More fleg creatures and division with some minus

We made more critters for the fleg

It's the Maths Main Lesson block again this week. We are pushing ahead with division and minus. Having introduced the concepts via our famous number gnomes in the first term, we revisit these with more abstraction (but not too much!). Here are some photos from this week...

A lovely sunflower sewn by Kai

The minus gnome who looses things and King Equals

Just above that are the three times tables

The song we are learning this week

 

Division

Maths is an ethical subject. It i good and true, it is beautiful. There is a spirituality in maths which is once removed in language. You don't tell the children this of course, but you say things like...The Divide Gnome is a very fair gnome. He carries his sword and he divides everything up fairly. Later on for minus, they will learn that you do not borrow, but you take, since you never return what you borrow. King Equals rules justly as everything on either side of him is the same, he balances. This will later come in useful in algebra. The gnomes are also related to the temperaments. Division is choleric, minus is melancholic, addition is phelgmatic and multiplication is...yes...sanguine!! Each temperament has a colour...which will explain the worksheets later. Since we learn the timetables through the magic circle, the children see that maths is also beautiful. That the correct answer gives you a beautiful pattern.

The children learn that you can make 15 in different ways

This was sense of number. The children learn number bonds and number relations through the sense of number. It also enables them to think differently - there is no one solution. You have an answer and you can reach it by many different means. At this stage most of them would have understood that all those operations give you 15.

Homemade worksheets

There are two sets of worksheets i make, aimed at different stages of development. Because the class is small i am able to help each child personally. But to be honest, there are very few children who need help at this stage. It is amazing to see how far they have got in less than a year. They get NO homework. And they only started their literacy and numeracy this year.

Our main lesson book

Each brings their own character to the book

We make our own teaching aids

It's not because we are cheap, but working with beeswax and scissors helps the fine motorskills. I got the children to make 36 balls from beeswax - which also helped their sense of number and then we did division by three. 36 divided by 3 is...12.

Division by 5

I love the way we use simple natural materials. I don't know if i have said this before, but it is vital that children experience genuine materials as the sense of touch, smell and taste by a moral counterpart. By knowing what tastes, feels and smells real, the children learn to intuit the 'truth'. It is better explained through the reverse...which is how is a person supposed to know what real silk feels like or real wool feels like if they have only felt the synthetic one? Similarly, how are you supposed to know what the truth is when all you have known is a lie?

See how our sunflower has grown in a week!

I'm hoping for them to do some observation as the inner leaves now begin to grow.

Teacher's example

Picture of our happy gardening club!

Sense of number, counting in 3s and Forest School flag

Getting ready for the Maths Main Lesson

Having spent the last few weeks pondering the Maths curriculum, this week was when we began our third Maths Main Lesson block. Sense of number is paramount, this is one of the building blocks to good maths. Children need to know how much ten, twenty, thirty is and be then able to combine them. Number bonds, in other words. Counting rhythmically is also important. This time round we are doing 3, 6 and 7. Then ten and five. This is not my alchemy book nope it is planning for the Maths Main Lesson. In David Lloyds actually :-).

Gardening and Maths Main lesson

Making the link between maths and the world is extremely important. Nowhere is maths seen more obviously than in the natural world. The children would have been told the stories of the numbers through using images from the natural world. For the sense of number 10, i used sunflower seed donated by a child. We then counted the seeds, the cups used, the children...and then we were able to sing to the plantmakers as we planted the seeds. This is known as economy in teaching. Making links between music, maths, and the natural world. And then in Class Seven, we will do the Fibonacci series...and i'll say remember when we grew those sunflowers?

Here's the board from today

We also revised the roman numerals. It was really amazing to see the children remember the work we had done and then use the number bonds to total ten.

Our little window garden

Because we had been learning the song the plantmakers, i was able to ask the children, what is needed to make the plant grow? To wake the seed? Fairies of the Earth, Water, Air and Fire, was the answer from around the class.

Sewing our Forest School Flag

We did lots of preparing for our Baba Yaga play, including getting Amy the music teacher in to listen to the story so she could add music effects to the play. But today, we sewed our Forest School flag. Here are the children working hard. We are doing it on the theme of the elementals.

The flag is a work in progress and will never really be complete i guess. We will keep adding to it over the years probably.

The boys sewing very adeptly

All the children can now thread a needle and manage the blanket stitch, and running stitch. I will leave knots and finishing to next year. But it is so wonderful to see how far they have come already. I really enjoyed class today.

Our fleg!

From the Maths Main Lesson in counting in 3s and sense of number

Our Three Magic Circle

We make our own teaching aids

Triangles were very important, given it was the nunmber three. We counted each side and then wrote the number in the triangle. This make the three times table very concrete. They hopefully will remember how we count in threes.

Yep, we do worksheets too!!!

I make my own worksheets. Children who reverse numbers are given these to do. As we were doing the three times table, this fitted in well.

Detail from the fleg.

Sylph, leaf and cloud.

Fire gnome and two flowers

Sun, more leaves and clouds

Is that not the most adorable thing you've seen in ages?

The Maths Main lesson continues. Next week will be more number bonds, but minus and a revision of the other counting rhythms. It was a busy week Class One, and next week, it will be Forest School on Friday! Woo-hoo!

Who, What, Where...

Who Killed Cock Robin?

It is spring and we go outside to 'play'. I have used traditional nursery rhymes to teach Who (Who Killed Cock Robin?), What (What is the Time Baba Yaga?) and When (Oranges and Lemons). It is really important that children learn their traditional nursery rhymes as well. Who killed cock robin was the first ever they heard of this very old rhyme for many of them. I only gave the first two stanzas.

Preparing for the Maypole

We were very lucky this year, we had two great musicians - Rod McVay and Amy Fitzsimmons play at our Maypole the accordion and the flute - live music! It was super well attended despite the drizzle and it got very hot at times in the hall. However the kids were excellent and the ribbons escaped tangling by and large! It was very pretty. I wasn't able to take more photos as i was beating the tambourine!

Here's is Ghin!

And my other Oisin!

Here, there and everywhere

Some photos for stuff done in the last two weeks...including the Maypole and picnic...

The children model words they have learnt or are learning for the day
in plastercine

Others will fill in passages.

One of my favourite myths about Steiner schools is that the children are allowed to run around and do whatever they want in classrooms. Anyone who has been reading this blog will know that the countless photos of children sitting at desks doing everything from wet felting to beeswax modelling and writing and drawing will know this is patently untrue. I do not know what they do in mainstream schools now but sitting down is something which as Waldorf teachers we cultivate assiduously. As in when a child sits to write or draw you are constantly making sure that they are sitting correctly and holding the pencil correctly.

We also fit children to desks. Before each new school semester begins we ask parents to come and get the desks and chairs fitted for the child then the student takes the desk and chair home and cleans it, sands it down and polishes it with linseed oil. Each desk is then that child's desk and chair. So, that is a complete myth about not sitting on desks. Desks are very important, as are chairs.

A fragment from This is the Key of the Kingdom

We take big break outside on the one sunny day

We are blessed having amazingly great grounds in the school. We have a conifer forest, two lawns filled with lovely wildflowers, several gardens and a vegetable plot. We can have picnics whenever we want, and the children have lovely grounds to play in. We are indeed blessed.



Today we did here and there

After we played a game and after it rested for a day, we put the drawing in the
Main Lesson book

Nature table

Our paintings this week reflected the returning sun
and the blossoms...this one looks like St John's Fire

This one looks like a calendabra under water