Local History & Geography--Waldorf Grade 4

Fourth grade focuses on the LAND--the physical features rather than the human-made creations--which shape our history.  Thus, this outline is specific to Enumclaw, Washington, but I hope you can extrapolate to your own area.
From the title, you might think this is a social studies unit.  However, I included lots of science too.  (This was more than a one-month block as a result.) Unlike the usual "whole to parts," which goes from the big picture to the small detail, I started from local and went to state-wide.
I did these activities with my fourth grader and my ninth grader (who was earning a Washington state history credit).  We had no problems adapting our activities for both ages.

Week One:

• Climb Mount Peak, a local "big hill" from which you can see our town. Note where there are rivers (even if we can't quite see them), high places, low places, etc.
• Paint a very general map of our area, just with the basic physical features but still no roads or buildings.  D included Mount Rainier, the Cascade range, the White River, the Green River, and the location of the city of Enumclaw.
• Visit Mount Rainier National Park.
• Spend a day or two learning about glaciers and how they made the canyons and rivers of our area.  We read a book one day (mostly a lot of vocabulary).  On day two, we labeled a map with the names of the major glaciers on Mount Rainier (and what rivers flow from them) and had a test on the glacier vocabulary.
• Learn how glaciers formed the rest of our state (the coulees, Dry Falls, etc.).  Memorize the major geologic regions of Washington, and make a map of them.

Week Two:

• Discuss Mount Rainier--past eruptions, the lahar (ancient mudflow) on which Enumclaw is built, what it looks like in the crater.  (I used Discovering Mount Rainier by Dog-Eared Publications.)
• Watch a video about the eruption of Mount Saint Helens (2 hours away from us).
• Study the line of volcanoes--part of the Ring of Fire--stretching from northern California to southern British Columbia.  What makes a volcano?  Memorize the volcanoes of the Cascade range and identify them on a map.  (I used Cascade Volcanoes: a Discovery Book by David Purcell.)
• Define and learn about watersheds and the water cycle.  (I used Beginning in the Watershed--Grade 4 from the For Sea Curriculum. I highly recommend this curriculum!)  We discussed our "ecological address" in the watershed, and determined we are part of the White River watershed, coming (mostly) off the Emmons Glacier on Mount Rainier.  Our house is almost on the dividing line between two major watersheds, so this was a tricky question :)
• Go to the White River (we chose Federation Forest State Park) to sample aquatic insect larvae and determine the health of our watershed.  (This activity was also from Beginning in the Watershed.)  There were an amazing number of insect larvae!  This also turned out to be a perfect segue into future parts of our unit.  We found hundreds of dead salmon--those which had already spawned--along the river banks.  (We smelled them before we saw them!)  And we were able to hike part of the Naches trail which many early settlers followed on their way to our region.

Weeks Three and Four:

• Learn the seven species of salmon and trout that live in the waters of the Pacific Northwest.  (This activity was called "Name That Salmon" from Our Home: the Estuaries--a high school curriculum from For Sea. This whole salmon study was a combination of activities from the 4th grade and high school For Sea books.)  We cut out and colored pictures of the various species, and identified which we had seen at Federation Forest.
• Tell the story of the life cycle of a Chinook salmon who was born in Red Fish Lake in Idaho.  (Our family had a personal experience with this, having visited the lake one year when only one salmon had returned!  Thankfully, the numbers are now increasing.)
• Visit two different salmon hatcheries--one in Issaquah and one in Orting.  We were able to tell the differences between the different species we saw :) and to see live salmon, dead salmon, and salmon eggs.
• Discuss possible causes for the decline of salmon populations in the Northwest.
• Read about research exploring how salmon find their way back to their spawning stream.
• Learn about aquaculture and the three methods for raising salmon.
• Explore how natural selection changes genetic diversity and how hatcheries alter the salmon gene pool. We actually made models of fish with certain genes, then used scenarios from Our Home: the Estuaries. Interesting stuff!
• Tell Native American stories about the salmon.  We enjoyed reading stories about Raven and Eagle as well.
• Make a diorama of Native American salmon fishing.
• Role-play the meeting of different cultures with different values.
• Analyze how the Boldt Decision (allocating fish in Pacific Northwest waters) has affected native and non-native fishermen.  We watched a video about this, then discussed it.

Weeks Five and Six:

• Draw a map of our neighborhood.  (Here we finally got to buildings!)  N drew a map that extended to downtown as well.
• Read selections from In the Shadow of the Mountain and Settlers of Enumclaw--local histories of our town.
• Read aloud the book Sweetbriar Autumn.  N had been reading the prequel Sweetbriar, which introduces the first settlers of Seattle.  Sweetbriar Autumn is the fourth book in the series and talks about the Indian Wars which began in our White River valley.  The names and locations were very familiar!

D and N at Fort Nisqually (in Point Defiance Park)

More:  From here, we went on to study our state history--explorers, fur trappers, missionaries, Oregon trail, current events....  We learned a little about state government (N studied it in more detail), and memorized our state symbols--bird, tree, flower, etc.  We visited several other historic sites and museums.

We also expanded our study of the land--out to the estuaries and to the Pacific Ocean.  (Here we used the For Sea curriculum Life in the Estuary--Grade 3 as well as the previously mentioned high school-level Our Home: the Estuaries.)  We ended with a field trip to the Nisqually Delta estuary and wildlife refuge.  

Educating the Will

I have been thinking a lot lately about the principle of moral agency--the power to choose.  The ability to act for ourselves and not to be acted upon.  I believe it is an incredibly precious gift from God.
So I find it enlightening that two of my favorite "mentors"--Charlotte Mason and Rudolph Steiner--had much to say on this topic.  They both called it "Will," but it is the same. And schooling the will should be one of the fundamental goals of education.
Charlotte Mason noted that a child who is called "strong willed" because he always wants his own way has actually a weak will.  He does not have enough control to choose what is right when what he wants is wrong.  If a child is always choosing the easy way, it is a parent's job to help strengthen that child's will by giving him experience and practice in choosing right.
Rudolf Steiner believed that "thinking, feeling, and willing" are parts of the soul.  He, too, encouraged exercises for cultivating the will.  And Steiner's educational model (Waldorf) includes daily activities for not only head and heart, but the hand--where the will is manifest. (Notice that "will" involves action.) By exercising the will, we train it to choose right.
Charlotte Mason felt that good ideas are the best way to inspire the will.  Her recommendations for reading living books and for studying good art and music are both ways of nourishing the will.
I love Charlotte Mason's school motto: "I am, I can, I ought, I will."

Language Arts with Norse Myths--Waldorf grade 4

Throughout my years of homeschooling, I have used literature to teach language arts.  Mostly I let the authors of Learning Language Arts Through Literature figure it out for me.  For 4th grade, however, there just wasn't a good way to get through the whole LLATL book and do all the Norse myths recommended for the Waldorf curriculum.  So I began with a "scope and sequence" of what is typically covered in 4th grade.  Here is one online list.  Then I found a good book of Norse myths.  Children of Odin by Padraic Colum was my favorite of the several I read.  It is available here, but having the book is nice too.

Instead of doing several blocks of Norse myths, we are doing them throughout the year.  Each week I read one of the stories to D.  The next day he narrates (retells) the story and we talk about it ("Reading" and "Thinking Skills" topics).  

The third day he--sometimes with help--decides on a summary of the story or part of the story.  I write down the summary and he copies it or writes it from dictation in his lesson book.  (We started dictation in 3rd grade, and he does it a little over half the time now.  But I think there are good skills learned from copywork too.)  That covers "Penmanship" and many of the "Composition" topics in the scope and sequence, though the summaries are pretty short.  Other projects throughout the year will give D a chance to write longer pieces.  Of course he illustrates each story too.

The fourth day, we cover the "Grammar" goals.  This turned out to be easier than I thought, because I just choose one of the items on the scope and sequence list and spend two or three weeks on it. (D is also doing Editor in Chief, Beginning level once a week, so I mostly coordinate with what he is learning there.) With capitalization, for instance, we talked about the rules then I typed up a paragraph from the story that had lots of names in it.  D had to fill in all the necessary capitals--first word of each sentence and proper names of people and places.  For identifying nouns, I found a section of the story with a variety of words and he circled all the nouns.  This gave us a chance to talk about pronouns too.  Another day I had him take a few paragraphs and change them from past tense to present tense.

There were still some units in the LLATL book that I wanted to cover, so I have scheduled them in over the months.  For instance, we did "friendly letters" just after D's birthday when he had thank-you notes to write.  We will study poetry (and book making) when N is doing a poetry unit in her literature class.  And I have planned a research skills unit for part of our state history study.

I am having a good time, and D is LOVING the Norse myths.  Rudolf Steiner really knew what he was doing to cover them in 4th grade.

Textiles and Fibers--Waldorf grade 3

According to Waldorf philosophy, the third grade child is emerging from his little world of family and imagination and is finding his place in the bigger, outside world.  That is why we study Old Testament stories:  people on a journey, learning how to relate to authority.  But we also study the ways we get along in this bigger world--namely food, clothing, and shelter.  Here's an outline of what we learned about textiles:
*Introduction
What was it like to be a baby?  We told D's birth story.  Was he born with any clothes?  What kind of things did he need?  In main lesson book (MLB), he drew a baby with his "layette."

*Leather
The first peoples' clothes were animal skins--leather.  D made a handwork project with leather. (The Tandy company has lots of kits.)  What are the advantages and disadvantages of clothing made from skins?

*Cotton
D played with some actual cotton plants.  (I bought mine on Ebay for just a few dollars.)  I let him pull apart the bolls to find the seeds inside.  Wasn't the cotton gin a great invention so we didn't have to do this by hand?
We read Cotton by Millicent E. Selsam which talks about the history of cotton, the plant, and how it is processed.  In what kinds of weather would you like to wear cotton?

*Silk
I told the legend of the Chinese princess who discovered silk when a silkworm cocoon fell in her cup of tea.  (I found this story several places, but my favorite was "The Secrets of Silk" by Elizabeth Seward in Living Crafts magazine, Spring 2011.)  We also read Material World--Silk by Claire Llewellyn and got some new colors of play silks. :)  D drew the life cycle of the silk worm in his MLB.

*Flax 
We watched several You-Tube videos about how flax is grown and processed.  D illustrated the process in his MLB.

*Wool

We read Pelle's New Suit by Elsa Beskow. (Pelle's suit is too small for him.  He shears his sheep, then he has to help the people who card, spin, dye, weave, and sew his wool into a new suit.).  We made a drop spindle and did our best to make yarn.  (It wasn't very even!)

 With every fabric, we tried burning a piece to see how flammable it was and how it smelled.

This was a really fun (and informative!) unit.  I think older children would enjoy it too.

Shelters and Building Unit--Grade 3

This is D's "Shelters" unit from Fall, 2010
(borrowing heavily, with permission, from Marsha Johnson of Shining Star School)

Week 1--Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles
--Tell story of Sinai and 40 years of wandering.
Sing “Follow the Prophet”—verse about Moses
--Watch YouTube videos of building a Sukkah
Why is it important to the Jews to celebrate this holiday?
--Build our own Sukkah! and have lunch inside.
Draw a picture for Main Lesson Book.

Week 2—How do we live in our region?
--Walk around the neighborhood and look at the homes.
--Draw a picture of our house (MLB).
Look at parts of house: foundation, walls, roof, doors, windows, porches, eaves, rain gutters, siding, trim, chimney, stairs.
What materials were used to build our house?
How does the house look from different sides?
Which window goes with which room?
--Copywork—poem “My House’s Night Song” by Betsy Rosenthal
--Tell Stories of Northwest Native Americans—how they live, what they did, how they found food and shelter.
Choose a story for MLB.
If possible, visit a museum with exhibits of NW tribes.

Week 3—How do people live in other parts of the world?
--Talk over places we have visited. What are the homes like there?
--Copywork—from Come On Over to My House by Theo LeSieg
--Focus on different regions (via library books) and examine:
• Hot dry climates (cool, thick adobe, African kraal, mud-n-daub homes)
• Hot wet climates (homes on stilts, reed walls, roll-up-the-sides house, boat)
• Cold icy climates (igloos, thick felted yurts)
• Snowy mountain climates (pointed roofs with 2nd story “doors”)
• etc.
Draw the homes from these climates—showing proper flora and fauna around.

Week 4—Building a home
--Look at a building in process.
Notice foundations, steel rebar, studs, headers, footings.
Draw construction structures in MLB.
Examine, use, then draw hand tools including hammer, saw, screwdriver, chisel, ruler, square, plane, and drill. Make a simple project with carpentry tools
--Make a foundation of stone or bricks. (We made a raised garden bed.)
--Build a miniature dwelling and report on it.

More Waldorf Principles--Steiner's Themes

I have mentioned that the Waldorf curriculum “speaks” to a child at his level. Let me tell you what that means. Language arts, math, and social studies are all taught through stories. But there are specific stories for each age group:

A first grader is rapidly changing and growing physically. He is losing his baby teeth. He is becoming more coordinated. All of his energy has been going to his physical body rather than to his intellect. He is still more in his imagination than in the “real world.” So he is told fairy tales—simple, archetypal stories where there are powerful Kings, where wickedness is punished, and where there may even be a little magic.

A second grader is learning to make decisions for himself as he approaches the age of accountability. Thus, his curriculum includes stories of “saints” and other revered people so he can see what GOOD is. And he also learns fables—to show him how to make choices between right and wrong, and that every choice has consequences.

A third grader is facing what Steiner called the “nine-year change,” and it can be traumatic. So he studies the Old Testament (even if it is not part of his religion) because its history parallels his inner journey. The expulsion from Eden, the slavery in Egypt, the wandering in the wilderness…over and over the Hebrew people fail, yet they are loved by a generous God who always gives them another chance and guides them to the Promised Land.

A fourth grader is discovering who he is and what the world has to offer. He hears stories about what it means to be human, to be different than the other animals. And he learns of Norse mythology, which is all about nines (his age). These ancient stories don’t always end happily: they are full of mischief and ambivalence, just like the real world.

I appreciate the way that each curriculum doesn’t just teach facts, but actually nourishes the child. Although I don’t follow Steiner’s themes up through grade 12, I like to use them at least in these early years.

Disclaimer...

I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog talking about Waldorf education. I feel it is the best educational model I have seen, especially for a classroom environment. I love the fact that it is protective of childhood and that it follows life’s cycles and rhythms. Each element of the curriculum “speaks” to a child at his level. The arts and the handwork are healing and inspiring. But I don’t DO all of it at my house.

My biggest hang-up involves how to teach multiple topics—specifically science and history--to multiple children. All Waldorf homeschoolers have this challenge, but there is a reason why I’m not really willing to try others’ solutions. Ask any of my children, and they will tell you that our read-alouds (our family unit studies) are/were their favorite part of homeschool. How can I take that away to teach the age-appropriate topics? I haven’t figured it out.

So, when I talk about what we’re doing in our homeschool, you’ll notice that I’m not following a strictly Waldorf curriculum. We make music and work with our hands, but we also study famous artists and composers the Charlotte Mason way. We joyfully celebrate many holidays and festivals, but we don’t always do circle time. I always try to teach “whole to parts.” But we study science and history together as a family. I have tried to learn the principles that make Waldorf education what it is, but I don’t feel bound to other people’s views of what the details must be. I seek inspiration for the current needs of my children, and go with that. Isn’t that what homeschooling’s all about?

There are many wonderful and inspiring websites and blogs where you can learn about Waldorf education. Here, though, you’ll find more of a hodge-podge. Just thought you should know….

What is Science Education?

My cousin Tim noted recently that my blog doesn’t say much about science.Is this is a weak area in our homeschool, he wondered? (It is true that many homeschooling parents are nervous about science, at least in the upper grades.) Anyway, it got me thinking about what really constitutes science education. If I know what my goals are, it’s much easier to decide if I am achieving them!

My goals in science education are to give my kids the tools to learn about their world. I want them to be familiar with the scientific method—both as a way to make their own discoveries and as a way to evaluate others’ work. I want to give my children at least an overview of many areas of science so that they know enough to choose what they enjoy most. But mainly, I want to leave my children with a sense of wonder and reverence for all of God’s creation—so that they want to keep learning.

I don’t think that textbooks do that very well. I had a K-8 series of science texts when I first started homeschooling. Each grade level skimmed over the same set of units without ever really digging deep enough to “get into it.” That wasn’t very appealing.

Instead, my kids and I spend many hours outside—in the yard, in the vegetable garden, in the forest, by the river. We explore, we paint or draw, we collect. We have a small “nature shelf” at our house where we put our seasonal discoveries of rocks or acorns or flowers. (N has taken charge of this shelf and reorganizes it at least monthly.) My children know, from experience, about different kinds of rocks and where they’re found. They can identify most of the flowers and trees of the Pacific Northwest and all of the plants in our yard and garden. They’ve visited dozens of National and State Parks.

My children have pets—a dog, Guinea pigs, rabbits, and turtles at last count. The kids provide (and pay for) all of the care for these animals, and the kids also read and research just what constitutes the best care so they can make wise decisions. They become experts!

Each child in our family has a nature journal. Nothing is assigned in this notebook, but it is a place where we can draw pictures of an interesting caterpillar, take notes on the habits of a bird, write poetry about flowers, or philosophize about the seasons.

When we do have formal science classes, I like to read LIVING BOOKS, or books that are interesting in their own rights and not just “educational.” For instance, we liked The Microbe Hunters when we studied bacteria and Phineas Gage—A Gruesome but True Story… when we were learning about the brain. When we do use textbooks, it’s after hands-on experience (whole to parts). There are lots of places to get science “stuff,” but one of my favorites is Tobin’s Lab.

Of course any family—homeschooled or not—could do “real life” science this way, but I have the advantage of TIME. We can learn about science WHEN the science learning is relevant. Our science fits right in with our gnomes and fairies, because our science learning aims to instill wonder.

No, Tim, I don’t think we are weak in science. Over time, we do cover all the state learning objectives. But we definitely don’t do it the way they do in public school.

Shhh...A Fairy Lives Here

Though this isn't strictly about school, it's about life and imagination--both of which are integral to our family's education....

It was last month that N "found" the first evidence of a fairy in our back yard. She told D, and the two of them kept watch on the little house under the fir tree. N would often spend time out there, but it was D who usually came running in with the exciting news that something else had changed where the fairy lives. It wasn't long before we nicknamed our fairy "Spring," because she loves the sunshine and flowers of the season as much as we do.

Each week, Spring's home becomes more elaborate and more beautiful. Dishes of flower food, a well (filled with water), a wood shed, a "landing pad," and a leaf-drying rack are just some of her possessions. D was sad when a "For Sale" sign appeared in Spring's yard one morning. After I talked with N, though, it turned out that Spring was just selling some of her rocks.

We all "help" with developments around the home site, so D knows that not everything is done by the fairies. But Spring is real to him; he speaks of her the way he does of his imaginary dragons--he wants them to be real. My older kids worried that it was bad for D to believe in a fairy, but I don't think so. The other day he asked me, "Do you think Spring is real?" I hope I answered wisely when I told him about my childhood dreams of little people in my life and said,"I would love for her to be real."

Whole to Parts

I’ve really been thinking about this post, since Tori requested it. (Thanks for the nudge!) It’s one thing to know the definition of “whole-to-parts learning” and another thing to apply it. That’s why I didn’t consciously apply it for long after I was first exposed to the idea. And why I discovered I was actually teaching whole to parts in some cases, but didn’t know it. So, I will explain the idea as I understand it, and then try to give lots of examples of applications.

In whole-to-parts learning, instruction begins with the “big picture,” or in a natural setting. Then learners construct their own understanding of the components. (That doesn’t mean that students never spend time practicing facts—such as the times tables, for instance—but such practice comes later.) This is in direct contrast to a method where subject matter is taught and mastered as factual bits and then (hopefully) synthesized into a whole. Whole-to-parts learning is supposed to appeal to some specific learning styles, but I think it works best for anyone because it is the way that little children learn everything before they go to school. This type of teaching is student-centered (perfect for a homeschool!) and tries to create a context for learning instead of forcing students to be passive recipients of the teacher’s knowledge.

Confused? Here are some examples:

1. Waldorf students are taught the letters of the alphabet using fairy tales. We find a letter in each story, then draw a picture in which that letter IS the picture. I taught the letter “R” with Rapunzel. One side of the "R" is the tower wall. The top of the "R" is the window. The other leg is Rapunzel's hair. (If this isn't obvious, remember that the artist is a 6 year old!) Providing this picture-context has helped D to no longer reverse his letters.

2. Our history study is always based on biographies or historical fiction. (I didn’t want to teach history in the boring way I had been taught, and reading stories just felt right.) So, we might not get all the facts and dates, but we get a feel for the people and the time period.

3. In Waldorf 1^st grade, we learn all four basic math operations together. The math gnomes help each other with their work, so the children see that the operations are all related (eg. multiplication is fast adding).

4. Also in Waldorf math, we always work from the “answer” when learning math facts:
12 is two sixes
12 is three fours
12 is six twos
Also:
12 is two sixes
10 is two fives
8 is two fours
Etc.

5. One of my favorite grammar resources, called Editor in Chief, offers a short passage for the student to read and then tells him how many errors to find. It’s much more challenging than just identifying parts of speech or grammar rules out of context! And it seems less threatening to the kids to edit someone else’s work rather than their own.

6. When modeling with clay, Waldorf students are encouraged to start with one big lump and then pinch and pull to make legs, ears, windows, doors, etc.

7. Our science studies always begin with a “lab.” Even when using a textbook, I rearrange the order so we are doing something experiential at the start. The kids understand the concept much better when they’ve already seen it first-hand.

8. Both the Charlotte Mason and Waldorf models have kids spend a lot of time outside, in nature. They don’t get just a leaf to look at in the classroom; they have seen the whole tree (and probably drawn a picture of it and collected its seed pods and …).

As you have probably noticed, this teaching philosophy is not exclusively a Waldorf idea. But it is part of the foundation of Waldorf ed., and that has prompted me to pay better attention to how I am doing things.

I’d love to hear your ideas of other applications of this philosophy.

Watercolor

In Waldorf schools, the students paint with watercolor every week. In case you have never used watercolor (the stuff in the tins doesn’t count), it is one of the most difficult media I have tried. I took a class in college and learned some techniques which gave me a moderate amount of success. But that was 29 years ago!

So it’s good that I don’t need to remember those techniques to teach painting the Waldorf way. Now, it’s all about getting to know the colors. What is yellow’s personality? (Who knew you could paint a whole picture in yellow?)

Which colors like each other? How do the colors mix with each other to make new colors?

D uses only the primary colors. He paints stories like “Yellow and Blue met one day. When they recognized each other, they had a big hug.” These simple paintings are amazingly beautiful.

L and M are free to paint what they want on our painting days. Occasionally they choose a subject we are studying, but usually they just try out ideas. They use a variety of colors, and mix new colors too. They’ve done really well, but not without some frustration about how to control wet paint on a wet surface. We all continue to learn. :o)

I’m trying to experiment and rediscover some of those tricks I used to know about painting. But I’ve also gained a new appreciation for clear, beautiful colors. And if my paintings don’t turn out quite right, I can cut them up and use them for math manipulatives or for flash cards. [See Land of Numeria for an example!] Mostly, I’ve found that painting feels therapeutic for all of us, and we look forward to these days.

The Math Gnomes are Coming!

In Waldorf education, it is traditional to introduce most things—including the mathematical operations--with stories. I’ve heard of fairies, ponies, squirrels, or almost anything else for math. We decided to use gnomes, and D helped me to make them out of felt and wooden bodies I purchased from A Child’s Dream Come True (http://achildsdream.com/index.htm). This is a very fun store, with reasonable prices.
Here is a photo of our gnomes. Besides the four operations, there is also King Equals and his treasurer Alpha. (The gnomes spend their time collecting jewels which they take to Alpha.) Not included in this picture is Omega ("Meg"), who is Alpha's wife. D and N thought that all of the math gnomes needed spouses.
Stay tuned for the further adventures of D and the math gnomes....

Math Gnomes Teach Division

Gnome Divide loves to share. In fact, "Share" is her nickname. So she supervises whenever we want to split things up and give everyone equal parts. Here is D trying to divide 24 jewels into four parts. He also did three parts and six parts. Five didn't work so well, of course.
Waldorf first graders use lots of manipulatives (and then make drawings of what they have done). We don't do too much with written equations until later. However, D did learn and draw the sign for division. It looks just like a stick splitting up a set of two jewels.

Waldorf Principles

I have mentioned Marsha Johnson, another of my mentors. By showing me the principles of Waldorf education (as opposed to just examples of Waldorf education), she enabled me to incorporate this model into everything we do. Here are those principles as I understand them:

1. Look for archetypal knowledge, eternal truths--vs. knowledge where the perspective can change with time. Look for cross-cultural lessons from history. Be able to perceive and express these spiritual truths yourself, then teach them without stating them obviously. This can be hard, but it helps so much when you have done your own inner work ahead of time. The truths seem to emanate from you.

2. Identify time period, culture, or sources of info as the foundational core focus for a block. Then plan to present 2 new ideas around that focus each week. (For a 4-week block, you will cover 8 main concepts.) This really helped me, because I'm often guilty of trying to cram in too much!

3. Identify skill threads (vocabulary, grammar, math, etc.) to be incorporated into the lessons. This is pretty easy, for those of us who are used to unit studies. Marsha recommends choosing for each week an artistic goal, an academic goal, and a social goal. (Social would be different at home than in a Waldorf school, I expect.)

4. Be conservative with words. Then we spend more time with hands-on or artistic endeavors, and it isn't just mom talking all the time. (This one's a challenge for me too!)

5. Bring reverence to the lesson--respect for culture, belief, people, nature, God, and the earth. Set the scene, eliminate distractions, incorporate the beautiful.

The idea of Whole to Parts is an important principle as well, one I will cover in a future post.

The Land of Numeria

Last fall, I decided to start the year with a review of math facts, since everything seems to be forgotten over the summer. Math facts are not our favorite, so I tried to make it more fun with a Waldorfy idea inspired by Marsha Johnson of Shining Star School.
We began by looking for numbers in the world around us. (What a good excuse to go outside!) This is a standard first grade Waldorf study on the “quality” of numbers. My first grader, D, made a book with a different page for each number. Here is 4, the legs on a Guinea pig, and the Roman numeral IV. My older kids filled their books with beautiful numbers and their own review of Roman numerals.
Next we made a map of Numeria which included a forest, a river, and a village. These were our destinations for the next several days. The key to enter this land was found in the hidden numbers at the gate (which I made).
D had to count all the numbers in order to get in. L and N had to find their sum and product.
We gathered in the dark forest, surrounded by D’s stuffed wild animals. There we practiced addition and multiplication, using our flashlights to see the cards. (Somehow flashlights made math drills more fun!) D did his addition with manipulatives. The next day in the forest, we made trees: factor trees for my 6th and 9th graders, sums for my 1st grader.At the river, instead of skipping rocks we did skip counting. (We also visited a real river and we did skip rocks there.)
In the village, the buildings were tall. D practiced counting on, while the older kids reviewed adding long columns of numbers and other tricks.
This is just a quick overview; each part of this math block took several days. And our math review turned out to be fairly painless. :o)

My Homeschool Philosophy

Homeschooling was my husband’s idea to begin with (even before our first child was born). He had studied gifted education, and knew that giftedness flourishes in a rich, individualized environment. Of course our children would be “gifted”! If not though, intelligence will increase if the teacher thinks a child is smart.

I’d never even heard of homeschool before, but I started reading. And there wasn’t much to read at the time, mostly some books by Raymond and Dorothy Moore with titles like Better Late Than Early and School Can Wait. Soon I had decided that homeschooling was important, not only for superior academics, but so that I could respect my children’s time and not waste it with the administrative and disciplinary details that have to occur in the public school. I wanted time for them to play, to enjoy their childhood. (I remember calling my elementary school a prison.) I didn’t want them to have to repeat things they already understood. My goal was to have children who love to learn and who know how to learn.

Inspired by the Konos curriculum, I soon settled into a plan for our homeschool based on unit studies. The idea of tying all subject areas together under one topic really appealed to my step-sequential brain! The reality wasn’t exactly that way, however. We had some great units, but they were heavy on the history and language arts and somewhat lacking on the math and science. (We usually did math separately.) And all the things I wanted to teach my kids didn’t necessarily fit into logical little units (although I kept trying to make them do so!)

Along the way, I heard about Charlotte Mason’s ideas. Most of them were things I had already found to be successful in my homeschool, especially the concept of “living” books. Some were new ideas for me though: short lessons, nature journals, century books. These principles have worked well for our family. The idea of short lessons was a life-saver with one daughter who really struggled with math in the later elementary years. We agreed to ten minutes a day, and I would condense the lesson to one principle and just a few problems. She could do math, if it were only for ten minutes.

You can see why I call this a journey! Recently, I have moved closer to the Waldorf model of education. I haven’t abandoned the things I’ve been doing all these years, but Waldorf adds ideas that appeal to my spirit. Now I am more cognizant of life’s rhythms: the daily, weekly, and yearly patterns that structure our time. (I have long understood that structure was important to children, but Waldorf makes an art of structure.) Now I try to incorporate more creativity and imagination. We have more art and music in our home. We tell more stories. I feel that my life is richer than before.
My friend and mentor Melisa Nielsen, a Waldorf consultant, said, “Steiner [founder of Waldorf education] meant for this path to be for the teachers as much as (if not MORE than) for the students, because if the teacher is spot on then the students will absorb what they need as they need it.” I guess that’s why I love Waldorf!

Truly though, I love everything we have done as a homeschooling family. No matter what curriculum or game plan I have used, just the fact that I could spend every day with my children has been an incredible blessing. It’s really all about my children.