joyful days with toddlers and preschoolers, class #1

I've been absolutely loving this class. My favorite part is having a peak into Rainbow Bridge Life ways home day care, the class would be worth it to me with these videos alone. I've read so much information on Waldorf but seeing these videos is really bringing it all to life for me. I'm also so glad that its all specifically for 1-5 year olds as I've always struggled with Waldorf literature being about older children. Its hard knowing what of the lovely activities, ways of doing things etc. would be appropriate, fun and helpful to littler children and how to make it work for us. 

Anyhow, here are some sweet moments from this week that were inspired by the 1st class- Life as the curriculum

Each day care day the Apple Blossom children have been helping to wash dishes

 I have such enthusiastic helpers. Madison in particular is thriving on all the 'helping'. I knew she would, she's independent and loves to feel grown up. We started all the new tasks last week and her mum told me yesterday that shes been asking "are we going to Karen's day care today?" more than once a day since. If only I loved dishes as much as she does! Yesterday the little girls (Thursday has become my little girls day at the moment) helped me sweep, load the washing machine, and scrub my shower with bicarb and vinegar. There was a constant stream of wet outfits going out to the washing line but we all had a fun day

Some thing else we've been doing inspired by the class is having warm relaxing foot baths before nap time. Faith (the teacher) was talking about them during the conference call and they sounded so nice! For some reason I didn't think they would work for us. I wanted to give it a try but I honestly thought the littler children would splash, the bigger ones wouldn't be interested and it would be another thing to fit in to our morning. Little did I know, they all love it, every one of them

I set up this special little spot in the laundry and every time I go to change a nappy (the change tables in there) some one is sitting in the chair asking for a foot bath. The picture of Mitch above is him wishing it was time for a foot bath:) Oh and the cutest moment today was Mitch giving Maddalyn a pretend foot bath. He was even humming away to her

Its become such a beautiful time of the day that we all enjoy so much. I give them a wash cloth and hum or gently sing 'Faiths hair brushing song" (having a mental blank on its name). They wipe their face and hands or sit quietly blissed out. It's so completely adorable:)

For the two one year olds I have a shoe box that boosts the bowl to a perfect height. I put a towel on top of it so that I simply slide the bowl out and their feet are on the towel ready to pat dry.

Some of my class mates are having their children grind lavender with a mortar and pestle but I cant figure out where I've put mine so in the mean time were filling a little sachet with oat meal, lavender and some calendular that came from my garden last spring

 I put it on a square of muslin, fasten it with a rubber band. This gets a lovely slippery, creamy texture which the children all like

 The last thing I have photos of is hair brushing after nap. This was my very favorite part of the videos so far. The children love their 'rain showers' and I gently brush their hair and hum

 Here's our hair brush spot on top of the cupboard. I'm a little paranoid about head lice (i'm sure most people that look after small children are) so I found a nice smelling herbal head lice deterant to spray over the brushes just in case.

Anyhow, that's all for now, i'm off to read up for class #2, ready for the conference call on Monday!