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A wool felted depiction of a girl holding a candle in the darkness

Celebrating Candlemas

Candlemas is a festival celebrating light, especially in the deep mid-winter when many of us in the north have very little of it! Candlemas is celebrated on February 2, the date that falls halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It is a celebration of the noticeable lengthening of the days.

Although winter can be a magical time for cozying up by dim candlelight every evening, we celebrate looking forward to more daylight hours in anticipation of the changing season as winter thaw gives way to the splendor of spring.

In pre-Christian times, this day was known as the “Festival of Lights” because all the candles to be used in the coming year would be brought into a church for a blessing. Candles were especially crucial at this time since modern electricity had yet to be invented.

According to an article from The Waldorf Shop, Candlemas refers to the Christian festival, marking 40 days after the birth of Christ. It is a holiday of purification, with the candles representing the purifying nature of light, both spiritually and physically. It is also the ritual end to the Christmas season, and often Christmas greenery are burned on this day, and holiday decorations are put away.

The traditions of celebrating Candlemas vary in different parts of the world. In Scotland, Candlemas was a day where children would bring candles into school to bring light into the classroom during dim winter days. Later, when candles gave way to electric light, students would collect money to give to teachers for buying treats for the classroom. Students that collected the most would be dubbed Candlemas Queen and King and could “rule” their classroom for a few weeks.

In Ireland, Candlemas is also known as St. Brigid’s Day, falling on February 1st or 2nd. St. Brigid was the pagan goddess of grain and even today, people will celebrate by leaving bread and corn on their window as an offering to her and her cow, in hopes of a good harvest come spring.

Of course, during modern times here in the U.S. February 2 is know as Groundhog Day when we look toward the spring and whether or not the Groundhog will see his shadow. Whether he sees it or not, we know that come early or late, spring is on its way!

Whatever your belief, Candlemas is a beautiful tradition to celebrate light and mark the halfway point between winter and spring with your family.

Here are some of my favorite ways to celebrate this festive occasion.

Make Beeswax Candles

There is no better way to celebrate the light than by making your very own candles. This is a wonderful activity for children ages five and up. Bella Luna Toys’s Beeswax Candle Making Kit comes with enough sheets of honeycomb beeswax to make twelve pillar or taper candles which you can then light in the evening.

Beeswax Candle Making Kit - Candle Rolling

Beeswax Candle Rolling

Recite Candlemas Verses

Here are a few you can say with your children as you light candles.

When Candlemas Day is bright with sun;
Then Winter’s power has just begun –
But when Candlemas Day is dark with rain
Then Winter’s power is on the wane!

A farmer should, on Candlemas Day,
Have half his corn and half his hay.
On Candlemas Day if the thorns hang adrop,
You can be sure of a good pea crop.

And here is a verse that relates Candlemas to Groundhog Day:

Badger peeps out on Candlemas Day,
and if he finds snow, he walks away.
But if the sun is shining down,
Badger returns to his hole in the ground.

Create Your Own Nature Table

Begin gathering all the signs of spring, from acorns and green leaves to woodland gnomes and fairy houses to create your own natural table in anticipation of the warmer months.

Sing Spring Songs

There’s no better way to welcome spring than with some fun, spirited songs. We highly recommend the Spring volume of Wynstone’s seasonal collections for spring poems, stories and songs.

Sail Walnut Boats

Using half a walnut shell, insert some softened modeling beeswax in the hull and secure a small candle in the middle. Set these boats out to sail in a small pond or brook and watch the lights bob up and down as they glide with the tide.

Do Some Spring Cleaning

Put away the winter decorations and bring in signs of spring. If warmer temps are on their way, put away winter clothes, and bring out spring clothes. Make a bonfire and burn your Christmas tree, or any other remnants of winter. Or cozy up under blankets and sit around a family fire pit.

Child’s Rainbow Broom

Start Seedlings

Plant seeds, or make art with seeds, a symbol of fertility. For those that can’t yet plant outside, begin some seedlings in cups by windows to watch for those first signs of green peek through the earth.

Regardless of how you choose to celebrate, here’s to the promise of the coming light!

Happy Candlemas to you,

Photo Credit: Wool felt picture by Célia Portail

January 23, 2019 by Sarah Baldwin

Archives, Childhood, Education, Natural Toys, Outdoor Play, Parenting, Play, Sunday With Sarah, Toy Safety, Waldorf Education, Wooden Toys

Children and Weapon Play: Should Parents Be Concerned?

Parents often become concerned when their child learns about guns for the first time and starts playing shooting games.

In this week’s “Sunday with Sarah,” video, I address the topic of kids and weapon play: why children (particularly boys) pretend to play with guns, ways it can be addressed, and how to meet a child’s need for weapon play in a less threatening way.

Click the image above to view.

As always, please leave your comments and questions below, and I may answer your question in a future video!

Have a week full of safe and healthy play!

PRODUCTS FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO:

P.S. If you’re enjoying these videos, be sure to visit the Sunday with Sarah YouTube Channel and click SUBSCRIBE!

CORRECTION: I’m afraid that there is some outdated information in this video. In it, I mention a surge in testosterone that occurs in boys at around the age of four, however recent research has questioned this previously accepted theory. For more information, see this recent article on the subject: Do Boys Really Have a Testosterone Spurt at Age Four?. Whether or not it is caused by a surge in testosterone, what is clear is that at around the age of four, it is not uncommon for preschool boys to start becoming interested in more active, physical play.

VIDEO SYNOPSIS:

Healthy kids are often drawn toward violent gunplay. Guns are fascinating for young boys and, considering the massive amount of media dedicated to the weapons, it’s no surprise that kids emulate the violence they observe in their own play.

As the parent of two grown boys, I completely sympathize with parents who are concerned when their children develop this fascination. It can be concerning when your kids are pretending to shoot imaginary (or real) enemies. Does this mean they’ll grow up to be violent? Should we allow our children to indulge in such play?

Over my 20+ years as a Waldorf early childhood teacher, I can first and foremost assure you that this kind of play is completely normal. All boys participate in it to varying degrees and, unless your child has taken the additional step of actually committing physical violence toward others, you can rest assured that you’re simply witnessing normal behavior.

So why are kids, boys especially, so drawn to guns? It’s a complicated question with no easy answer, but one reason I would suggest is that guns give children a feeling of control. Kids are rarely in control of anything; their parents, teachers and older siblings all exert authority over them. Pretending to fire a gun satisfies a child’s urge to be in control of something.

While I would strongly discourage providing toy guns for children, I would also caution parents against trying to completely eliminate gun play. The most compelling reason for this is that it’s nearly impossible! Children’s imaginations are simply too strong to combat: a stick, a wooden spoon, even a finger can become a make-believe firearm.

Ground rules regarding gun play should be enforced, however. In my classroom, the rules were that children could pretend to fire guns but they must do so outside and they must never point it at another person. Trees, rocks, imaginary foes and other non-living targets were fine. Not only did this keep gun play from becoming too menacing, threatening or non-inclusive, it actually followed some of the basic safety precautions of real firearm handling.

All this being said, there is one way of discouraging gun play: by providing the alternative of sword play.

Sword play might seem, at a glance, to be no different from gun play. They’re both lethal weapons, right? While that’s true, there are some important differences in the way children play with them and I’ve found that sword play is much more productive.
The single biggest difference between guns and swords are the stories they evoke. When children engage in imaginative play, they’re really telling stories. As all storytellers do, they borrow from the stories they’ve already heard.

So when a child plays with a gun, they’re going to imitate the gun-related stories they’ve heard or seen before. Flip through the TV channels or watch an action movie and it becomes quite clear that guns are most often (not always, of course) associated with stories involving massive amount of indiscriminate violence.

Swords, on the other hand, are more likely to be portrayed within the context of chivalry and honor, in stories about knights, dragons and castles. While there’s no denying that these weapons could be just as deadly and used just as indiscriminately as a gun, the simple fact is that the stories we pass on about them are much more gentle and focus on good triumphing over evil. And that’s the kind of play they inspire!

Swords can still be hurtful and dangerous, so it’s equally important to treat them with respect. In my classroom, children could only play with toy swords after completing a knighting ceremony. They would wear a rainbow cape and a crown and sit on a special branch. Then I would recite and they would answer:

MISS SARAH: John Andrew Young, have you been good?

CHILD: Oh, yes.

MISS SARAH: Have you been true?

CHILD: Oh, yes.

MISS SARAH: Have you heard the stars singing in the sky?

CHILD: Oh, yes.

MISS SARAH: Here is your sword. Use it for right, to carry the light, not for some silly quarrel or fight.

At this point I would tap the child with the sword on each shoulder before handing it to them. This ceremony really helped the children understand that wielding a sword was a privilege and responsibility.

While I did allow children to mock sword fight, I strictly enforced the rule that sword blades could never be used against another person. The swords could hit each other, but not a human.

I hope this helps. Leave your comments and questions, and I’ll see you next time!

July 22, 2018 by Sarah Baldwin

Archives, Childhood, Education, Parenting, Reading, Storytelling, Sunday With Sarah, Waldorf Education

Are Waldorf Schools Anti-Reading?

One of the biggest misconceptions about Waldorf education is that children can’t read and that Waldorf schools are anti-books.

In this week’s Sunday with Sarah , I try to dispel some of the myths and describe how reading is approached in Waldorf education.

I’m sure this topic will raise lots of questions, so please a comment below, and I will do my best to answer them all!

And if you want to be sure to catch all future videos, be sure to visit my Sunday with Sarah YouTube channel and SUBSCRIBE!

Warmly,

TRANSCRIPTION:

Today I’d like to dispel one of the biggest myths you may have heard about Waldorf education: that Waldorf kids can’t read. I’m here to tell you that is not true and to share with you some information about how reading is approached in Waldorf education.

Now, it’s true that Waldorf kindergartens and nurseries don’t formally teach reading, writing, and other academic subjects, but that doesn’t mean that the children aren’t gaining valuable development in those areas. In the early years, they’re developing so many pre-reading skills and language skills. Children in a Waldorf preschool environment—nursery or kindergarten—are hearing verses, they’re learning songs, they’re hearing stories and fairy tales. They’re hearing rich language and they’re hearing it repeated over and over. They might hear the same story every day for a week or two weeks or repeating a circle play with the same songs and verses until they really memorize them and learn them by heart.

They’re building mature vocabularies. If you meet a Waldorf kindergarten student, who might not be reading any words yet, you may notice that they have a very advanced vocabulary and spoken language skills.

One of the reasons Waldorf schools don’t push reading at a young age is that children’s brains are all wired differently and some children are predisposed to read early while others are not. Other children might be developing their physical skills first, and the decoding ability necessary to read will come later. Most children under the age of seven will be more advanced in some developmental areas than others.

Some children can get really frustrated when reading is introduced too early, before they’re ready. It can turn them off to reading for a lifetime, convincing them that reading is a chore and not inherently rewarding or fun. In Waldorf we choose to allow these skills to develop naturally at the individual child’s own pace. It’s similar to walking: kids learn how to do it on their own, at different ages, without us having to teach them how!

I always give the example of my two children. My older son, Harper, didn’t start to read fluently until the middle of 3rd grade. My younger son, William, taught himself in kindergarten. Nobody taught him, he just started reading one day. I, like a lot of parents, was really worried when their cousins were their age and reading way ahead of them, but both boys grew into very voracious readers with excellent literary skills. When it happens, it happens.

Around the age of seven, all those different developmental areas should be more or less caught up. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, believed around seven, or the year the child is turning seven, is the ideal time to start first grade and academic learning.

When they do get to first grade, letters are introduced in a very imaginative and living way through stories and art. For example, the letter “M” might be introduced as a drawing of a Mountain in the shape of the letter.

By third grade, most children in a Waldorf school should be reading competently. Some children do develop learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, so when they do get to grade school it’s important to keep an eye on them and to be in touch with a child’s teacher. If by third grade they’re still struggling, you may want to consult with a learning or reading specialist for analysis because the earlier a problem like dyslexia is diagnosed the more can be done to help the child.

I can assure you that Waldorf schools are not anti-reading and they’re not anti-books. Being concerned that your child is falling behind can be a natural reaction, but I’m here to tell you to relax and let it happen when it happens.

As always, your comments and questions are always welcome! Please leave them below and I will do my best to respond.

July 15, 2018 by Sarah Baldwin