Library Lady's Corner

At Home in Harmony: Bringing Families and Communities Together in Song September 04 2015

If you walk into a room full of people and ask how many are singers, one or two might raise their hands. If you ask how many sing in the shower or along with the car radio, a lot more hands would go up. If you ask how many enjoy music, you’d be hard-pressed to find a hand not up in the air.

Working with Parents ~ A Different Perspective August 25 2015

Many years ago, when my two youngest children were still very small, I would occasionally visit a friend of my mother’s named Mrs. Robb. She was quite active in those days; at that time she was the oldest living survivor of the Titanic and was much in demand to give interviews, visit talk shows and taping her memoirs for different maritime museums. She was in her mid-nineties when I met her and she lived alone in the village where my mother also lived. She was losing her sight but still remained active in her small community and had many friends. I considered myself one of those many friends. Because we lived quite far away, I would see Mrs. Robb only every 4-6 months.

In Our Image: Why Make a “Waldorf” Doll? August 21 2015

Waldorf dolls, like many toys used in Waldorf classrooms, are handmade using natural materials and are very simple in appearance. Designed to encourage and stimulate a child’s imagination the doll’s simple expression easily reflects the child’s mood and creativity. This is one doll maker’s account of the magical process of making a Waldorf doll.

Temperaments in a Waldorf School August 18 2015

The four temperaments are used in Waldorf schools for evaluating the character of each child one is teaching. These temperaments provide the teacher with tools for forging an inner connection, making the child feel that his or her teacher knows with wisdom what is behind each decision made in the classroom. Diagnosing temperaments correctly helps to build trust between teacher and student, teacher and class. Teachers often arrange seating of children so that students with similar temperaments are seated together or near each other. This provides a kind of gentle “homeopathic” experience or mirror to the child that helps the child build balance within his or her character without being heavy-handed, or too didactic.

The highly anticipated new release is finally here ~ The Sun with Loving Light March 16 2015

This new Waldorf reader, The Sun With Loving Light, was assembled as a transliteration of the original reader, Der Sonne Licht, in the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany.  Caroline von Heydebrand was the original collector who put the Waldorf reader together for those children in that inaugural school.  In the United States in the 1950s, the New York City Rudolf Steiner School did a transliteration and named it The Key to the Kingdom, now out of print.  Hansjoerg Hofrichter in Germany has since resurrected and republished the original reader and wished mightily, being a Waldorf graduate with clear memories of the book as his own first reader, that similar readers could be made for children in Waldorf schools around the world, in the language of every country that has a Waldorf school.

Meal Times December 19 2014

Mothers and fathers tell us here that meal times are getting harder and harder to have together as families. We can tell you all that this gathering of the family over a meal is worth working hard to maintain!

Even if the meal must be take out because everyone is too busy to cook something, to sit down together at the same time and share food and the events of everyone’s day is one element in mental and physical health! First of all, to sit still and eat more slowly because of the talk and the passing of food, helps in digestion. Racing off with food in one’s mouth has the likelihood of creating digestive problems later in a child’s (or an adult’s life).