In the Waldorf curriculum, 6th graders work with balance, levity, and gravity in many ways throughout the year. This past week the class went on a very special field trip to Petra Cliffs in Burlington. Our sixth graders dove right into the many hands-on experiences in a high ropes course. Individually and as a group, each student learned how to step outside their own comfort zone and feel challenged, but safe, "flying" and climbing, binding on and releasing.
Heartfelt THANK YOU for Winter Fair!
We would like to offer a heartfelt thank you to the entire OVWS community for working together to create a magical and fun experience for the children and families who attended. The fair was child-centered and a great outreach event for the many people who came from outside the OVWS community. Thank you for getting the word out!
We want to especially thank the following coordinators for the time and energy they put into preparing for the fair and managing their area on fair day. To the dozens of parents who worked in these areas during setup, on fair day, during cleanup, who baked cakes and cookies and donated ingredients, we thank you, too. It was a delicious feast!
Planning for Winter Fair takes countless hours and many hands on deck are required to run the event – close to 100 volunteers! We are grateful to you all.
Main Parent Coordinators – Erica Hare & Aja Jennings
Advertising layout – Joanne Garton
Bath Salts – Natalia Lyubimova
Book Sale – Yarrow Fought, Julie Brown, Aja Jennings and Madelief Becherer
Cake Game – Rachel and Duane Natvig
Candle Dipping – Tara Carpenter
Clay Object Painting – Heather Stearns
Early Childhood Craft Activities – Debbie Goodwin
Crystal Cave of the Snow Queen – Jesse Conn
Face Painting – Bonne Dunham
Fair Finances – Emily Padberg
Fair Laundry – Robbin Towns
Food Booth – Jim Veneziano and Marcus Becherer
Food Prep – Jason Lemieux (beef chili); Paule Bezaire (vegetarian chili); Sian Foulkes (enchiladas)
Food Shopping – Jennifer Stella
Fair Publicity – Cathy Donohue
French Cafe – Magali Harper
Gift Wrapping – Aja Jennings
Grades Decorations – Kate Burnim
Graphic Design – Kate Burnim
Music Coordination – Josh and Rachel Wykle
Parking – Matthew Sellers
Sponsorship solicitations – Erica Hare
Stained Glass Buntings – Denise D’Abramo
Welcome Booth – Sarah Rothammer
Wet Felting – Kate Camilletti
King Winter, our herald – Jon Scherbatskoy
Pocket Lady – Angie Barger
Puppeteers – Early Education Team
Storytellers – Andi Sutherland and Jacqueline Gabe
We would also like to thank local businesses for donating food and other supplies for the fair:
Champlain Valley Orchards – Cider
Chelsea Animal Hospital/Veneziano Family – Fair Food & Booth Setup
Hunger Mountain Coop – $150 gift card
Red Hen Bakery – Bread
Patchwork Bakery – Bread
And last but not least, thank you to our Fair Sponsors
~ National Life Group
~ Vermont College of Fine Arts
A Beautiful Evening for Our Lantern Walks
Just as fell on Tuesday, November 10, the Kindergarten, grade 1 and 2 classes as well as the Child’s Garden class began their Lantern Walks. The classes and parents gathered around a bonfire to sing their special lantern songs and enjoy a cup of warm cider. Slowly the lanterns were lit and each class walked through the fields and woods while softly singing our lantern songs.
The history of Martinmas/Lantern Walk comes from the French legend of Saint Martin of Tours. Martin was a Roman solider in the 4th Century and legend says that one wintry night he met a poor beggar, half naked and freezing. He removed his cloak, cut it in two, and gave half to the beggar. Martin represents a devotion to humankind, a caring of the other, and the ability to bring warmth and light. According to old European customs, as the days become shorter and the stars appear earlier, children would walk with lanterns through the streets singing. Many countries today still celebrate with a lantern walk, candy, and songs.
Our lantern walk is a simple, short, beautiful experience for the children. We work with the idea of creating an inner and outer light to help guide us through the upcoming cold, dark time of the year. We create lanterns in our classrooms. We sing our lantern songs in our circle. And we help the gnomes carry their sacks of treasures deep down into the earth for the long, cold winter!
Our FALL INTO WINTER FAIR is just days away! (November 14th)
Join us on Saturday, November 14, 10am to 3pm, for our 12th Annual Fall Into Winter Fair.
It’s so much fun for all ages!
- Hands-on crafts, wet felting & candle dipping – perfect for holiday giving!
- Puppet Shows, storytelling, face painting, and Musical Cake Game
- Waldorf-inspired store with local crafts and products, and books galore.
- Wonderful food, live music, community merriment
Our HOLIDAY MARKET is This Saturday! (November 7th)
Join us at Fresh Tracks Farm Tasting Room from 2pm to 4:30pm (4373 VT Rt. 12, Berlin) for our first HOLIDAY MARKET!
It’s sure to be an enjoyable community event, with wonderful items to fill your holiday gift lists! Dr. Hauschka skin care products, honey, pottery, arts and crafts materials, wool felt toys and treasures, calendars, wool and silk clothing for all ages, candles, and so much more! Bear Pond Books and Steiner book collections for all ages will also be available, along with wonderful handmade items from the OVWS community.
Sponsored by Fresh Tracks Farm Vineyard and Winery. Hosted by OVWS.
Field Trips to Nourish the Awakening of the Third Grade Child
One of the themes of the third grade in a Waldorf school is the awakening of the child’s experience to the feeling of being separate from the world in which they live, a realization that he or she is becoming his or her own person. It is a profound change in the way they view and interact with the world and others. It is often termed “the nine year change.”
However, with this positive realization of self identity comes the challenge of potentially feeling isolated and alone in the world, even helpless. To help counteract this, the third grade curriculum mirrors and anticipates these inner changes of the child through offering as part of the curriculum various practical arts and the story of the Hebrew People. The story of the Hebrew people is one of a people searching and struggling to fulfill their destiny in the world, not unlike these newly awakening third graders. The confidence gained by learning how food is grown, shelters are made, and clothing is woven serve to aid the children in their feeling ready to meet and explore the world in a new way.
Recently, this year’s third grade went on a series of field trips. We visited a glassblower’s studio in Waterbury, a blacksmith in Plainfield, and a pottery shop in Wolcott. We also toured a house under construction and the seed saving warehouse of High Mowing Seeds. Each of these field trips displayed to the children not only a trade, craft and occupation, displaying how things are made in the world, but individuals who have become their own bosses and transformed their passions into jobs that make the world a better and more beautiful place.
Upon returning to the classroom, the third grade had much to discuss. We transformed these discussions about the crafts and craftspeople that we visited into written words; we learned to craft paragraphs. We also drew pictures and wrote thank you cards to all of our hosts. It was a wonderful experience that I hope none of them will too soon forget! Please see our work on the bulletin board in the grades building.
~ Third Grade Teacher Rob Brown
Thank you, Eighth Graders, for the Magical Halloween Walk!
The steady beat of a drum and the floating notes of a flute guided a gaggle of twenty children up the meadow path and into the woods of the Child’s Garden. Big and bold, tender and wondering, all followed, each in their own time. The angelic voice of the sunshine fairy greeted them in the woods so familiar and yet now so mysterious. Each child received a glittery trace of the summer sun upon their cheek or hand. A cloaked pair of gnomes held them in quiet and wondering rapture while opening up a bag to reveal bejeweled treasures from nature. They were listening and curious sitting before Prince Autumn who gave both poetry and golden oak leaves, and enchanted by the sylvan beauty of fairies who spoke of waning autumn and looming winter. This special Halloween walk in the woods brought by the eighth grade at Orchard Valley concluded with story-telling witches nourishing body, soul, and imaginations with muffins and apple cider.
As many parents shared during conferences, “I only know that something special happened in the woods. It was such an enveloping magical experience that my child doesn’t have the words for it.”
And, isn’t that right? Thank you to each and every member of the eighth grade class and to their teacher, Sarah Galper, for bringing your love, imagination, and magic to the children of the Child’s Garden. ~ Child’s Garden Teacher Stephanie Hoelscher
And Thank You from the children in the Apple Tree and Maple Tree Kindergartens, too!
NEW: Orchard Valley Holiday Market! (Saturday, November 7th)
Saturday, November 7, 2pm – 4:30pm
Treat yourself to this fun holiday shopping event, featuring body care products, local honey and yummy foods, pottery, children’s clothing, danish woolens, and art!
Hosted by Orchard Valley Waldorf School and sponsored by Fresh Tracks Farm Vineyard & Winery.
Location: Fresh Tracks Farm, 4373 VT Rt. 12, Berlin 05602
Questions? 802-456-7400
Join Us for Michaelmas, Our Fall Festival
On Saturday, October 3, the Orchard Valley Main Campus will be filled with the wonderful fall spirit of our Michaelmas festival. All families and friends of the Child’s Garden and Main Campus programs are warmly invited to attend. This year’s event will be held from 1 to 3pm.
Michaelmas is an ancient festival that dates back to the sixth century and approximates the autumnal equinox. Legends describe St. Michael facing and taming a dragon. The motif of a conqueror of the dragon is also echoed in stories of Apollo and the serpent, Krishna and thedemons, and St. George and the dragon. It is a festival that celebrates deeds of strength and courage, of facing “dragons” both external and internal. Waldorf schools celebrate Michaelmas as a harvest festival: a time of celebration, a time of seeking balance within oneself, between light and darkness, and a time to embrace the challenges which we meet in life.
This year’s festival will include a pageant by the grade school children, singing, games, challenges, and seasonal craft activities. Be sure to bring a picnic lunch!
Rose Ceremony: Reflections from a New First Grade Parent
When love comes to me and says
What do you know, I say this girl, this boy.
-Sharon Olds
The Rose Ceremony was a grand celebration of the first day of school and the welcoming of the new first grade class. As the Orchard Valley community came together in love and kinship, we reveled in the remarkability of each new milestone, of each shining face. As the first graders were gathered by their teacher, the circle swelled, parents collectively exhaled, shed tears, and smiled as the children took that first step from their days of early childhood onto the next big leg of their journey. I am most struck by how cyclical our paths are, how each year we will gather back here like a cadence. Each child having once been ushered into the school community in just this same way, will move along the circle to one day, too, hand out a rose, poised and confident. Among the dew and goldenrod we all felt this. We will feel it again.
It is impossible to not be sentimental on days like this. Braiding my daughter's hair before her first school day in the grades building like so many mothers (and fathers!) before me, I couldn't help but think how lucky we all are to be mired in goodness. As parents we are constantly in awe of our children's capacity for growth. We watch them walk away from us, sifting through the early morning fog with ever-lengthening limbs, able and ready for this and all the rest to come.
~ Aja Jennings, mother of Miette in 1st grade, Atlas in Kindergarten, and baby Tillie
