An Autumn Story

An annual re-posting of this Autumn story and play that I wrote with Boo's help many moons ago.
It can be printed out and read or used as a script for a play or peg doll puppet show.
The girls loved it when they were little. Enjoy :)

 

The Elfin Tree

Characters

  

Narrator

Elf

Squirrel

Fawn

Rose Hip Fairy

Primula Fairy

Script

Narrator:  Once upon a grassy meadow, Little Elf noticed a small sapling growing in the glade by the big woods. 

It looked just like the other trees only smaller. She was intrigued! 

She thought she might plant it in her own garden to see how big it would grow.   

Maybe it would it grow as big and tall as the trees that grew in the woodland beyond.

After she had planted it, she felt very proud of herself indeed. 

Every week through the hot summer, Little Elf watered the tree so it wouldn’t get thirsty.

One day after a good many weeks had passed, Little Elf came to water the tree again but when she looked at it she dropped her watering can and the water spilled all over the grass.

Elf:  What has happened?

Narrator: The tree’s leaves were red, gold, orange and brown. Not fresh and green as they had always been!

Elf: “My poor little tree, maybe I am not feeding you well, maybe you are sick”

Narrator: Little Little Elf started to cry. She went to Primula the Spring Fairy and said...

Elf: "Primula Fairy, please help me. Something awful has happened to my tree. The leaves were green but now they are red, yellow and brown.
Am I not feeding it well?"

Primula Fairy:  "See how my yellow petals have turned to seed. All things change with the Autumn breeze! Come now Elf don’t you cry. Go and ask Squirrel she’ll know better than I."

Narrator: So Little Elf went to Squirrel's tree house to ask her. But she was busy collecting nuts, and not in the mood for answering questions. So Little Elf  decided to ask Fawn.

Elf: "Fawn, please help me. Something awful has happened to my tree. The leaves were green but now they are red, yellow and brown.
Am I not feeding it well?"

Fawn: "My spots are fading fast you see, all things change with the Autumn breeze. Come now Elf don’t you cry. Go and ask Rose Hip the Autumn Fairy, she’ll know better than I."

Narrator:  So Little Elf ran back passed Fawn, then passed Squirrel, then passed Primula Fairy until finally she found Rose Hip the Autumn Fairy.

Elf:  "Rose Hip Fawn, please help me. Something awful has happened to my tree. The leaves were green but now they are red, yellow and brown.
Am I not feeding it well?"

Narrator: Rose Hip turned to Little Elf with a gentle smile and said...

Rose Hip: "Of course you are feeding it well. 
The season is changing that is all. 
Time flows like the trickling stream that runs through the Big Woods. 

When it was Spring the leaves were green, but now it is Autumn. 
The leaves change colour and eventually fall to the ground. 

It will soon be winter and your tree will be bare but don’t cry because Mother Nature knows what she is doing. Your tree isn't sick, it's just sleeping.

After Winter it will be spring once again.
For Spring always follows Winter.

In Spring you'll see new baby leaves and blossom budding on the tips of its branches.

 Narrator: Little Elf was very grateful and was also very happy. In fact she was so happy she had a party and invited all of her friends to come!
They danced and sang until tea time.
Every animal brought something from the autumn harvest: sunflower seeds, barley bread, sweet corn, ripe plums, apples, hazelnuts and elderberry tea!
They all had a lovely time, eating, drinking and dancing around the golden, shimmering tree.

Elf: I love my tree

Narrator:  Little Elf, snuggled up in a cosy nest of moss at it's roots.

The End.

An Autumn Fairy and an Autumn Verse

Here is an Autumn Verse to accompany Autumn stories or to use for copy work or as a beautiful background to a nature table.

 An Autumn Lullaby

Wren upon the branch alights,
His song as clear as morning light.
His nest as warm as golden leaf,
Made of moss and flaxen sheaf,

Light the candles fill the stores
With windfalls, berries, hips and haws
Squirrels hoard, Bears seek dens
To sleep till Spring returns again.

Autumn is dressed in red, gold and brown
Swirling in leaves and soft thistle down
Dreaming a dream that is both old and new.
The dream of Autumn is inside of you.

"The Sun Egg" on a Sunny Day...

It was such a beautiful morning, we took school outdoors and read Elsa Beskow's "The Sun Egg"
This is a beautiful little story about an elf who finds what she imagines is an egg that the sun has laid in the middle of the pinewoods.



Here Fina is telling me that she is the elf looking up at the sun to see if it will lay another egg ;)



Ho hum maybe tommorrow then...



While Nola snuggled safe in her wrap squinting her eyes at the dappled sunlight from the Sycamore tree as it danced about the lawn, the girls and I got out the watercolurs and some huge sheets of paper. I painted standing up, my paper laid out on the table. The moby wrap is the most comfortable way I have worn a baby yet I think. She just melts into me when she is inside it.



We all painted the story, or a part of the story from our own perspectives.
Whenever we do something creative I am always amazed at how each of the children's characters comes through their work.




Matilda is interested in the overall "feel" of the story. She is such a dreamy, watercolouring, waldorf girl :)
She loves to explore colour and many of her pictures often naturally end up with the "waldorf rainbow" of colours running and merging into one another.



Here is our "wild summer" fairy garden. What a lot of places for the fairies to hide here :)
Boo found a moth inside the fairy house yesterday, she called her honey blossom and she wanted to bring her inside to keep forever. I talked with her at some length about this, explaining, as kindly as I could that "honey blossom" would most likely die if she was taken from her natural habitat in to a strange environment that she didn't recognise. Finally she seemed to understand that if you really love someone you sometimes have to let them go. And that helping them to be happy is ultimatly what will make you happy.



Seraphina painted the sun the sun egg, the elf and the clouds which were hiding the sun. I love how the elf and the sun egg are almost one being.



Boo's picture was much more narritive rich of course as she is older. I just love her owl drawing :)


While the little ones stayed outside to play Boo wrote a postcard from Elf after her migration to the sunny country to her friends in the snowy pinewood.



Dear happy frog, Larch and Crooked Root. I have had a lovley time in the Sunny Country where the oringis are sweet and the lemons are sour.
I miss you so much and I hope you were here. It is sunny and hot here and I can drink froot joose whenever I want! I can sunbathe on the branchis and I can bouns on the leaves and the butterflies are my frinds.
love from elf...

spellings all her own :)

Let all go dear... So comes love...

I  pray to bring light, peace, God's love into every situation. Wherever the opportunity arises.

I want to well compassion from broken, parched ground. 

I want forgiveness's balm to soften the hard places.

Leave a space.

For the sacred to enter.

Open those windows out wide, let the light and the sound of the Autumn breeze flood through.

As e.e cummings says...

- let all go dear 

so comes love...

 

(Photo's of Tilly in Autumns evening Goldust)

Cosy reading on a grey day.

We've really been enjoying this book.
It is so magical, and so, so beautifully written. A really compelling story, so unlike many modern story books for children today. None of us wanted to put this lovely old book back up on the shelf.
Afterward Emmy starting studying chivalry, the troubadours and medieval lore.
I still wonder with joy at how natural learning can be, how fluid and how deep and human.
Slowing down on grey days with warm drinks in hand a bed full of pillows, candle light and an old story book....
Magical.

An Autumn post...

Tilda's sewing

Emmy found an abandoned house sparrow nest in our conifer hedge.

She discovered that the sparrow had used some of her gardening twine as nest materiel.

It was laced with soft moss on the outside and so cosy inside!

Beauty

Jessica the spider...

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Autumn treasures...

High point of the day was our walk through the park. The sun glinted through the colourful trees as the leaves fluttered down around us like confetti.

We saw a sparrow hawk hover over our garden yesterday.

 Today we found lots of different leaves, seeds, cones and fruits and took them home for identification.

Low point of the day was when afternoon lessons I decided to clean the downstairs part of the house really thoroughly and as it was such a beautiful day set the children loose in the garden.

Five minutes into my well intentioned cleaning plans and Bujana had managed to chase Seraphina into the algae filled puddle of a pond that the cover of our sandpit has become since all the rain last week!


Ode To Autumn

Keats (1819)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Poetry ... and what it takes to find your own unique voice in the world

Finding your Unique Voice through Poetry

We had a wonderful poetry lesson today.
We studied this poem by John Agard...

Half Caste

Excuse me
standing on one leg
I’m half-caste.

Explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when Picasso
mix red an green
is a half-caste canvas?
explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when light an shadow
mix in de sky
is a half-caste weather?
well in dat case
england weather
nearly always half-caste
in fact some o dem cloud
half-caste till dem overcast
so spiteful dem don’t want de sun pass
ah rass?
explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean tchaikovsky
sit down at dah piano
an mix a black key
wid a white key
is a half-caste symphony?

Explain yuself
wha yu mean
Ah listening to yu wid de keen
half of mih ear
Ah looking at yu wid de keen
half of mih eye
an when I’m introduced to yu
I’m sure you’ll understand
why I offer yu half-a-hand
an when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eye
consequently when I dream
I dream half-a-dream
an when moon begin to glow
I half-caste human being
cast half-a-shadow
but yu must come back tomorrow
wid de whole of yu eye
an de whole of yu ear
an de whole of yu mind.

an I will tell yu
de other half
of my story.

Poetry is a great way of helping a child find their own unique voice. Every poem resonates with the soul voice of the poet who wrote it.

I particularly love this poem!

I want very much for the girls to have the ability to reach beyond their own experiences and see the world from many different perspectives. In this way poetry is a perfect medium for hearing the unique voices of individuals through history.

Poetry is a way of finding those common connections between people from all different backgrounds and points in time, while retaining the singular voice of the writer themselves.

There are so many things in the world that divide, create barriers, differentiate and categorise. The antidote to prejudice, ignorance, stereotyping and division is compassion through understanding another's position and their reason for that position.

I think that art, poetry and music have a wonderful way of being able to do just this.

Especially as homeschoolers and especially as Christians, I want the girls to be able to handle other people's truths. I want them to respect and be genuinely interested in other people who may come from a totally different background to them with completely different ways of understanding the world.

Sometimes, it's in the fearless acceptance of the authenticity of another's experience that we can be able to understand and accept our own.

Part of the reason why I love this poem particularly is that, in it's time, it pushed the barriers of poetic expression. It used a truthful, uncompromising voice blending, indignation, pathos and humor to bring a potent and poignant message to the multicultural table of contemporary life.

It can be hard for kids to be strong enough to find their own voice and use it. Often it can feel as if we are given only a limited number of frameworks to move within. It can seem scary to be true to oneself when that may mean working outside of the "accepted" social, intellectual and religious boundaries of our particular time and space.

When Emmy first tried to recite the poem, I noticed that she put up barriers almost as a reflex against what seemed so foreign, strange and different to her tongue.

I think this is part of what makes this poem so good though. Often when we come across someone of a different ethnicity we put up unconscious barriers. We react with unconscious prejudices.

As we discussed this she began to accept and respect the poem's voice and her recital of it began to involve her own interpretation and with it came understanding and internal integration between her own experiences and the poets.

The girls know only a little of what it means to be different. Their Dad came to England as a refugee. There have been vocal oppositions to the refugee and immigrant communities in recent years. However there is a big difference for them, no one pre-judges them based on the colour of their skin. This was something that made a big impression on Emmy today.

I hope to be able to introduce Emmy to many different poets, artists, writers, filmmakers and thinkers over the next few years. I want her to have a broad understanding of the world. This is one thing I think that home school affords children, an understanding of the real world around them, within a real life context.

Making Poetic Leaps

Making Poetic Leaps...onomatopoeia and A Poem about Happiness 
 

Reading some of Robert Bly's books recently including "Leaping Poetry" has brought into clarity thoughts that have long hovered beneath the surface of my mind yet have not been able to find articulation.

I suppose all good writing tends to do that.

It can be said that whenever we undertake the writing of a poem we are in fact making "leaps" between the conscious and unconscious minds.

A good poetic line draws secrets from the deep like a free diving pearl fisher.

This means that poetry is able to make free associations between seemingly far flung ideas.

In this place (which the poet Novalis refers to as the seat of the soul) underlying essential truths about our humanity become realized and brought into the crystal waters of clarity.

Memories, dreams, far away hopes, our inner child, fairy tales, ancient stories bound in human history, our connection to the earth and the divine, all return to us through the words of our poetry.

I love sharing my love of poetry with my girls.

I don't teach formal grammar, nor do I ever intend to.


I truly believe that grammar can be learned intuitively, when given the chance to explore words through the medium of stories, poems, factual prose, plays and oral narration.

To teach grammar separately creates a fissure between two linguistic worlds that can only be instinctively and internally understood when brought into relation and context with one another.

The other day Bujana wrote a poem using an object (namely a lemon) to explore how her senses are the tools we use to understand and describe the natural world.

I loved how the words she came up with were so tactile and so qualitatively onomatopoetic.

Children just instinctively love onomatopoeia I think of a poem we wrote earlier on in the year together as I began to introduce her to the idea of how sound can resonate within words and ideas....

MUD : Squelchy, squishy, Squashy
WATER: Splashy, sploshy, Washy
AIR : Buzzy, Fuzzy, Shhhhhh
FIRE: Hiss, Crackle, Crinkle
RAIN: Drip, Drop, Tip, Tap


So now I'm slowly bringing her toward more abstract association.

Instead of an object (like a lemon) we are going to start to explore a feeling with our senses...

The feeling of the day is HAPPINESS :0)

Here is what Bujana came up with...

HAPPINESS

lOOKS Bright like a fiery sun
SOUNDS like it's laughing
SMELLS like a rose's perfume
TASTES like warm bread 
FEELS like a hot cup of tea

I just love the line "HAPPINESS SOUNDS like it's laughing"
It really does!

I invited Bujana to paint her poem to
 *make a leap* between the word sound and visual imagination.

Her painting is at the top of this post.

Although the free association or "leaps" in this kind of purely "sensual" poetry are limited to a point, they are a gentle introduction for small children.

They project view, of the colour and texture of the wide and wonderful poetic landscape.

When Bujana thinks of happiness linked to a taste linked to warm memory of bread, of being leaps are being made!

Create a Poem in 5 easy steps...

By
Listening
To
Your
Senses...

So first be very quiet. Listen.... so that you can hear you Poem!

Then go ahead and taste your Poem. What flavour is it?

Smell your Poem! Breath it in...

Touch your Poem


Now look closely at your Poem... What is it telling you?


It's time to create your Poem. Bring it to life!

Finally refresh yourself as you Read your Poem...
*
*
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Enjoy your poem