Making Glooscap on the Beach at Blomidon

Today we went to Blomidon at low tide to make a giant Glooscap on the beach. We brought along a friend, Rock Hound, because building a giant is a two person job. Also Nature Girl wanted his input on sand sculpting genetalia on a boy. In her words "I know what they look like basically, just not the details."

First Nature Girl used a compass to make sure Glooscap's head was facing east.

After roughing out the shape of a 22 foot tall man on the sand they started with the hands.

They worked for about an hour and a half. During which time Nature Girl brought Rock Hound up to speed on all the Glooscap stories she'd heard so far. He wants to join us for our homeschooling this autumn now.

Glooscap's hair getting sculpted. He was impressive and i couldn't get a single good shot of his whole body. He was just TOO big.

Patting Myself on the Back

Okay really, this is a terribly inspired teaching mama moment!

Nature Girl writes while she plays but anything directed by me inspires a lot of anxiety. I really want her to do some reflective writing on the books she enjoys reading though. I suggested we try doing some fun book reports this year - arty ones - using the wonderful paper dolls and puppets she makes of book characters and she balked at the idea of any WRITING.

Then I thought, what about making a secret personal review bookmark to put in library books she loved but has to return? SHE WAS ALL OVER THE IDEA!

So on one side she'll do a picture from the book, and on the other side she'll do a review. We'll start a "Bookworm Club" blog and include the address on the bookmark and maybe some of the other readers will stop by and comment!

So, to start, all her writing will need to fit on a bookmark. I think we'll type them out! She is VERY EXCITED.

Stay tuned for the new blog!

More from our day at the Fisheries Museum

One of the School Ships leaving dock.

The kids helped launch a new fishing ship. First it and the crew were blessed by the local priest.

Then the crew goes through an elaboarte system of knocking out various blocks and pins. The smallest crew member has to actually LIE UNDER THE BOAT while it grinds down the greased runners into the water. Wild Thing was very happy the little girl with the tiara was shorter than him.

The ship is launched! My crew was paid in museum buttons and ballots for a draw for 25 lobsters!

The best thing at the Fisheries Museum is the Touch Tank

The Rules!

Touch Tankers

Nature Girl got to watch a sea star peel itself off the wall and drop back down into the tank. She stroked it's MOUTH and also actually was able to touch a fish swimming in the tank! My favorite things were the crabs. Wild Thing was afraid they'd pinch me, most of the crabs we find in tide pools on our own are MUCH smaller.

Outside the Chapel - a REAL captain's wheel.

Next time we go back we're going to see about a Bluenose Tour too.

Local History at the Fisheries Museum

We saw beautiful models of inshore fishing villages

Wild Thing loved the model of the fisherman's shack.

They played at fishing from a dorry after seeing a big one fully outfitted inside.

All the hustle and bustle and livelihood making at the museum seemed far more exciting than the reality we saw at Three Fathoms Harbour (photo is of the "Fisherman's Reservation" - that is actually what it is called. This is where Papa Pan spent his childhood with his step dad, back when it hustled and bustled with livelihood making.)

Hurricane Bill and the Eastern Shore

The next day we went to our favorite haunt Rainbow Haven Beach to see what the hurricane had brought up on the beach.

MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINS OF SEAWEED!

Impressive! We wonder how they'll clean it up!

Across the way is Laurencetown Beach - during the hurricane they needed to close the road. The sea was pitching rocks and sand onto the road. This is where all the surfers hang out.

Hurricane Bill - Right Afterwards

Hurricane Bill occupied a lot of our time during the past week. We tracked it's movement on several weather sites. We read forecasts. We read what the concerns were in the area where we live (ready for harvest orchards could be devestated by the high winds we could get. We read about the Saxby Gale - a hurricane in 1869 that came right up the Minas Basin during the highest tides of autumn and breached the dykes, and destroyed the new railway in Wolfville and Horton. I told a Mi'kmaq story about a child who gently tricks and tames a storm maker. Then on the day of the storm we watched the skies at home. We got rain and winds that raced up and then down our street. The only damage though was to a few flowering bushes that lost a lot of flowers.

The Annapolis Valley was spared and after the rain passed and we had checked wind conditions we went for a drive to see what the weather was like on our protected western shore. High tide at the Lookoff - cloudy skies and a cool wind.

High Tide at Scotts Bay. Rougher surf than usual and a cold wind.

Wild Thing was a little scared of the surf, he'd just woken up from a nap.

Nature girl took this picture. This is usually a tame little stream in August. It looked more like it does in March or April.

Yesterday we headed out to Blomidon to see where Glooscap was created

I'd told the story of how Glooscap came to the Mi'kmaq world the day before.

We came at high tide because, well, we haven't visited at high tide before.

Hmmm the swell is about 3 feet higher than normal right now, and the park is closed because Hurricane Bill is on his way.

Nothing deters my mermaid Nature Girl, she goes in swimming with her pants on.

On Glooscap's Trail...

40 foot tall sculpture of Glooscap and the kids for size reference.

We started our season on Mi'kmaq culture with a vist to the Glooscap Heritage Centre next to Millbrook. We had a guided tour of the museum and learned about precontact Mi'kmaq life all the way up to the present. We saw a short movie that was narrated in the Mi'kmaq language (with subtitles which I read to the kids) and I got leads on finding oral storytelling in Mi'kmaq

on the internet.

Our intrepeters both told us a bunch of legends.

We got to see a traditional birchbark canoe sealed with pine tar pitch that was made by a canoe builder from Bear River. We learned all about quillwork and got to try doing it on birchbark. One of the stories we heard was about porcepine got his quills.

We celebrated the wild blueberry harvest with blueberry preserves and Luski - a yummy kind of moist traditional shortbread.

We heard a lovely story about Mooin and the She Bear. In the version we were told the little boy was lost while blueberry picking and ends up being rescued and brought home to live with a she bear and her cubs (the story goes on to explain why the Mi'kmaq don't hunt she bears during winter - because their babies will be orphaned) It reminded me a little of Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

Then yesterday we went out to visit a Mennonite farm where they have newly established blueberry fields. Those in the know can come and do picking for 1.50 a pound. We picked 15 lbs and I think Sprout and Wild Thing and Nature Girl ate that much too! Nature Girl has found her calling as a commercial blueberry picker - she's fast and efficient. Over the next few days we'll eat a whole bunch with buttermilk and a bunch just by themselves, we'll dry a lot for the winter, we'll freeze some, and we'll can some as blueberry jam and spiced blueberry-peach jam. Wild Thing's are stored in the fridge in a special contain because he wants his made into jam (in the picture his are in the jar with the yellow lid).

This morning we read Blueberries for Sal. Sal looks just like Wild Thing. He loved the story.

Nature Girl is reading Peter in Blueberry Land by Elsa Beskow to him right now. She loves the Elsa Beskow books right now.

Wild Thing's Registration

Program details for Primary Year

We will be using Enki Education's Kindergarten Curriculum

Please read this overview,

http://www.enkieducation.org/html/holistic-education.htm

Curriculum table of contents are also available:

Early Childhood Guides

http://www.enkieducation.org/html/materials/tghs1-tghstgb-toc.pdf

Folk and Fairy Tales

http://www.enkieducation.org/html/materials/rsclib-rlstcoa-toc.pdf

Nature Stories

http://www.enkieducation.org/html/materials/rsclib-rlstcob-toc.pdf

Crafts

http://www.enkieducation.org/html/materials/rsclib-rlcrcra-toc.pdf

Circle

http://www.enkieducation.org/html/materials/rsclib-rlcrcra-toc.pdf

For Community and Festival Songs we use a number of resources, primarily:

Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook by Peter Blood

Sing Through the Day - 80 Songs for Children - Edited by Marlys Swinger

This Is the Way We Wash-a-Day by Mary Thienes-Schunemann

Every day Wild Thing will participate in a seasonal circle that incorporates sensory integration movement, fingerplays, nursery rhymes, singing and speech exercises.

We use the Enki resources listed above as well as:

Let Us Form a Ring - An Acorn Hill Anthology - Edited by Nancy Foster

A Child's Seasonal Treasury - Compiled by Betty Jones

Games Children Play - Kim Brooking Payne

Each week he will listen to multicultural folk and fairy tales, and seasonally appropriate nature stories. The stories will inform our choices for integrating activities throughout the week

In addition to the Enki resources listed above we use:

Sharing Nature with Children I by Joseph Cornell

Sharing Nature with Children II by Joseph Cornell

Earthways - Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children - by Carol Petrash

Roots Shoots Buckets and Boots - by Sharon Lovejoy

The Keepers Series by Joseph Bruchac and Michael J Caduto (details on series are in Maeve's resource list)

The Enki Kindergarten establishes a solid predictable rhythm for the week with each day devoted to different activities.

In our home it looks like this:

Monday - Nature Walk and guided activity in the environment

Tuesday - Painting activity with related story

Wednesday - Nature Craft

Thursday - Baking

Friday - Seasonal Cooking

Saturday - Farmer's Market and Library

Sunday - alternates between a Baha'i Children's Class and an outdoor adventure.

On Monday and Wednesday mornings he will be participating in a Waldorf inspired cooperative that brings together several families so that we can participate in more complex group games in circle and do group projects each season.

Creative play will remain the central activity of each day, Through play he has begun exploring counting, numbers, letters and writing. As preparation for more academic work in the years to come he will participate in the making of a "Good Book" where he can showcase his favourite artwork, stories, and document his activities through this year.

Wild Thing has been in speech therapy (problems with some initial sounds) and in September we will be meeting again with his Speech Language Pathologist to discuss continuing support.

Wild Thing will participate in the same cultural immersions, the same large projects (relating to food shelter and clothing) and the same outings as his sister Nature Girl, at a level that is developmentally appropriate.

Cringing at the expense of homeschooling? Do you take full advantage of your library?

Most libraries (atleast in Canada) have an online system that allows you to request and hold books - and not just from your local branch - from the entire library system. If you want books from other library systems, other provinces even, they can often get them for you through interlibrary loans.

For Waldorf inspired homeschoolers check in with your local Waldorf School, they are usually very friendly to homeschoolers and will let you borrow from their parent lending library. Your local anthroposophical society will have a lending library too (and usually many copies of books used in study groups.

Here's a snapshot of our current hold list. They'll trickle in at a pace we can manage.

Holds
	Anno's mysterious multiplying jar	Anno, Mitsumasa, 1926-	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Arithmetricks	World Book, Inc.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	People of the trail : how the Northern Forest Indians lived	Ridington, Robin, 1939-	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	The witch of Beaver Creek mine	Nervelle, Rosemarie.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Wabanaki, people of the dawn [videorecording (DVD)]	Nova Scotia. Office of Aboriginal Affairs.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Laurie Lacey's wild world of plants [videorecording] : Micmac medicine	Lacey, Laurie.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	The voyage of Wood Duck = Ta'n teli kaqasimiliala'sis Malsikws	Trottier, Maxine.	Available pickup at:AWOL	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	The Micmac : how their ancestors lived five hundred years ago	Whitehead, Ruth Holmes.	Available pickup at:AWOL	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	The clock and how it changed the world	Pollard, Michael, 1931-	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Clocks	Zubrowski, Bernie.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Time	Ziner, Feenie.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Time and clocks	Breiter, Herta S.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Time	Sullivan, Navin.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Anno's sundial	Anno, Mitsumasa, 1926-	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	The other side of Eden : hunters, farmers and the shaping of the world	Brody, Hugh.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	An Algonquian year : the year according to the full moon / Michael McCurdy	McCurdy, Michael.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Algonkian hunters of the Eastern Woodlands	Goller, Claudine, 1940-	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Turtle Island ABC : a gathering of Native American symbols	Hausman, Gerald.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	The native American book of life	White Deer of Autumn.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	The spark in the stone : skills and projects from the Native American tradition	Goodchild, Peter.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Dolls & toys of Native America : a journey through childhood	McQuiston, Don.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Math for fun projects	King, Andrew, 1961-	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Math in the real world of architecture : dimensions, quantities, shapes, and patterns	Cook, Shirley.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	The I hate mathematics! book	Burns, Marilyn, 1941-	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Six Micmac stories [sound recording]	Whitehead, Ruth Holmes.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL
	Kwa'Nu'Te' [videorecording] : Micmac and Maliseet artists	Martin, Catherine.	Your position in the holds queue: 1	Wolfville Branch - AVRL