spinning

I'm really enjoying working with the children to prepare our fleece but looming on the horizon is the spinning task and, as the time approaches, I'm thinking that I really do need to teach myself to spin! The link below might be just the inspiration that I need. (sorry my link button isn't working - you made to cut and paste it)

http://themagiconions.blogspot.com/2011/08/discovering-waldorf-spinning-straw-into.html

A story to tell while preparing the wool

I wrote this story to tell the children whilst we are picking the bits out of the wool. It goes with my previous post about the song Tarry Wool. I hope that any Scottish readers will approve of this story about the great Bard. (If it helps, I am descended from the MacIntosh clan)

Once upon a time in Scotland, there was a little boy called Robert Burns but, because this was Scotland, everyone knew him as Rabbie. Rabbie lived a hard life. Even as a young boy he worked hard to help his father plough and farm his land. But there was one thing that made little Rabbie happy. For Rabbie loved to listen to music; he loved to listen to his mother Agnes singing as she swept and cleaned their home; and he loved the songs of William, his father, and of the other farm workers as they toiled to make a living off the land.

As a boy and then as a man, Rabbie walked from hill to valley and from town to city, listening to the songs that the people were singing and learning them for himself.

One day, Rabbie was walking from one town to another, high up in the hills with no one but the windswept sheep for company, when he heard singing

“Tarry wool, oh tarry wool
tarry wool is ill to spin
Card it well oh card it well
Card it well ere ye begin”

Rabbie was very excited at the prospect of learning a new song and he followed the sound until he came across a group of shepherds, sitting busily working while they sang.

“Tarry wool, oh tarry wool
tarry wool is ill to spin
Card it well oh card it well
Card it well ere ye begin”

Rabbie asked if he could join the shepherds and listen to their song and he sat himself down by a young shepherd boy. After a while of listening to them singing and watching them working he asked the boy what he was doing. The boy told him how they were cleaning their sheep's fleece to get all the little bits out and Rabbie asked if he could help. He sat with the shepherds overlooking the valleys as they cleaned the fleece and sang their song. What's this black sticky stuff he asked the boy. Ah, well that is the tar. We always put black tar on the sheep if he hurts itself. It stops dirt from getting in. That's why we call dirty wool Tarry Wool. But, you know, this here Tarry wool is the greatest stuff in the world. It clothes rich and poor alike. And it keeps us all warm and healthy and, with that, all the shepherds joined in again to sing. Rabbie Burns never forgot the song they sang and, when he was older, he wrote it down in a book so that we might never forget it too.

“Tarry wool, oh tarry wool
tarry wool is ill to spin
Card it well oh card it well
Card it well ere ye begin”

A song to sing while preparing the wool

I do love a bit of British folk music - it appeals to something deep within me and, as I was researching sheep rhymes e.g. baa baa black sheep, little bo peep, mary had a little lamb, I came across "tarry wool". I like the idea of learning it all and having the children sing the first verse with me as a chorus after each verse. I'll just have a week to learn it as next week, hopefully, we'll all be sitting with a fleece and taking out the bits and brambles ready for cleaning. I've linked in a youtube clip so you can get an idea of the tune (we won't be harmonising though!)

TARRY WOOL

Tarry wool, oh tarry wool
Tarry wool is ill tae spin
Card it well, oh, card it well
Card it well e'er ye begin

When it's carded, row'd and spun,
Then your work in almost done
But when it's woven, dreft and clean,
It will be clothing for a queen

Up, ye shepherds, dance and skip
O'er the hills and valleys trip
Sing in praise of tarry wool
And of the flock who bears it, too

Poor harmless creatures, without blame
They clothe the back and cram the wame
Keep us warm and hearty, too
Well's on us, our tarry wool

Hart and hind and fallow deer
Not by half so useful are
From kings to him that holds the plough
All are obliged to tarry wool

Who'd be a king, can any tell
When a shepherd lives so well
Lives so well and pays his due
With honest heart and tarry wool

Mini Projects 1 - Acorn Necklaces

One of the purposes of handwork is to teach children patience and perseverance on long term projects.  However, as this is so hard for some children, I will also include in my planning, smaller projects which link to the season and to the materials that we are working with.  This acorn necklace on the rhythmofthehome website may be one such project.  Collecting the acorn cups will be a lovely bridging activity for the children as it was the kind of the thing that they did in Kindergarten.  Also, they can use the acorns themselves for counting with in their main classes.

A later addition that I found for our finger rhymes is this little poem
In small green cup an acorn grew,
On tall and stately oak.
The spreading leaves, the secret knew,
And hid it like a cloak.

The breezes rocked it tenderly,
The sunbeams whispered low,
“Some day the smallest acorn here,
Will make an oak, you know.”