farley's brother died of lymphoma 5 years ago, but I was too overwhelmed with my 2 year old girls to responsibly add another dog to our family then.

We decided to visit the Humane Society shelter in Pasadena as there was a little black dog with only one eye who had a rough start and had been waiting for his forever family for almost 2 months. His time was about to expire. So off we went the week before Mother's Day...


This little guy is about 4 years old (though the vet thinks he might be 3) and was found all bloodied as a stray on March 27th. They suspect he was either attacked by another dog or a juvenile coyote. It is possible, even, that a human did this to him. No one came forth to claim him. He was unwanted and alone. His eye was in such bad shape that they were forced to remove it. He was in a lot of pain and growling at everyone. Once his eye healed a bit, they realized one of his testicles didn't descend and was stuck in the canal, so he had another surgery to remove that and was neutered. And then he sat and sat and sat...

I think he was waiting just for us...

We filled out paperwork and were assigned to an adoption coordinator who gave us the scoop on this little guy. He was a bit aloof and more interested in smelling the room he had never been in. I asked Kevin if anyone else had shown any interest in him and he sadly said, "no". I was told that for some reason, people tend to overlook black dogs and black cats. It even has a name : "Black Dog Syndrome". No one wants them. I'm not sure if they look mean or just don't stand out as much as a white or brown dog might. He is also a chihuahua or a mix of one and no one wants chihuahuas. They are the most common dog found in the Los Angeles shelters thanks partially to Paris Hilton showcasing her dog, and the movie "Beverly Hills Chihuahua". Overbred as an *accessory*, people quickly realized how much work they are. Chi's are not easy to train and I've been told are even harder to own than large breeds are. As a first time owner of a chi, I am experiencing this first hand! Second on the list overrunning the shelters are pit bulls. And most people don't want a dog with one eye. So this guy hadn't even been out to be played with by any interested families - he had three strikes against him. But yet...he gave us a few kisses and I knew he had a lot of potential.

Unlike the county shelters, the Humane Society insists on meeting the entire family and then, any other pets in your home to be sure the dog will be compatible. We were interviewed in detail to make sure we had full fencing in our yard and signed a contract to promise that we wouldn't not keep the dog out of doors. If the dog does not work out, you must return it to the shelter and can not even give it away to someone else. They have committed to the safety and happiness of that pet.

So the next day, we brought Farley in to meet him. And it was mutual indifference :D I figured they would be a good fit!


And the rest, as they say, is history! We had to wait until we got back from our trip up north over Mother's Day and then went in last Wed to break our baby out of jail!

Here he is with an adorable Maltese mix that also got adopted out - yeah!

I was crying when we went to get him. He is just so sweet and was almost out of time there.

Charley held him on the long ride home...we had a crate, but he just melted in her arms so I let her hold him...

We went right to PetSmart to get him a cushy bed and lots of treats and toys...

And did a proper reintroduction on neutral grounds, making sure to walk them both into the house together - with Farley (as alpha) in the lead.

He LOVES the girls and loves to play and be carried around. He's such a joy (though we're working hard on potty training).

He loves his travel crate that a friend gave to us.

And is often found lying in the sun or in his cushy bed. It is clear that he is very happy in his new home and most likely hasn't had such comforts before (certainly not in the shelter where even the smallest of dogs have nothing, but concrete floors to lay on). He's quite hilarious as he runs around the kitchen and family room with one of his toys, rolling over onto his back and grasping the toy awkwardly with his front paws. Only then, when his ears are flapped back, does he actually look like a chihuahua, but as I told him in the shelter, "We don't care if you only have one eye, or three legs! We love you just the way you are!" He and Farley are getting along very well and we're all signed up for obedience and training classes so that he can be the very best doggie he can be!

Our Little "Jacky"

p.s. we're still open to name suggestions. We've been calling him Jack for "Jack Sparrow" - "Captain Jack" - "Black Jack" etc. We thought it would add character to him if we acknowledge his one eye in a positive way :D Suggestions welcomed!!!!

Friday Book Review: William's Doll

This is "William's Doll by Chalotte Zolotow. It was written in 1972 during a time when boys were to be only boys and to give such a lad a doll would surely lead to softening, which was utterly undesirable. This book beautifully shows the importance of little boys owning and loving dolls.

Ironically, my own husband was given a baby doll by his mom when his little sister was born in 1972. When Grandpa saw that doll, he threw it out - declaring it inappropriate for a boy to have a doll! If only Tony's mom gave him a copy of this book...

The story of "William's Doll" begins with this illustration and these opening words:


William is obsessed with having his own doll to love. He watches a neighborhood girl dote on her doll and wishes for one he could call his very own.

However, his brother and the neighborhood boys make fun of him and call him a "creep" and a "sissy". His dad gets him a basketball instead.

William plays with the basketball and gets quite good at it, but he still wishes for the doll. So his father gets him an electric train instead. And William has fun with it, but it still doesn't stop his desire to have a doll and just isn't the same thing, no matter how William tries to make it so.


One day, Grandmother comes to visit.

And William shows her how well he can play basketball and shoot the ball through the hoop. He shows her his train and they watch it together. And then they go for a walk. On the walk, he reveals to her that what he really wanted was a doll. He tells Grandmother that the kids make fun of him and his dad doesn't want him to get one.

"Nonsense," said his grandmother.

She takes him right to the store and he picks out a beautiful doll with long eyelashes and a long white dress with a bonnet. William absolutely loves it.

When his father sees it, he gets upset. Grandmother wisely tells him that William needs it...

"to hug and to cradle and to take to the park so that when he's a father like you, he'll know how to take care of his baby and feed him and love him and bring him the things he wants, like a doll so that he can practice being a father."

Well said, Grandmother! I cry every time I read this book...

I had taken this book out from the library when my girls were just four years old. I read it to them and when it was finished, Elena quietly took it from me, thumbed through the pages, pretending to read it and then tucked it in her arms as she laid down on her pillow and went to sleep. She loved this book so much that she slept with it every night until we had to return it to the library. Of course, I promptly bought a copy to give to her with an inscription that recounted this story and the intention so that when she's a mommy someday, she can read it to her baby...

I really love "William's Doll" and I think it has a really important place on the bookshelves of many families. I find it very Waldorfy, as it clearly follows the need that waldorf education recognizes that little boys need dolls to love, too. There is no gender separation with waldorf toys.

The one thing I do need to mention is that if you are reading to a young child, you might want to change the words "creep" and "sissy" or maybe even omit that part. Or not read it at all to boys who are not *aware* of the misconception that boys *shouldn't* play with dolls, until (if and when) they are suddenly bombarded with that. BUT if you have a son who has been on the receiving end of being made fun of or told that only girls play with dolls, then this book is a must read. Perhaps it is a must read to all parents (especially dads who have issues with boys having dolls). In any case, we cherish this book for the powerful message it holds - the recognition of the importance of imitation and how very natural it is to learn to nurture and love this way. I remember playing with my dolls, even when I was much older, and probably considered *too old* to do so; yet, holding my dolls in my arms and loving them, dreaming of the day when I'd be a real mommy - and I feel that that started me on the road to attachment parenting. I really believe that. :D

So give "William's Doll" a read through and maybe it will find a special place on your family bookshelf, as well!