Homeschooling in France: French Fibre Festival

For the last 3 weeks, I have invited you into our homeschool & daily life in rural France. You can see those posts here & here & here. I've been posting the "extra" photos that go along with those posts on my own blog - you can see those here.

This is the final guest post of this mini-series with Sally. 

I would like to send her a great big thank you for sharing her bit of the blogosphere with me. She was the one who made me realize that I am a real teacher even though I don't do it in a classroom. Her e-courses created a foundation upon which I was able to build a successful (& happy) homeschool life. Her deep knowledge, vast experience & sharp wit never cease to amaze & delight me !

If you ever wondered who to turn to for answers about early childhood education - just look for the fairy dust....

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Today, come along to a French fibre festival which my family & I recently attended.

La Tonte des Moutons 

 (The Sheep Shearing)

We set out on a beautiful Sunday afternoon & arrived at a marvelous historic outdoor museum/living history site, the Ecomusée du Pays de Rennes. Our first stop was a sheep herding exhibition which included a flock of tiny Ouessant sheep & a very eager border collie.

Originally from the island of Ouessant just off the coast of Bretagne, these rare sheep are one of the smallest breeds in the world (the males are only 19" high at the shoulder). I have a friend who has a flock & she says that she just "pops" them into the car if she has to take them the vet !

Next, we watched a professional shear a sheep in a couple of minutes (flashbacks to The Thorn Birds for me...). The sheep looked like she was in a trance & afterwards was thrilled to be free of her heavy & dirty fleece.



Even though I know that the fleece is supposed to come off in one-piece, I still find it fascinating that they actually manage to do it!

One thing the French do quite well at their fairs & historical events is actually engage the entire family. There was something for everyone - even little girls who'd rather colour the sheep pink than glue the fleece on it !

She comes by her love of colour honestly - I'm absolutely addicted to colour & people make fun of me because my whole family ends up going out in matching outfits (really it's not on purpose - it's just that I have such specific colour tastes & I buy everyone's clothes!).

 I found the dyeing demonstration fascinating. The fact that a French dyer would have an English book in her library made me think that this one must be pretty good (& it's now on my Amazon wish list).

Imagine being able to see & touch so many natural dye plants all in one place ! It was so inspiring to see that one can achieve such vivid colours without synthetic dyes.

Look at those vibrant shades ! These skeins were spun by the lady who dyed them with plants that she had grown & harvested. They included wool, mohair, silk & samoyed (yes, dog fur).

 

Gaude is french for "weld" & garance is "madder" - I think you can probably guess what the other colours are. 

This whole experience made me want to run out & buy these plants & substances (cochinelle/cochineal is extracted from an insect) & start dyeing up a storm. 

But then... we went into a huge tent filled with even more delights ....

Arabella was captivated by the Angora rabbit & talked to it for quite some time until she noticed the lady who had a drum carder on her table.

 Although she was drawn to it, she was quite apprehensive at first.

 
When she found out that she could have a try AND use pink fibre - she jumped right in !  

The tent was filled with fibre exhibits & experts & enthusiasts. My mother & I were in a fibre paradise... This display featured many types of spindles & other spinning tools. The book is "Respect the Spindle" - in case you're wondering.

Other fibres were represented as well - here are flax & nettle. I asked the lady at this table if that was the same nettle that covers large sections of my yard & she said YES. Who knew I had a fibre crop growing down in the orchard !?
 

Her display included a replica of an ancient vertical loom with terracotta weights - she said that it was a type of loom that was used 1000's of years ago (or at least that's what I THINK she said - when these ladies got going talking about their passions - they forgot that some of us are still learning their language !)

It reminded me of looms which I read about in Elizabeth Barber's amazing book - Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. If you are interested in anything to do with fibre - this is a must read.

Eventually, my husband dragged us out of the knitting, spinning, weaving, crocheting heavenly tent & we continued on into a typical mid-19th century kitchen/living room in the main house. Those are beds beside the huge fireplace.

Both of my kids now want a bed with doors.

Everything here is real, no replicas or reproductions. It is all available for touching & looking - I suppose there is no shortage of these items & so no one worries about them being handled. According to a sign on the wall , the people who lived here had 10 children & 2 servants -they all lived in just this room & one above... talk about family ties.

Andrew & my husband, Will, enjoyed the eco-museum too - although they were more drawn to the machines & displays about historic building techniques. What an entertaining & enlightening day !

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France is such an inspiring place to live, learn & play. When we moved here, I decided that it was finally time to gather up the best of my 30+ years of handwork ideas & resources into a neat package & share them with others who want to add creative elements to their lessons & daily lives.

On June 16th, I will be opening the doors to my new online course, The Making Lessons. I have had a terrific response & am looking forward to creating some wonderful things with my eager students.

Many of my students have been sending me their children's ages & names. I'm already adding to the course with their little ones in mind.

This 4-week self-paced course is taught via easy-to-follow lessons; each brimming with inspiring ideas & supported by up-to-date research about the fabulous effects handwork has on our children’s brains & bodies.

Find out how you can skype with me one-on-one to design your own handwork project & see a detailed outline of each lesson, HERE.

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Enroll now for only $57 USD.

 Hurry ! There are only 11 spots left at this special price !

The full market price of The Making Lessons is $97 USD.

If you're thinking about coming along for some fun, a lot of learning & plenty of unique ideas

 - now's the time !

See you soon !

Elizabeth

Homeschooling in France: Our Village & Countryside

For the last two weeks, here at Fairy Dust Teaching, I have been giving you a peek into our homeschool & daily life in rural France.

You can see those posts here & here and even more photos on my blog, Handwork Homeschool.

Today, we're going to take a little tour around our village & surrounding countryside - so settle in & indulge in a little armchair tourism.

Our Village & Countryside

 

One of our goals when we moved here from Toronto was to have more time to be together & to spend lots of time in nature. 

If you've seen our yard, you'll know that we've got many places to work & play there. But, it's always nice to get "out & about" (as we Canadians like to say), to look off in to the distance & see one beautiful sight after another.

The origin of our town is linked to a castle, built around 1034, which used to stand on a high hill (to the right of us in the top pic). Not long afterwards, a gift of lands was made to a group of Benedictine monks who founded an abbey nearby & the town sprang up between the two. 

The castle was placed between two rivers (one runs right through our yard) which were intended to protect it during feudal wars.

In the 13th century, two dams were built & a large area was flooded to create the lake. Unfortunately, the castle was destroyed during political upheavel in 1616. There are a few remains of it sprinkled throughout the town & our dear friend is convinced that she a secret tunnel from the castle still sits below her home !

Our town, like many French towns, features buildings from many centuries. Our house was built in the late 19th century & it's one of the youngest ! One of the most photographed houses, the Hotel Sevoy, built in 1634 is listed as a National Monument.

We have two very unusual buildings in town, I had to ask the locals what they were because I had never seen one. They are called "lavoirs" or communal washing stations. Women would boil water in large cauldrons & wash their laundry in the rivers.

I've been told that they were still in use in the '50s !! These ladies are re-enacting a wash-day - they sang as they worked (I'm not sure I would have...)

It is fabulous being surrounded by so much history every day - even a walk to the boulangerie is like a mini field trip. Living in the country has other benefits too - like horseback lessons !

Where else would you see a 14th century manor across the street ? And who owns it ? Well, the same man who owns the riding school, of course !  

Note the arrow slits & door big enough for a man to ride right into the hall on his horse. This was a feudal land-owner's fortified home.

Animals play a big part in our days - aside from our two fuzzy black kittens - 

we visit pigs-

.... storks & even...

Other days,

we go to the ocean, it's only 20 minutes from our house

or to one of the local castles (this one is 5 minutes from our house)

this one is a little farther away... on the coast. It is privately owned (as are many castles around here) & was completely restored by the owner's parents in the early 20th century.

The kids loved climbing the tower in the wind. ( I spent the whole time trying to hold onto them!)

France is such an inspiring place to live, learn & play. When we moved here, I decided that it was finally time to gather up all of my handwork ideas & resources into one neat package & share them with others who want to add creative elements to their lessons.

Sally has been very supportive of my work & has really encouraged me to share my approach with others. My new course, The Making Lessons is listed on her summer schedule. I hope you'll join me.
It'll be so much fun !

See you soon !

Elizabeth

P.S. When I collected photos for this post, I came up with so many... come over to my blog, Handwork Homeschool to see more.

Homeschooling in France: The Secret Garden

Guest Blogger:  Elizabeth des Roches
Blog:  Handwork Homeschool

Last week, here at Fairy Dust Teaching, I introduced my family & gave you a glimpse of our days at home. You can see that post here & more photos on my blog, Handwork Homeschool.

Welcome to our house.

We do a lot of learning, making & general fun stuff during our homeschool days. As a Wild Waldorf Mama - I generally don't make much of an effort to separate the "learning" times from the "play" times. We have formal lesson times, 4 days a week. The rest of the time we just DO. My kids are learning from the moment they get up until the moment they fall into bed at the end of a busy day.

Today, let's go out into our yard. Everybody knows how good it is for children to spend time in nature. Of course, there are the main benefits - like fresh air, sunshine, exercise - but there are also benefits that aren't mentioned quite so often. The sense of accomplishment after some (self-imposed) hard labour or the sense of freedom while yelling at the top of your lungs or the sense of excitement when hiding in the bushes during an extended game of hide and seek (or "cache-cache" as it's called in French).

Our Secret Garden

When we lived in Toronto, we had a tiny yard. Room enough for a large sandbox & to ride a bike in a small circle. We always hoped that we would have some land one day. We never dreamed we'd end up with an old orchard, room for a veggie garden, a river that wrapped around our house, a bridge & even an ancient stone ruin (aka my future garden crafting room & BREAD OVEN) !!

When we arrived, no one had lived here full-time in about 20 years. Needless to say, things were a bit overgrown...

Andrew got right into hacking back the jungle.

The weeds & brambles were so high, the kids couldn't even walk through the yard ! 

I've often seen books & blog posts talking about the 4 elements & how to include them in your homeschooling. It's amazing how naturally the kids do it when left to their own devices.

Earth

We looked & looked for a great place for the sandbox (you'd think it would be easy with a yard this size...) finally, an unusual idea hit me. Why not wrap the sandbox around the house ? It had never occurred to me to dig out one of the garden beds, line it with plastic & fill it with sand. They love it because they are close to the house & have lots of room for them both to play.

Needless to say, my kids know their way around our local quarry. Andrew can tell you exactly how much a ton of the fine, sparkling sand we bought costs - around 20 euros. Our orchard had been sadly neglected too over the years, but amazingly our few trees bear plums, apples & pears. Andrew, whose interest in anything to do with farming skyrocketed since we arrived, insisted we put in a garden. Of course, we agreed. The kids used to stroke & kiss (!) their veggies as they grew.

 

Water

With a river (this is not a stream, but a real river with speckled trout, that empties out into the ocean !) winding along one side of the house & around the back, we day-dreamed of the kids paddling idly on hot summer days.

In the summer, the water level is quite low & many a river walk has taken place. What we didn't know was that we had another "water feature" on our property. After clearing part of our land which lies on the far side of the river we discovered a strange indentation....

which after a good bit of digging turned out to be ...

a pond which is fed by a spring that flows down the hills above our house. Our neighbour, who has lived here since 1938, says she has never seen it before !

 

Fire

While we've been here, I've had to get used to my kids becoming more & more adventurous. Along the way, they have developed many new skills. While watching his father re-build part of our stone wall, which had fallen, Andrew decided he wanted to build his own BBQ.

He found old bricks in the basement, mixed up his own mortar from mud & sand & came up with the design all on his own. The best part of the whole project is that it works ! He even cooked crepes one Sunday morning for us. He is proud of it (although he still mutters under his breath because we won't let him light it...maybe this summer he'll be old enough...)

 

Wind

We do have hopes for installing some wind-generators, as the wind seems to get caught down in our walled garden. For the moment, most of the wind that gets enjoyed around here is experienced on the swing set.

Next time, come & explore Our Petite Cité de Caractère (“little town of character”), which was founded in the 11^th century & is now filled with an international array of interesting people.

Until then - have a happy week !

Elizabeth

P.S. When I collected photos for this post, I came up with so many... come over to my blog, Handwork Homeschool to see the rest if you'd like !

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!

The Making Lessons: Creating Unique Handwork Experiences
Guest Teacher:  Elizabeth des Roches, Handwork Homeschool
When:  June 16 - July 12
20 hours of Professional Development

• Take hold of your curriculum, draw out a few interesting threads & twist them around some fresh inspirations.  
•  Choose from your new collection of simple tools & start designing imaginative projects! 
•  This novel approach, presented in engaging multi-media lessons, is perfect for those who dream of enhancing their teaching with vibrant colours, rich textures & creative memories.

 Early Bird Registration!

Only $57!

 Don't miss this opportunity to jump in at the introductory beta price!