kindy update

I started writing this post awhile ago, so the pictures are not exactly current- I feel cold looking at pictures of my boy outside in bare feet now!



We have been working with the Enki kindergarten material for almost 3 months now, so I figured I should do a little update, or at least get a few details down for myself to remember. Things have been going really well, we are keeping it simple and mostly just trying to keep a good rhythm going and to make sure that the Enki stories are read at least 3 times each before we move on. I have also been trying to keep a regular project time happening, although that slides quickly when the littlest monkey decides not to nap, or when other bit of life get in the way. But we are trying to have a baking day, a craft day, and a painting day each week. Ari loves the projects and it is fun to have a little time in the afternoon to work on things together.

When I was planning out our first few months, I thought I would take it very slow, and chose the stories that had very little that would be challenging or difficult or scary. These were mostly folk tales, or stories Ari would be familiar with. But the first couple rounds of stories just didn't seem to be meeting him. He sat through them, and never resisted the ritual of story time or the repetition, but he just didn't seem to be sinking into the stories at all. He seemed mostly to be waiting to blow out the story time candle and play with the wax!

So I flipped through my resources and chose one of the younger fairy tales that still had some bite to it- "the Wolf and the Seven Kids" about a wolf who eats up six little goats while their mother is gone, and the seventh one goes with his mother to cut open the wolf and let the kids out and then fills the wolf's belly with stones and sews him back up. This makes the wolf thirsty and he goes for a drink in the well and falls to his death. Nice right? But this story really seemed to meet Ari. He listened in that wonderful slack jaw, totally-in-the-story way you hope for and the thing that struck me tho most was how much more grounded he seemed, more patient and content during the week we were reading this story. It seems that this story was just right on the mark developmentally, and he felt seen somehow.


That was our biggest success story so far. I keep digging through the book, trying to find the stories that will meed him like this, but I realized last night, that because I want to do two years of kindy with him, I had not been even looking at the stories for middle and older kindergartners, thinking I should save them for next year. But I read through a few of the middle ones and I think that he is more at this stage, so I am going to try out a few of these ones. From his play, and the ideas he talks about, he seems to need a bit more challenge, needs his feisty-ness mirrored somehow. But he is still really young, and there are stories that he is clearly not ready for yet. The fairy-tale type story with parents dying and evil stepmothers and such are not where he is at. But some ugly trolls or green-haired witches or hungry tigers or nasty zimwis might do the boy some good!

I have been very careful with adding in a movement circle. I myself am so excited by the Enki movement component and love the songs and circle activities. But I knew starting out that this would be the most likely place for conflict with Ari- if he feels that he is being taught or led directly he resists heartily. So I have slipped a few fun movement activities into our days but have not done anything formal. Ari needs a ton of physical activity in his day to stay grounded and happy, so keeping him active is my main challenge. But he is so good at creating this for himself when he needs it though- and dancing to his favorite music (he's our family DJ!) is providing a good deal of the sensory activity he needs- because dancing is serious business that involves leaping, rolling, spinning, crawling etc. I also sometimes set up an obstacle course in the house with lots of climbing, jumping, slithering, running and swinging and spinning required, which is always a hit.

And of course, we get outside too, and sledding and skiing and skating will cover a lot of the physical needs. Trying to keep Dorian happy outside for long enough to tire Ari out is the main challenge right now, but it seems to be getting better.

Projects have been going very well (except when Dori doesn't nap, as I mentioned.) Ari loves cooking and baking and crafting and painting. I have found the Enki craft activities to be mostly beyond him- knot tying, braiding, finger knitting etc, is all more than he is ready for. So I have been pulling out simple activities from various sources to cover our crafting needs. Earthways
Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children by Carol Petrash is a good one. And there are always great ideas to be found on the Crafty Crow.

I have also backed off with wet-on-wet painting. I realized that this was another place that could cause some conflict- it is too rule-ish for him right now to have to wash his brush a certain way, and not mix the paints together etc. I do love this style of painting for young kids to really have an experience of colour without getting too caught up in creating forms, and I will add in more wet-on-wet later when he seems ready and when I think he could learn the painting "rules" through the Enki painting stories.

For now it seems more nourishing to him to just have a set of watercolours and play around with them as he chooses. I am going to look for a set with fewer colours and ones that can be popped in and out (I know they exist, but haven't been able to track any down, does anyone know what company makes such a thing?) so he can still sink into the experience of the colours without too many choices. I might try giving him lightly soaked paper too, and see if this can make his painting experience a little less heady, as lately he has been focused on painting forms, rather than just filling the page with colour.
All in all things have been going really well, and I am really glad we are going this route- with Enki (of course you all already know that I am in love with Enki!) and with a slow intro to Kindergarten year. We are having fun and glad to be homeschoolers.