Welcome to the LIVE audio version of our homeschool vlogs. In these videos, you'll hear the delightful voices of the children, my verbal instructions to the children (often too much instruction) and the quiet and slow between the projects, and the laughter and joy of the play.

Day 15, Thursday, October 8, 2026, of homeschooling my triplet nephews, who are four years old, for our Waldorf-inspired kindergarten, and we had more failures today than on all our previous days combined! But even when our projects don’t go as planned, there is still so much to experience and learn.

We’re beginning in the garden, where my 11-year-old nephew is harvesting the only pomegranate that survived this season. I’ve been saving it for him because he loves pomegranates, and we’re going to reserve the skins for a natural fabric dye project.

Meanwhile, the four-year-olds are making self-watering planters. I have little plastic pots that fit perfectly inside mason jars, and the children are threading wool yarn through the bottoms to wick water into the soil. I bought something similar years ago, but replacements were so expensive that I decided we could make our own.

The children fill their pots with soil and count out five marigold seeds each. This is a wonderful example of how mathematics naturally enters the kindergarten experience. Counting individual seeds gives children a concrete understanding of quantity without formal instruction. We finish by watering the soil, and I’ve already realized I need some child-sized gardening spades and a little indoor watering can!

Gardening is a central part of our kindergarten rhythm, and I love how these projects connect to our other activities. The marigolds will eventually be harvested for another natural dye experiment.

While the children enjoy imaginative play in their wooden structure from Head, Hands, and Heart Boutique, my older nephew and I begin preparing our pomegranate dye. The enormous fabric cover I made for the play structure has become one of their favorite things. They especially love when my 15-year-old daughter joins them and helps guide their imaginative play.

Back in the kitchen, I’m introducing my older nephew to alum, a mordant used in natural dyeing. We’re preparing wool for our dye experiments, and I’m showing him how to dissolve the alum before adding the wool. I’m hoping this will help produce a richer, more lightfast color. Unfortunately, our pomegranate dye experiment doesn’t work out as expected.

Next, we’re attempting watercolor painting with black bean dye. The dye produces a gorgeous blue-purple color on wool, and I thought it might work beautifully on paper. Unfortunately, this experiment is another failure! The color is barely visible unless the paper is completely saturated. Thankfully, I have some Stockmar blue watercolor paint and extra paper, so the children still get to enjoy painting.

Our opening activities have become our closing activities today, and I’ve decided to introduce a memory game. This turns out to be another lesson for me! The children enjoy arranging the tiles and turning them over, creating some wonderful spontaneous mathematical experiences, but remembering where the matching tiles are proves too challenging.

I eventually leave the tiles exposed so they can find the matching pairs. I’ve realized that this type of memory game isn’t developmentally appropriate for them right now, and I’ll be looking for more cooperative games instead.

We finish with our autumn morning basket, checking the weather and calendar and revisiting our little felted pumpkins, peg dolls, and seasonal treasures. We also return to our story, The Hedgehog Leaves Home, but this time we’re transitioning away from the book and telling the story from memory, using our familiar props.

Finally, our chicken and squash are ready. The children aren’t particularly hungry after having bagels earlier, but they do try the spaghetti squash. They’re much more excited about taking their gardening projects home, something they don’t usually get to do.

Day 15 certainly didn’t go as planned. Our pomegranate dye failed, our black bean watercolor failed, and our memory game needed some serious modifications. But the children spent their day gardening, cooking, cleaning, counting, painting, listening to stories, and playing imaginatively.

I’m learning that these unsuccessful projects are just as valuable for me as the successful ones. They help me recognize what is developmentally appropriate, what materials we need, and how I can better prepare our kindergarten environment. Not everything has to work out perfectly for the children to have a meaningful and enjoyable day.

Head Hands and Heart Boutique

The Hedgehog Leaves Home