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Holidays and festivals are rich with meaning and purpose, lending themselves easily as a time and space of tradition and ritual. In honor of this holiday season and the diversity of families we have at Rose Rock, we will take the next several weeks to feature some of their traditions and rituals. These may be traditions of long ago, cherished and kept since childhood, or they may be freshly created for our own children. They may be centered in one festival or holiday, or they may be simple rituals that uplift our daily lives during this time of year. All of them are special ways we create our family cultures. We invite you to relish in them as we do and be inspired to begin your own.

Jesse and I both come from spiritually non-denominational backgrounds with a beautiful hodgepodge of traditions. We have Christmas trees, light candles, hang stocking on our hearth, enjoy merriment and feasting galore, and exchange gifts. My mother was Jewish with Romani flair and her adopted mother was Orthodox. From my youth, I recall receiving small, colorful advent calendars. I delightfully discovered, behind each cardboard door, tiny chocolate treasures. 

Over the years, my spirituality and ritual practices have evolved and changed to suite my ever-growing thirst for knowledge and understanding. I have found myself drawn to my Norwegian ancestry, and yearning to incorporate those deeply honored Germanic traditions like Yule, Sunwait and Väntljusstaken, as well as the runes. 

Jesse and I celebrate Winter Solstice and Yule on December 21, and we celebrate Christmas with both sides of our families on December 24 and 25. When we had Scarlette, I wanted to share the thrill of advent with her, but also wanted to tie it into our personal celebratory rituals. Behold, the birth of the runic advent. 24 runes of the Elder Futhark and 24 days leading up to Christmas. 

I gathered 24 canvas pouches, painted a rune (in glitter puff paint) on the outside of each one, filled it with delicious varieties of German and Norwegian chocolates (Aldi is amazing) and tied them with ribbon to a string hung on our living room wall. On December 1, we open the first pouch and learn all about the rune Fehu, the first rune of the runic alphabet. Each rune has poems, Galdr (songs), and interesting nuggets to discuss. We do this while we enjoy our chocolate. 

Scarlette looks forward to opening “the bow one,” which is Dagaz, on December 23rd. The rune looks similar to a bow and she is fascinated by it. I also find this wonderfully synchronistic considering Dagaz is the rune representing Day or Dawn and we are celebrating the return of the sun/Son with this ritual.    

Written by Bridgette Slone, wife to Jesse Slone, step-mom to Madison, and mom to Scarlette.

Holidays and festivals are rich with meaning and purpose, lending themselves easily as a time and space of tradition and ritual. In honor of this holiday season and the diversity of families we have at Rose Rock, we will take the next several weeks to feature some of their traditions and rituals. These may be traditions of long ago, cherished and kept since childhood, or they may be freshly created for our own children. They may be centered in one festival or holiday, or they may be simple rituals that uplift our daily lives during this time of year. All of them are special ways we create our family cultures. We invite you to relish in them as we do and be inspired to begin your own.

In the Catholic church (and related denominations), Advent is a reverent four week preparation for the coming of the Christ child on Christmas Day. For adults, the time may be spent solemnly with inner work that prepares space for the Christ child in one’s heart. For children it is hard to consider it a solemn time, especially if you delight in anticipation itself as I do. As a child, I was delighted by it, and nurtured by several beautiful rituals that my family participated in each year through Advent and Christmas time.

One of my favorite traditions was our ritual surrounding the Advent wreath: four candles set around an evergreen-decorated wreath, each representing a theme such as hope or peace. Each Sunday, we gathered around the wreath before bedtime, to light the candle(s) and read a prayer or a story from the bible. We also sang Christmas carols, as we were often singing in my childhood home. I remember vividly the layers of anticipation- of coming together to sing; of when I would be old enough to light a candle, then for when it was my turn within the four weeks; of when we would read the story I loved best, and when we would finally make it through all the candles to Christmas Day. Other details of the ritual have faded, but the space of holiness it created has not.

Many years and spiritual twists and turns later, I reclaimed this tradition with my own children in the Advent Spiral. Similar to the evergreen spiral we walk at Rose Rock during our Festival of Light, this one sits on our table top. It is adorned weekly with elements of the four kingdoms, all awaiting the birth of the Sun/Son. Each morning we sing as we move our star candle towards the center, each evening we say a little verse and light candles to read by. We have two books we alternate reading each year- Mary’s Little Donkey, and the Light in the Lantern, both offering sweet stories of how the world prepared for the coming of the Christ child.

Our family is not heavy in religion or explicit spiritual practice, but the festivals are an anchor for our inner paths. In bringing the Advent season (and other traditions) to our children, my hope is to cultivate a reverence for life and Spirit that grows into a rich inner life of whatever shape that fits their own paths.

Written by Acacia Moore, wife to Erik Moore, mom to Everett, Kellan, and Quinn.

In the Lifeways curriculum, just like in home life, every event, activity, speech act, becomes relevant to growth, development and learning, whether that learning is focused toward academic work or to other kinds of competencies. And while traditional “schooling” or education for many seems to isolate verbal and mathematic academic measured tasks (as in the famous STAR testing in elementary school), this detour in the education approach and emphasis creates serious gaps in children’s knowledge, skills, moral reasoning, and development. 

A first question for new families, especially of very young children, and an on-going question for older students is: how do transitions from home to school and from school to home speak to very important cognitive function we seek to develop in our children before they attend elementary school? Do they? Do transitions have something to do with, or somehow reflect on cognition? How does my child’s growing comfort with transitions throughout the day relate to or inform or become curriculum? Here is an important piece in the conversation about learning and academic success: one of the first developmental tasks for human beings is that of successfully completing (certainly it is an on-going and complicating task throughout the lifespan) the task of building trust. The alternate, where this developmental task is left incomplete or reaches its negative conclusion is the growth of mistrust. Trust versus mistrust according to Eric Erikson (1950) is fundamental to learnng, to meaning, and to growth and development. You can imagine what Trust (or its alternate, Mistrust) means for stress level, anxiety, ability to focus, willingness to take cognitive risks and solve problems or at least resiliently struggle with problems. Without trust in the world and in the self, the problem solver is overwhelmed, cannot think clearly, has trouble bulding enough successes to experience self-efficacy, that necessary ingredient for tackling the next and the next hard thing. With interest, enthusiasm, with resilience, hope and joy, the next task or series of tasks become possible and even engaging. There is a lot riding on the Trust versus Mistrust developmental task. And it is not ever complete, but the roots of Trust are built in the early years. And for us at Rose Rock, part of this Trust is learned with the transition at the beginning of the day. Are the adults to whom I am entrusted worthy of Trust? Can I find my way from one environment to another? Can I self soothe when I miss my parents? Can I self-direct toward activities that interest me? Can I negotiate my way into the games of friends? Am I willing to trust the world? All of this comes with time, like anything.

One of the ways we build trust at times of transition is in careful consideration and respect for each child’s way of handling them. In each classroom, each child has different ways to enter the day, and each one of those ways is perfectly normal. 

One child jumps into play with his peers, all ready in the room with ideas lined up. When it is time to tidy and move on to a kindergarten activity, he is surprised at the brevity of time he has, hungry for more time to execute his play plans.  One three year old comes in his rain jacket, his costume he calls it, and wears it through a large part of the morning. It provides him with an emotionally protective sheath as he transitions away from home and family.  Another child has a brief but elaborate good-bye ritual that involves carrying in her nap time lovey, giving a secret handshake, last minute hugs and a walk back to the door to see her father out. If her routine is disrupted, it is challenging for her to smoothly meet her peers in play. She finds strength again in following the teacher about, helping prepare for the day and kindergarten actcivity. Once the class is settled, her mood has shifted, her lovey is put away and she happily applies her will to the task at hand. Each child, each person, transitions with their own nourishing rituals. 

Consider what a great amount of emotional resiliency and cognitive capacity is developing through these transitions! 

This transition on which your child has been working for the past years (if your family is a seasoned Rose Rock family) or for the past couple months if you are new to Rose Rock is building that essential skill of transition and Trust. It is a whole slew of skills from learning the sequence of tasks (coming in, taking off and stowing shoes, hanging up the napsack, greeting the teacher, saying goodbye to parents or grandparents), entering play, sustaining play, transitioning to craft, re-entering play, recognizing and choosing to help with clean up and for older children to assist younger children, for younger children to cooperate with their older friends and classmates, etc. There are a great many transitions in the morning and throughout the day. Learning to transition requires self-regulation, a willing heart, the confidence of parents (which children read very well), memory (for the sequence of tasks, how to negotiate the environment, etc.), will (the decision to actively participate) and follow through (sustataining will, energy, desire to contribute, trust in the environment). This ability to transition will be a necessary skill throughout life and throughout academic work. Imagine how an unwillingness or lack of skill with transition translates between this series of higher order academic steps to write a paragraph and later, a paper: recognize, accept and embrace the focus question; research, create hypothesis, apply relevant research, write, rewrite, edit, revise, cite, publish. Transitions, both overt and subtle, are required throughout this process and in every academic project throughout the grades and beyond. 

So Transitions. Learning Trust. These are two of the relevant and seminal curricular tasks at Rose Rock.

As we near enrollment each year our conversations with parents center around plans for their children’s next school year and, for some, that means making the decision of when they should move on to the academic environment of elementary school- either Pre-K, Kindergarten, or First Grade.  We are tremendously grateful for the opportunity to work in partnership with parents on this matter, and often take this time, then, to share some articles and research to help inform their decisions.

I recently had a conversation with a parent who was wondering about how her child will meet the reading and writing needs of elementary school.  She was a bit worried about the fact that many of their peers would already be “reading” and did I think that her child would have any problems “catching up”.  

Whenever I answer to this sort of inquiry, I consider and communicate about two main points.  First, where is their child in terms of physiologically readiness? Many of our parents are familiar with the observations and assessments that we use at Rose Rock to determine this aspect of readiness. Behavioral-Developmental pediatrician,  Dr. Susan R. Johnson has a fabulous gathering of articles about the importance of developmental milestones that we can observe in children to determine academic readiness and what drastic impediments can develop when early learning is pushed. 

Teaching Our Children to Read, Write, and Spell is an article we have shared previously that I encourage parents to review. She begins the article, “There is a widely held belief that if we just start teaching children to read, write and spell in preschool, they will become better at these skills by the time they reach the first and second grades. This, however, is false. The truth is that children should be taught to read, write and spell only when their neurological pathways for doing so have fully formed. ”    

A few of the major milestones that demonstrate this level of neurological development include:

• balancing on one foot for 10 seconds with eyes closed 
• walking on a balance beam without looking down 
• skipping 
• reproducing geometric shapes and forms that will be necessary for the formation of letters and numbers 
• paying attention and sitting still in a chair for at least 20 minutes

Dr. Johnson says “If children can’t do these tasks easily, their vestibular and proprioceptive (sensory-motor) neural systems are not yet well-integrated, and chances are they will have difficulty sitting still, listening, focusing their eyes, focusing their attention, and remembering letters and numbers in the classroom.” 

The second point I discuss is the capacities that are developed here at Rose Rock. When speaking to this particular parent I confirmed that there are explicitly taught skills that her child has not been exposed to yet.  Yes, her peers may be “reading”, in other words, reading very short sentences out of 10 pages books that were very repetitive and absent of a true story line and had been read to and with them over and over again.  They would not be comprehending much, if anything yet because they haven’t developed the capacity.  Her child, on the other hand, would be entering school with a burgeoning capacity for comprehension. 

Her child is currently sitting through 10-15 minute long stories that are building upon a previous story within a series, with a fairly complex story line and repeated characters who are developing throughout the series.  I have not repeated any of these stories, and yet her child is able to recall what has happened in previous stories, answer questions about those stories, and predict what may happen in future stories.  Her peers in elementary school will not be doing developing this capacity for understanding complex stories, and she will be quickly catching up to the explicit skills of reading sight words and handwriting.  This is not a unique situation either.  Every child in our care comes to this capacity when they are allowed to develop fully in their own time. 

Barbara Sokolov, who has taught in public and Waldorf schools, discusses this content in relation to her experiences in both of these school settings in her article, There is More to Reading than Meets the Eye. She states, “Besides the superficial process of decoding words on a page, there is a corresponding inner activity that must be cultivated for true reading to occur. Waldorf teachers call it “living into the story.” When a child is living into a story, she forms imaginative inner pictures in response to the words. Having the ability to form mental images, to understand, gives meaning to the process of reading. Without this ability, a child may well be able to decode the words on a page, but he will remain functionally illiterate.”

Lastly, one of the most rewarding parts of our job is experience when children receive the gift of turning six years old at Rose Rock and become the leaders of their classes.  They are flourishing and leading with mastery and confidence in their last year at Rose Rock before becoming one of the young ones again in elementary school.  A few years ago we wrote about this, too, in a blog post titled A year of Mastery and Confidence.  In this post we share an article from Standford Graduate School of Education, Study finds improved self-regulation in Kindergartners Who Wait a Year to Enroll.  

It really is a beautiful process to see the children develop, mature, and flourish in our care as they become ready for elementary school and it’s academic demands.  Our hope in this partnership is that in sharing our experiences and knowledge, and holding regular conversations with parents that we are able to help them determine the best path for their child’s development. 

Susan R. Johnson, MD, FAAP, Teaching Our Children to Read, Write and Spell, Pathways to Family Wellness, October 2017
http://pathwaystofamilywellness.org/Family-Life/teaching-our-children-to-write-read-a-spell.html

Barbara Sokolov, There is More to Reading than Meets the Eye, Renewal: A Journal for Waldorf Education, Vol. 9 #1, Spring 2000

May Wong, Study Finds Improved Self-Regulation in Kindergarteners Who Wait a Year, Stanford Graduate School of Education, October 2015
https://ed.stanford.edu/news/stanford-gse-research-finds-strong-evidence-mental-health-benefits-delaying-kindergarten