Two years ago, I took the children to a local "Winter Light Festival" at the Waldorf School. It was a lot of fun and we came home with some beautiful handmade projects. While I do not subscribe to the overall worldview of a Waldorf education, there are many things I find admirable about it. I love the emphasis on learning through the hands and I love the quality of craftsmanship associated with their projects. I also keenly appreciate their desire to engage children with the natural world (God's world) and natural materials to make things with. When we visited the school, I needed a quiet place to change a diaper and lo and behold, found the room of dreams for creative play! It would have been my childhood dream room to have one so filled with wooden play kitchens, tables, tea sets, dolls and doll beds draped with play silks. Oh, I think I rather coveted it at the time!
So through the years I have collected materials and made many projects that are Waldorf-oriented----beeswax candles, books to teach children various hand skills, and the wonderful signature cloth dolls. I think Tasha Tudor herself would have approved of such handiwork.
One of the things we came home with that day was a star made of colored transparency paper that has the appearance of something like stained glass when it hangs in the window. So I determined to find some of those materials myself. I've had them sitting around for at least a year and this year it was time to bring them out.
Little hands needed lots of help with the folding, but they could manage to choose colors and place the glue stick in the appropriate places. Bigger hands enjoyed creatively arranging designs.
These look lovely in the windows. And with all of us working, we have them in many windows. Notice the patterns the folds make on the inside of the stars.
This one is made with foil paper and this is indeed the perfect spot for it.
Now I'm off for today's projects. As always, so much we want to do.....never enough time!
No comments:
Post a Comment