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February 2011 Newsletter

In This Issue
Advertise with Little Acorn
Winter Childcare Menu
February Enrichment Guide
Winter Squash Chips Recipe
Caregiver Meditaiton: Spreading Love
Wake Up, O World
February's Featured Sponsor
February Sponsors
Simple Beeswax Hearts
Anthroposophy 101 ECourse GIVEAWAY
The New Red Dress Story

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Winter Menu   
This menu is a five day per week menu (breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack) set up so as to use the daily grains specified by Rudolf Steiner and widely used in Waldorf Kindergartens and homes the world over.

Check Out Our *NEW* February Enrichment Guide for Afterschoolers, Homeschoolers, Teachers and Childcare Providers!

 

February Enrichment 1
Over 100 Pages of Amazing Seasonal Ideas to Celebrate February with Your Children.
 
Add extra songs/verses, recipes, stories, crafts, activities and Caregiver Inner Work Activities to your lessons or afterschool schedule.
 
For a more structured lesson plan, try our February 3 Day or February 5 Day Monthly Guide!

Winter Squash Chips

~from our Winter Afterschool Menu

 

Ingredients:

 

4-6 cups sliced and peeled winter squash

(any type can be used, delicata is especially delicious)

seasalt to taste

2-3 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter

 

Preheat over to 400 degrees.  Cover a cookie sheet with parchmet paper.  In a bowl, mix the ingredients together and spread out in a single layer on the cookie sheet.  Bake until crispy brown, about 30 minutes. 

 

These can be dusted with all manner of different things after baking.  Try cinnamon and maple sytrup, dulse and nutritional yeast, or currey powder.

Caregiver Meditation

 

'Spreading Love'

 

"Love grows by giving.  The love we give away is the only love we keep.  The only way to retain love is to give it away."  ~Elbert Hubbard

 

How do you give love to those around you?  A gentle smile... pouring your spouse a cup of coffee in the morning...listening with your entire self when others speak... These gestures of love we send can do such amazing things.  They can make people behave in such beautiful ways.  This week practice giving love when it is most difficult for you.  Stop an argument with a kind word... lighten a family member's load by doing one of their chores... hug a child in your care that is giving you difficulty... say "Thank You"  and "I'm Sorry" when appropriate. 

 

Meditate on how you can spread love and see what changes occur when you put it into practice.  

"Wake up, O World; O World, awake!

The light is bright on hill and lake;

O World, awake; wake up, O World!

The flags of the wind are all unfurled;

Wake up, O World; O World, awake!

Of earth's delightfulness partake.

 

Wake up, O World, whatever hour;

Sweet are the fields, sweet is the flower!

Wake up, O World; O World, awake;

Perhaps to see the daylight break,

Perhaps to see the sun descend,

The night begin, the daylight end.

 

But something surely to behold,

Not bought with silver or with gold,

Not shown in any land of dreams.

For open eyes the whole world teems

With lovely things to do or make,

Wake up, O World; O World, awake!"

 

~Countee Cullen

 

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Little Acorn Learning is Hiring!
  
Bloggers, Crafters, Writers, Cooks, Homemakers, Teachers all Welcome to Submit Pieces for our Spring Guides.  We Pay for Accepted Submissions!  Craft Tutorials, Lessons, Recipes, Songs, Verses, Stories and Caregiver Meditations/Practices
 All Welcome!  Please send letter of inquiry along with writing samples (blogs and websites ok) to eileen@littleacor
nlearning.com 

In the free being of Man

The Universe is gathered up.

Then in the free resolve of your heart

Take your own life in hand,

And you will find the World.

The Spirit of the World will find itself in you.

 

~ Ruldof Steiner

Little Acorn Learning

February's Featured Sponsor

Lifeways Postcard Feb 2011

Lifeways Ad June Newsletter 

 

  

Valentine Playdough

Little Acorn Learning - February Sponsors

jump into a book buttonhomemusicmakingsyrendell

Simple Beeswax Hearts

by Eileen Straiton  

Beeswax Hearts

 

One of the most simple but warming activities you can do with children this time of the month is to work with beeswax modeling material. The children can make little hearts and other love-filled creations to celebrate Valentine's Day and the month of February.  

 

~HUGE GIVEAWAY~! 

Enter to win a space in our FREE ECourse, Anthroposophy 101 - Hurry, Spaces are Filling up FAST! 

Anthro 3

 How to enter:

 

Link to the Ecourse Page on your blog, website or Facebook account - here is the link to promote:

 http://www.littleacornlearning.com/Anthroposophy101.html
 

Come back to our blog post here and enter the link to where you shared the ecourse and your information in our comments section.

 

Come back to our blog on Thursday, February 10th to see what you won!

 

1st Place Winner will Win a FREE space in the ECourse  ($100 Value!)

2nd Place Winner will win a FREE February Enrichment Guide or February Five Day Lesson Plan Guide from Little Acorn Learning - Your Choice!  ($24.99 Value)

3rd Place Winner will win a FREE February Three Day Lesson Plan Guide from Little Acorn Learning ($19.99 Value)

 

Good Luck!

  

love notes to your children

 THE NEW RED DRESS by Cora E. Harris

A long time ago, when your great-grandfather and great-grandmother were children, there lived a little girl named Rachel. She had no playthings that came from the store, but, in place of a rocking-horse, her big brother, Joseph, had whittled for her a fine little trotting horse. She had a soft kitty to hold and a soft rag dolly with black eyes and red cheeks like her own. But none of her clothes came from the store, and her papa made all her shoes.

 

One day little Rachel was feeling very happy, because she had a new, warm red dress to put on. The weather had grown quite cold, and the brown cotton dress she wore in the summer had become thin and old.

 

"Oh, mother," said Rachel, "tell me the story about my new red dress-the one you told yesterday."

 

"Very well," said mother. So she began:

 

Last spring, when it was warm and pleasant, a wise little fairy knew that cold winter would come after a while, and then a little girl's cotton dress would not be warm enough; so she said: 'Where can I find something to make Rachel a new dress?'

 

 

"How would our leaves do?" said some bright red poppies that were growing in the garden. 

 

"Your color is just right," said the fairy, "but you will not last until winter." 

 

 "How would our feathers do?' sang robin redbreast.   

 

 

"It would take a great many to make a dress", said the fairy, "and you could not spare them. No; we must look farther still."

 

 

"Maa-a, maa-a!' said Nannie, the sheep. "How I wish that I could lay off my coat. It is getting so warm, and I am sure that another would grow before cold weather comes."

 

"If the color of your coat can be changed,' said the fairy, "I believe it will be the best thing in the world for Rachel's dress, but how am I to get it off?" 

 

 "We will help you," said some strong, sharp sheep shears; and-snip, snap they went, until Nannie's coat was all in a heap on the ground. 

 

"But the wool is so dirty," said the fairy.  

 

  

"Swish, swosh, swish," said some soap and water; "see what we can do'" and, sure enough, the wool was soon washed and clean and hung drying in the sun, as white as snow.

 

"How nice!' said the fairy, "but that wool does not look very much like a dress yet. I wonder who will help me next."  

 

 

"Here, here we are," said some strong combs, which, silly as it seems, were called cards. Back and forth they went, until the wool was all combed out into long rolls, nearly two feet long and about as big around as one of Rachel's curls.   

 

 

"The rolls were scarcely finished before 'z-z-z, z-z-z' was heard in the attic, and the spinning-wheel had begun to spin some of the rolls of wool into yarn. The wheel hummed and worked day after day until many skeins of soft, white yarn had been made and hung beside the kitchen fireplace.   

 

 

"S-s-s, s-s-s!" hissed the big brass kettle. "Put the skeins in here and see what will happen to them!" In went the white skeins, and out came red ones as bright as the gay summer poppies.    

 

 

"The fairy was just thinking what wonderful things had been done, when 'Slam, bang!' was heard in the chamber above.  

 

"See what my shuttle can do with the yarn," said the great loom, and when the yarn had been placed in the frame back and forth flew the shuttle until, by the end of the next day, a long roll of cloth was lying on the back part of the loom.  

 

"That begins to look like a dress," said the fairy. "Now, who will finish it?"  "Here we are," sang out a pair of sharp scissors. Sister Needle and myself belong to the Steel family, and we are very bright and sharp. We can do wonderful work."  So they went to work at once, and they worked so fast that soon, in place of the cloth, there was a pretty, red dress with two sleeves, a waist and a skirt-all ready for Rachel to put on."  

 

"What a lovely story!" said Rachel, when mother had finished. Her hair was all combed and curled now; so Rachel put on the new red dress and went downstairs to open the door for her family guests.

 

 

 

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