Prussian blue, gotta love it and Martinmas

Pinkel and the witch

 It was so fun telling this story. The boys in the class kept their eyes and ears shut with excitement as Pinkel went into the witches hut to steal her goat, lamp and cloak. They were, we can't listen to this we can't listen to this. I used to think there is little difference between telling a story from memory and reading one. I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to start the day telling a story for the children and seeing how excited they are. An ancient, ancient human experience which the kids get every single day!

Our November song

Golden light is turning grey
Mists begin to rule the day
Bare the trees their branches lift
Clouds of dead leaves earthwards drift...

Sometimes the magic of the painting is undeniable. Here we did the prussian blue for the first time and when you do the wet and wet you bring it to them in the picture. I got the idea from the Drawings for Class One to Eight book - the bible for drawing in Steiner schools. We say that this blue comes from the deepest part of space, far in the sky and it sees us here and it wants to come down to earth and it does this slowly at first... just a bit - and then to just paint it with water, then it comes closer and you take a tiny bit of blue and do a band, and then it comes even closer... and finally it enters the sea and it is dark and beautiful in the sea... and we got a lakeland lanscape, a rainforest storm, creatures living in the seas, a morning of mist in a forest... it was really, really amazing - one colour, six and seven year olds. When it was done i just wanted to cry...

Ready to go

The kids did their own lanterns... painted and tissue papered and oiled them... how gorgeous are they against the light.

Here they are in action... it was absolutely delightful listening to them sing as they walked
along the dark in the school

I love Martinmas - winter has begun and we now start getting ready for Christmas. Next posting will show the drawings of the kids from their Main Lesson books.