Riley's Apple Farm Field Trip

In late September, we attended a field trip at Riley's Apple Farm in Yucaipa, CA. We went with a local homeschooling group and had a blast participating in pioneer day life.

When we arrived, we were greeted with music by the Riley family and our children were invited to play along.

We then were divided into groups and began by learning how to start a fire using twine and flint.

While they were busy preparing lunch for all of us pioneers, we were allowed an hour to explore the various stations and participate in pioneer chores. There was apple coring/peeling/slicing/drying...

There was laundering - washing and hanging on the line...and gardening...

There was log sawing...and corn grinding...

There was even log cabin building by stacking pre - cut logs to form the house...while lunch was cooking,

The girls practiced their quill pen and ink writing...& made a corn husk doll...

After a lovely lunch, we headed over to the apple cider press section where the kids lined up in a row, chose apples and dropped them into the press which was hand cranked by a homeschooling pappa...

And VOILA! Our cider! Off to be cooled before tasting...


We rested and headed into the gift shop before heading over for an archery lesson...

We then took a tractor ride around the perimeter of the apple farm...

And then headed back to drink some of our fresh organic apple cider...

Back in the gift shop, we got some bags to pick some apples to take home...

At the end of the day, we left to begin our two hour drive home with lots of apples, corn husk dolls, and lots of fun memories with friends!

Autumn Dolls

In preparation for our Autumn celebrations, we have been making various dolls. Kits for the pumpkin and corn cob dolls can be found at A Toy Garden here. And the witch was purchased from Magic Cabin here.

After studying the witch doll, I decided to try my hand at making a small fingertip type of doll and will share the tutorial. It was my first one and I didn't have a clue what I was doing (lol) but learned a lot along the way!

Needed Supplies for an autumn fingertip doll:
- pipe cleaner
- embroidery floss in desired colors
- needle/thread
- wool roving in desired color and a felting needle
- cotton doll skin in desired color (or make your own by dying a cotton t-shirt in tea leaves)
- wool felt in desired color

My doll's body wasn't long enough, so next time, I will not cut the pipe cleaner down. Twist the pipe cleaner into shape, then untwist and wrap the embroidery floss around the folds of the arms and legs to prevent the wire from popping out and possibly cutting small hands. The whole body can be wrapped in the embroidery floss for a better look, but I was trying to stretch the supplies, so I tied off early.

Next, take some plain wool roving and wrap it around the head, needle felting into place.

Cut a scrap of doll skin to place over the wool roving and secure into place with string. Note: this is where I messed up by not making the skin bigger. I also should have used dental floss to tie off as it seems to hold better than the string I used.

Once the skin is secure, take embroidery floss or even regular thread and make the eyes and mouth by going all the way through the head to the back. Don't worry, the hair will cover the thread that is showing in the back.

Once the features are in place, take your wool roving and gently needle felt it onto the head.

Cut and design your outfit and stitch it into place!

And voila! You have a cute little finger tip Autumn Doll!

Here she is with her friends. And below is an Acorn Gnome that I designed using pipe cleaners and wool roving. I needle felted the acorn to go into a real acorn cap and was able to secure the gnome's hands to the acorn by felting.

Hope you give it a try & have fun! We are loving all the creativity in Waldorf.

First Grade: Language Arts Block (Con't)

Here is a continuation of our LA Block. I didn't record all the 6th sense tie-ins, but will try to record things better in the future. I am including a lot of pictures of our MLB's to provide a lot of visual, which some people might find helpful :D

W - "The Fisherman and His Wife" by Bros. Grimm

While our chalk and white board drawings incorporated waves, we decided in our main lesson books, to draw witches on a broom, as seen in the "Living Alphabet" book, which is out of print and has been replaced with the "Waldorf Alphabet Book".

C - "Cat and Mouse in Partnership" by Bros. Grimm

We smelled spices like Cayenne Pepper, Cinnamon, and Curry and ate carrots.

We also finally enjoyed our Crayon Pouches that I made for the girls. I found a free pattern online, but decided to use felt instead of denim and it was so thick when I turned it inside out that I scrapped it and played around until I found one to suit our needs for both block and stick crayons.

I ended up using three sheets of felt, a cotton cover, and yarn which we finger knitted to make the tie. I don't have a sewing machine so it was all done by hand. The girls chose their own colors.

And then we continued with our Language Arts block...

F - "The Lambkin and the Little Fish" by Bros. Grimm

We ate quite a lot of fruit and checked out Fennel seeds.
H - "The Hut in the Forest" by Bros. Grimm

Elena decided to draw a horse instead, inspired by Famke Zonneveld's illustration of "H" in "The Living Alphabet" book.

Charley drew a hut on her white board and a horse in her MLB.

J - "The Water of Life" by Bros. Grimm

We drew Jellyfish in our MLB's. After realizing that some of the illustrations are just too overwhelming for 6 year olds, I decided to try to make them a bit more simple. The Jellyfish was easy enough for them and much better than the drawing I did - lol!

We tasted some Jam and played by jumping around the room and jumping over sticks in the backyard.