Starting Letters!

This week we're starting our first Language Arts Block - we'll be introducing letters via a three day rhythm of:  Day 1) telling a fairy tale; Day 2) drawing a chalkboard drawing of a part of the tale with one or two letters "hidden" in the drawing plus recall with Yoav of the story; Day 3) seeing the letters in the chalkboard drawing and drawing them in the Main Lesson Book.

This week we are starting with the letters B and V (both simple letters that only make one sound, versus letters we'll do later like G or C).  We're using the Grimm's Fairy Tale "Snow White and Rose Red".  I told the story today and Yoav L-O-V-E-D it.  When I finished he said he wanted to hear it again (I said we'd do it again tomorrow) and he said it was the best story he's ever heard ;)

Now tonight I have to draw a chalkboard drawing of a Bear and Vulture (in the story it's actually an eagle).

Overall, our days are going so well lately.  We seem to have found our groove (for the moment).  I've worked out a few of the early kinks (like putting the desks face-to-face instead of side-to-side and bringing a few toys for Elie into the school room).  The Power-to-Parent Neufeld class I'm taking here has helped a lot as well.  It is giving me confidence to deal with difficult moments we have with sibling squabbles or Yoav's frustration that I didn't have before.

Meanwhile, I think both due to a combination of parenting changes learned through my Neufeld studies and simple growing up, Yoav is so easy to teach.  When he sees a drawing paper on his desk, he says, "Are we doing something certain or whatever I want?"  If I say something certain, he's totally happy with that and follows along.  Today we did a Form Drawing at the start of Main Lesson.  I told a story of a bird who found a worm in the garden and flew up to the roof and then when she finished, flew back down again (from Marsha Johnson's Form Drawing book).

He did the Form:

and then during the free time between Main Lesson and Morning Activity, he drew a picture of the Form Drawing story:

Our Morning Activity was beeswax modeling in which I've seen a tremendous change this year.  I posted to WaldorfHomeEducators (the Yahoo group run by Marsha Johnson) on May 13 of this year about Yoav not wanting to learn from me or to do age-appropriate activities.  I wrote:

My 6.5yo son doesn't want to start easy to learn how to do things - hewants to do complicated things that are well beyond hisabilities/level.  As an example, he wants to be able to make a firetruck out of modeling wax.  He won't sit with me with a single colorof modeling wax and make simple things like a bird's egg or star.  IfI give him some red wax, he gets frustrated that he can't actuallymake a fire truck.

We did very little modeling up until this year because it was too frustrating for Yoav.  Now we do it every Monday for our Morning Activity.  Today, for our beeswax modeling time, Yoav was given brown modeling wax and I said we were making acorns.  No complaints, no request to make a fire truck LOL - he just got started warming his wax.  His is below on the right, mine is on the left:

And here they are on our Fall Nature Table:

Now I'm off to attempt my first blackboard drawing.  I'm full of low hopes :)  I need to spend time with my "Drawing with Block Crayons" book and also the "Blackboard Drawing" book.