Easter - Geometry - German

We recently explored artistic geometry while learning about Easter symbols.  Labeling the forms with German words helped us learn new German vocabulary.

Sun and Cross

Egg Shape and Cross

Learning German at Home

German is truly a "foreign" language to us parents.  Fortunately, we have connected with a wonderful woman, Margaret, who is teaching us German in exchange for spinning lessons!  We love bartering.

On Fridays, we venture over to Steiner College where Margaret goes to school.  We enjoy a healthy biodynamic lunch and learn German from her.  She reads to us and we plan to sing songs in the future. 

The older children write German phrases in their Main Lesson Books, and Mommy reads the same book that Margaret reads to us after circle time.

As we've mentioned in our eBook, learning a foreign language is all about speaking, singing, moving, and repeating!  The more we do it, the easier it gets.  And, we get more confident along the way. 

We are enjoying finding the similarities between German and English words, just as we've done with Greek and Latin.  One new resource that we love is http://www.alphabet-garten.com/.  Bob & Nancy's has a few books in German, as does Steiner College Bookstore. Now, it's time to make a puppet that we can use for German conversations at home!

Spring Flowers and Geometry

We've been inspired by the beautiful daffodils blooming in our yard!  To celebrate this sign of early Spring, we sketched the daffodils for a while when the sun was out....

Daffodils have 6 petals, so we drew 6-pointed stars and hexagons to help us with the symmetry.

Our wonderful neighbor loaned us an amazing Waldorf book that is no longer in print and is all in German.  It features forms and shapes of plants, animals, minerals. 

Next, we drew triangles, squares, 5-pointed stars and 6-pointed stars.  Based on the drawings in the book, we sketched out flowers that follow these 3, 4, 5, and 6-petal/leaf patterns. 

 

Then, it was time to color the flowers.  If the flowers were blooming outside, we observed them (mostly pansies and daffodils right now!).  

Joey

We discussed the color variations of each flower as we drew. 

Ricky

We wrote the numbers in Arabic and Roman numerals and the names of the flowers in English.  Next week, we will add the names in Spanish and German. 

Wilson