STOW Vol 1

Chapter 40: Rome Begins to Weaken

Today for a change we did not notebook our narration, the children simply provided an oral one as I knew that we would need a lot of time to make models of Celtic Knots. First we looked at lots of different Celtic knots, we used our Celtic fairy tales book for this and the Waldorf Essentials Grade 4 curriculum, which includes Celtic knots.  I then drew some basic ones on the chalkboard to demonstrate the continuous nature of the knot. We also discussed symmetry as Noah pointed out that they are symmetrical. As you probably know Waldorf has a subject called Form Drawing which is used as the precursor to writing, geometry and a whole host of artistic skills. Some of the forms we covered in grade 3 so Noah found this easier, Zany not so much as she is in Grade 1. I offered to help Zany but she decided that she did not want to do the activity which is fine.

I asked the children what they would prefer to do, make Celtic knots using clay or Hama beads. Noah chose both, Zany did her own thing.  Noah produced a really nice Celtic knot in clay, he chose a simple form for this as we talked about how the clay can be unwieldy and this would make it difficult to make a complex Celtic Knot. He made a nice Trinity knot. Noah pointed out that the tri means 3 in latin.  

He chose to make a very complex Celtic knot using the Hama beads as you can be much more precise with these.

We also watched Horrible Histories which has some excellent episodes containing Boudicca including a song which really makes me laugh.x