This week we are hosting the Dragon Day Olympics in our backyard. An outgrowth of Michaelmas, we celebrate bravery, strength, and daring, while having a ton of fun.

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Circle Time (every day)

• Song:  Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow
  • We are learning new songs now that Kai really enjoys singing and has begun to pick up the words to songs we sing all the time. Each song is scheduled for two weeks, so that she has plenty of time to pick up the lyrics and hand gestures.
• PE: Animal Walks
  • Crab Walk, Bear Walk, Frog Jumps, and Inchworm Crawl are our go to animal walks, but we’ll be trying out some new ones on this list of 13 Animal Walks for Kids.
• Calendar: Seasons
  • We’re learning about how seasons change from winter to spring, and what signs we look for to know spring is near (snow melting, flowers and plants blossoming, etc.)

Monday

Outdoor Nature Study: Acorns and Nuts

• We are going to the park to looks for acorns and other nuts. We will be recording the nuts in our nature journals and practicing counting them and sorting them by type. 

Process Art and Handwork: Wet Felt Wool Acorns

• Wet felting is fun both as a craft and as a sensory experience. Wool roving felts easily in hot, soapy water, and making balls that can later have an acorn caps glued to them is the easiest type of felting for little hands.

Tuesday

Indoor Nature Study: Deciduous Trees

• We will be using diagrams and three part cards to learn about the different parts of evergreen trees and talk about what makes a tree deciduous. With three part cards we often play matching and memory games, as well as vocab building.

Life Skill: Setting the Table/Tea Time

• Tuesday is tea time! First, Kai is going to set the table. We’re working on putting the utensils in the correct places. Then we are going to have a treat and some lemonade in a tea cup and I will read a book from the book basket.
• We also do a math activity from Mathematical Reasoning Beginning 1.

Wednesday

Science: Digestive System

• Kai and I will learn about the parts of the digestive system, and how our bodies use food to make energy. We will be using three-part cards and our magnetic human body.

Sensory: Dragon Caves

• This sensory bin is dragon themed for the festivities. I set up a little scene with a dragon, the dragon’s horde of treasure, it’s cave, a knight, and her castle, and “landscaping” (sensory bin filler).

Thursday

Seasonal: Michaelmas/ Dragon Day Olympics

• Michaelmas is a fall Waldorf festival, which in our house has become the Dragon Day Olympics. We set up an obstacle course in the back yard, and try our hands and walking on the balance beam, throwing bean bags through hoops, climbing to the top of our jungle gym, and so forth.

Kitchen: Dragon Bread

• Dragon bread is the official food of the Dragon Day Olympics.

Friday

Ancestor Tale: Dragon Story

• Instead of reading a story from a book, Fridays are for oral story telling. I learn a new story every other week to tell Kai, and we act out the story with props. Usually the story gets acted out again and again during playtime and bed time, as Kai tends to really enjoy this kind of story telling.

Painting and Drawing

• On Fridays, I tell a story and Kai is invited to paint or draw something from it.

If you want to see how it went or follow along, I generally post our school photos to our Instagram either on the same day or soon after.

Specific Materials for Week 4:

• Wool Roving
• Soap
• Dragon
• Cave
• Knight
• “Tower” cups
• Kinetic Sand
• Playground equipment
• Bean Bags

See our School Supplies post for general supplies used throughout the year.

Dragon Bread Recipe

• 1 pack of active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 tablespoon of water (for egg wash)
• 3/4 cup softened butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup warm whole milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 6 large eggs (set aside one for egg wash)
• 5 to 5-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1. Mix yeast with water and pinch of sugar, allow to become frothy
2. Add the butter, sugar, milk, salt, 5 eggs, and mix
3. Add flour slowly, until bread dough is stiff (you may need more or less flour depending on humidity). Don’t knead this, the eggs are your only rising agent in this bread and you don’t want to knock all the air out.
4. Set aside in a warm place and allow to rise to double size (about an hour)
5. Punch down dough
6. Now you get to knead on a floured surface until dough is smooth
7. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and then butter the foil
8. Build your dragon and let rise for another hour
9. Mix 1 egg and tablespoon of water to make egg wash
10. Cover Dragon with egg wash
11. Bake at 350F for ~30 minutes or until golden