Welcome!

Welcome to Wood Nymph Way! I have created this blog with two intentions: (A) keeping our family and friends, many of whom live in lands Far Far Away, up to date with what we've been doing, and (B) as a tool to document and learn from our journey as a Waldorf homeschooling family. Enjoy! And don't forget to check out my resource pages on the right!

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Advent!

What?!  It's Advent already?! An early foot of snow along with an eight day power outage at the end of October seemed to put my kids in a holiday mood early this year.  Requests of listening to Christmas music came right after our power came back on, while there was still snow on the ground.  The crazy weather seemed to put a huge damper on most people's Halloween, but not ours!  I dressed the kids up as snowmen and they paraded up and down the street to our neighbors' delight.  They even managed to collect enough candy from amused neighbors to leave out for the Sugar Sprite Fairy, who left them this lovely book in return. 

Trick or Treat?  The snow was definitely a treat for my kids!
Anyhow, I digress.  Back to Advent.  If you look back at my posts from last year, you can get a good idea of how we got started with our Advent celebration.  This year we're keeping much of it the same, with a few things added.

The first light of Advent is the light of Stones
Stones that live in crystals, seashells, and bones.

This verse is our guide for the first week.  We have set out our empty creche, to be filled over the course of the next few weeks.  We have made our Advent wreath with the four candles.  On our big blackboard, we have the week's verse.


We have also set up our Nature Table as a gnomes' crystal garden.  S wove some yarn onto a neat tree branch we found and we thought that we'd use that as a backdrop to make it look like the gnomes were under the roots of a tree.  The gnomes seem to enjoy gathering around their winter fire, too.


Some of the stories we are reading this week include "The Festival of Stones" by Reg Down, particularly the chapter with the same title, as it starts the characters' own Advent celebration.  As a longer chapter-type book, we are reading "The Winter Child" by Wendy Froud and Terri Windling.  The story is perfect for this week as the main characters, two fairies, are on a quest to find the fairy king's amethyst goblet.  The illustrations, which are actually photographed scenes featuring Wendy's amazing fantasy creatures, (remember the movie "The Dark Crystal"?)are absolutely enchanting.

As a little gift to put in the kids Advent calendar, I have made a Rainbow Rock.  You can make this sweet little gift in no time by following this tutorial on the Living Crafts website.  There is a sweet little story that goes along with it.

Lastly, I think we'll end our week by having-what else?-Stone Soup for dinner. 

For those of you who are new to Advent, as I was last year, here are some great resources to help get you started!  Click and enjoy!

(scroll down to the bottom for the first one)