Dear Friends,
Has it really been more than three months since I last posted here at Moon Child? Yikes!
Where have I been?
We had a very busy holiday season at Bella Luna Toys in November and December. My staff and I were putting all our time and energy in fulfilling holiday orders. We are grateful to so many of you for your support and being part of Bella Luna’s growth. I hope your holidays were filled with joy and love!
January brought our yearly task of end-of-year inventory, then I took a much-needed vacation to southern California to visit family and friends, and to see my son William who is a freshman at USC.
In February, I traveled to New York City for the NY Toy Fair, where I was excited to discover a bunch of wonderful new natural toys to introduce in 2014. Some have already made an appearance at Bella Luna Toys, so be sure to check out our What’s New? page if you haven’t recently.
The new year also brought the hiring of a new full-time staff member. Amy Sabaka, whom I’ve known ever since my son William and Amy’s daughter Rachel started first grade together at the Ashwood Waldorf School, is now our customer service manager at Bella Luna Toys. Amy was a kindergarten assistant at Ashwood for a number of years and has had a long relationship with Waldorf education, both as a parent and a teacher.
The next time you call Bella Luna Toys, it is likely that Amy will answer the phone. Be sure to say hi!
But now, with the help of Amy and our fantastic operations manager, Rob Wilson, my time is being freed up to get back to the work I love most—blogging, producing my “Sunday With Sarah” video series, and discovering beautiful new toys and products for families to introduce at Bella Luna Toys.
So now that spring is almost here, I am back—refreshed and renewed, and looking forward to reconnecting with you!
Here’s a new “Sunday With Sarah” video for you.
This week’s video is on on the power of verses in transitioning through the day, and for cultivating a sense of reverence and gratitude in young children. I hope you enjoy it!
With love,
Here are the verses shared in the video:
CANDLE LIGHTING
Fire spirit, fire sprite
Share with us your golden light
Come for us our candle light!
MEALTIME BLESSING (Can be spoken or sung)
Earth, who gave to us this food
Sun, who made it ripe and good
Dearest earth and dearest sun,
We’ll not forget what you have done.
Blessings on our mealtime and on each other!
REST TIME/BEDTIME VERSE
Now the sun has gone to bed
The stars are shining overhead
In their nests the birds all sleep
Into their homes the snails will creep
Children now no more will roam
It’s rest time (bedtime) now and we’re safe in our home.
Does your family incorporate verses at home? At what times of day? Please share your favorite verses with us here!
25 Comments
Our mealtime blessing
For the golden sun and the apples on the trees
For the golden wheat and the honey from the bees
The fruits and nuts and berries we find along the way
We thank you for kindly
We thank you every day
Beautiful, Rachel! This one is new to me. Thanks for sharing.
I like the bedtime verse you’ve written above, too. The most commonly used verse in my house is the one for healing. I’ve seen several versions it this rhyme. The one we use goes as follows:
Kiss it, love it, pat it, bless it.
Three days sunshine, three days rain,
This little knee (finger, toe, nose…) is well again!
Best wishes,
mb
I too love the bedtime/rest verse and i will be incorporating it starting tomorrow, for both my own children and the ones I care for in my home! Thank you for sharing it and thank you as well to my friend Cheryl for posting.
You’re welcome, Gina. So glad you found your way here through Cheryl!
Thank you for sharing, and welcome back. I particularly love the gestures in the Bedtime verse. In the spirit of sharing we also light candles before we have our evening meal and my two daughters each say what they are grateful for during the day.
If anyone has a verse for the start of the day and is happy to share that I would really appreciate it.
I will be sharing more verses next Sunday, MZ, which will include a morning verse to start the day. 🙂
We light a candle and sing “this little light of mine, I’m gona let it shine”.. the bedtime one goes “Go to sleep my little babe, the sun has said goodnight for now, the moon shines down on your beautiful face.. goodnight!” – (to a tune).. We also do bedtime and meal time “prayers” which go.. Thank you for ___, thank you for ___, and name everything we are eating and things we are grateful for from the day.. my son seems to like these. Also we sing “Soul cake, Soul cake, please good misses a soul cake, an apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry, any good thing to make the soul merry” at snack time 😉 I love the ones you’ve posted!
Lovely bedtime verse, Brooke! Going around the table at dinner time expressing something for which we are each grateful is such a powerful practice for instilling a sense of gratitude in children. As it’s been said, “”Thank you’ is the most important prayer.”
Thank you so much for the lovely verse! And hope all the traveling was great for you.
Being grateful artificially just won’t cut it and you can definitely feel it if it is genuine. If the children are taught correctly from the beginning, hopefully they will make it a habit and grow up being grateful…
We sing a song in the morning that goes like this:
Good morning, good morning, good morning to you
Buga buga boo
The birds are singing, the air is sweet
The sun is rising for you to meet
It’s time to get up, get dressed and eat
Buga buga boo
Good morning, good morning, good morning to you
Did you know that I love you
Oh yes I really really do
Buga buga boo
Very sweet, Miela. Thanks for sharing!
I think your song for leavetaking will be VERY helpful! Thank you so much.
I sing this to my children when they wake up —
Good morning good morning to you
Good morning good morning to you
I love you so much
I’ll eat you right up (nibble/kiss nose or cheeks)
Good morning good morning to you
I am an instructor at a Sunday School class of four and five year old boys. The other instructor and I are considering adapting the curriculum to include some principles of Waldorf education. Do you have any suggestions on how we could alter our once-a-week, Independent Christian programming to include ideas from Waldorf education? (We have to work around big group time, when the bible story is introduced). Thank you! 🙂
Do you include a story during your Sunday School class, K.G.? If so, you could try telling the story by heart instead of reading it, or presenting it as a puppet play, if you are inspired to make little handmade puppets or dolls (or you can use wooden figures like those from Ostheimer as puppets.
You could also introduce Waldorf-y crafts using natural materials. You will find lots of ideas in the book All Year Round: Christian Calendar of Celebrations.
Of course, singing together requires no purchases or materials!
Hi Sarah! We have been using verses at mealtimes and bedtimes. I am looking into adding new verses for areas where I want to lead my daughter instead of just telling her to begin, such as brushing teeth, clean up, etc. Our bedtime ritual is my favorite right now and we use the verse you mentioned above. Here is our ritual:
After pjs are on, teeth brushed, hair combed, etc. I light 2 candles. One tea light in a mason jar luminary my daughter made in her preschool class which burns through the night until it self extinguishes, and one candle stick which we blow out after we turn off the lights. While lighting the candles we say:
See our little candle, burning golden light
Out into the darkness, out into the night
I can light the candle, God (fairies) can light the stars
Both of them are helpful, shining where they are.
They we settle in for a bedtime book. Afterwards we say your verse mentioned above (The sun has gone to bed….) while I close the window shutters, turn on her nightlight, and turn off her lamp. As I end the verse in the darkened room I bring the candlestick to my daughter and she blows it out.
Your evening ritual sounds just lovely, Anne. Thanks for sharing!
I LOVE and appreciate SO MUCH all of these ideas and inspiration.
Our days of the week song goes like this,
Monday, Closed up tightly (close your hands like a small egg is being held inside of them)
Tuesday, Opened up sliiiiiiightly (open up your hands just a tiny bit and peer inside)
Wednesday, POP, the beak poooooooooopped out (popped, not pooped =) ) (and here poke one finger through the other fingers)
Thursday, It looked alllllll abouuuuuuuut (I make a little wall with my hands to peer over but you can also cover your eyes and open them up like doors
Friday, Flew from its nest (flap hands like wings of a bird)
Saturday, grew a litttttttle creeeeeeeest (make the crest on your head with your fingers of one hand)
Sunday, cockadoodle-do, doodle-do, (COCKADOODLE-DO) (FINALLY LETTING THE KIDS YELL this fun sound out after having sung so quietly and calmly the other days of the week…
I know this seems artificial and mainstream at first glance but instead, when done slowly and calmly until the last verse, when I let them get down on the floor and slowly rise up to then finally shout cockadoodle do, it is lovely….
Oh, this is lovely, Dominique! Thank you so much for sharing!
Hi Sarah and others,
I love this piece and all the sharings. We are working on cultivating reverence for handwriting at home and I would like to begin our form drawing lessons with a verse to Center ourselves before we start. Do you know of any verses that might be appropriate?
Thanks,
Marni
Thanks for your comment, Marni. Because I was an early childhood teacher and never taught form drawing (which begins in first grade), I don’t have a form drawing verse that I use, but I did find this one online: http://themysticalkingdom.blogspot.com/2009/05/form-drawing.html . Hope this helps!
Hi Sarah, thank you for these blessings! My daughter just started at Waldorf preschool and we’ve loved hearing the blessings she brings home. In searching for a bedtime blessing I came upon your site, and then remembered the beautiful one my mom sang to us, which she learned at camp as a little girl and used to sing as all campers extinguished the fire and went off to their bunks:
Sung to the traditional ‘taps’ tune:
Day is done,
Gone the sun,
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky.
All is well,
Safely rest,
God is nigh.
Peace!
Thanks for sharing, Hannah. I remember that song from camp myself! It’s a lovely way to end the day and to invite a child to peacefully relax into sleep.
I would like to learn a song or verse to start the story telling. Does anybody know? Please I will appreciate it.
I am looking for the song my son sang at his waldorf preschool 35 years ago, when they blew out the candles after a meal. It was about fire fairies and with a candle snuffer. He is about to have his first child and asked me for the words and I could not remember