Southern Illinois Industry - overview

There is so much to cover in the classic Waldorf 4th grade "Local History & Geography" block! We spread this content out over four month-long blocks:

Sep - Landforms & Water Features

an overview of basic geography terms

Jan - Local Geography and History

week 1 - Illinois State Symbols, Glaciers & Dinosaur Fossils

week 2 - Rivers & Drainage Basins, New Madrid Seismic Zone

week 3 - Mound Builders, Louisiana Purchase, Lewis & Clark

week 4 - Founding of Carbondale, Illinois Central Railroad

Apr - Local Industry

Sep - Orienteering

Since this block often includes map skills and terms such as scale and compass rose, we will also do Orienteering next September as we transition into the 5th grade year. I always like to start out each fall with a lively outdoor hands-on topic. It helps break the ice, and I love to see the children come together and bond as a group.

What to cover in April?

I made a short list of the local Industries I was interested in:

I also flagged those books we used in January that I wanted to check out again:

Rudolf Steiner talked about "economy of teaching," and this is a perfect example. I am combining this block with the grade 4 Composition focus in Language Arts, which is Personal Narratives. I want to give them some context to understand why Personal Narratives Matter!

Industry being an ideal theme to highlight the importance of the stories of everyday people living their lives, we can go to the Historical Society and hear firsthand from the staff there about the value of personal artifacts such as journals and letters.

Of course, the children can write their own narrative pieces about events from their own lives.

We can even interview several local people who are part of traditional industries in the present moment. And the children have also requested that we have someone from the Tourism Board come as a special guest, to talk about what attracts people and businesses to the region. That's a great idea!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Last, but not least, our June Summer Camp theme this year is Tall Tales. This is another excellent bridge from grade 4 into grade 5, since Tall Tale figures often typify the traditional Industry of their region. In looking at them, we transition perfectly into U.S. Geography!

I vastly prefer Olive Beaupre Miller's Heroes, Outlaws & Funny Fellows of American Popular Tales from 1939 over all other collections of tall tales. The writing is exquisite and the collection far-ranging. She also tells which state each legend is from in the table of contents, which is helpful!

This collection contains 25 stories, enough to easily fill two Waldorf 4th grade main lesson blocks. They are as follows:

Captain Kidd and His Buried Treasure
A Story of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and New England

Lord Timothy Dexter, First Lord of "Amercay"
A Story of Newburyport, Massachusetts

Old Stormalong
A Yarn of the Yankee Sailors on the Maine to Massachusetts Coast

When Witches Rode Broomsticks
A Legend of New England

Dutch Adventures in Old New York
Yarns and Legends of the Dutch Retold after Washington Irving

Christmas in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
A Story Told by Czech and German Settlers from Moravia

Old Johnny Appleseed
A Tale of Ohio and Indiana

Mike Fink and the Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock
A Story Told by Boatmen of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

A Twelfth Night Prank in Cahokia
A Folk Tale of the French in Illinois and Missouri

The Pirate La Fitte and His Ghost
A Popular Tale of Louisiana and Texas

The Bell Witch
A Folk Tale of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Mississippi

John Henry's Contest with the Big Steam Drill
A Story of West Virginia Told from Ballads of the Railroad Builders

The Crazy Doings of a Funny Fellow Among the Pennsylvania Germans
Told from Articles Written in Pennsylvania German by T.H. Harter

Heroes of the Coal Mines
Told from Tales and Songs of the Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania

John Buck, the Big Norwegian Sailor
A Story of the Green Bay Islands off Wisconsin and Michigan

Big Paul Bunyan and His Blue Ox, Babe
A Tall Tale of the Forests of Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as told by Loggers in the Lumber Camps

The Cardiff Giant
A Favorite Story Told by Old Timers in Iowa

The Sad Story of Febold Feboldson and His Enormous Load of Sand
A Popular Tale of Nebraska

The Traveling Courthouse
A Yarn of the Kansas County Seat Wars

Kemp Morgan, the Hero of the Oil Fields
A Tale Told by the Oil Drillers of Oklahoma and Texas

Pecos Bill, the Cowboy
A Tall Tale of Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado as Told by American Cowboys

Don Jose's Sheep
A Folk Tale from the Spanish of the Mexicans in New Mexico

Finn MacCool, the Greatest of Civil Engineers
A Tale of the Grand Canyon of Arizona as Told by Irish Work Gangs and Civil Engineers

Joaquin, the Robber
A Story of the California Gold Rush

Paul Bunyan Goes West
A Tall Tale of North Dakota, Oregon, and Washington

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Introduction to Fractions week 4

We are going to continue to study Fractions in Morning Math throughout April (while we do a Personal Narratives block in our Main Lesson time).

The Introduction to Fractions needs to be done very slowly and carefully to ensure there aren't enduring misunderstandings that show up later on!

Themes Covered in Week 1

Mon - K/W/L Chart

Tue - 1/2, 1/4, 1/8

Wed - Making Thirds & Halving Thirds

Thu - Fractions of a Group, Equivalent Fractions (Houses on a Street)

Themes Covered in Week 2

Mon - Fractions of a Number

Tue - Puddle Question

Wed - Reading a Ruler, Simplifying Fractions

Thu - Build-an-Animal

Themes Covered in Week 3

Mon - Restaurant Simulation

Tue - Coins as Fractions & Decimals

Wed - Operations with Fractions

Thu - Converting Improper Fractions to Mixed Numbers

Here are some Notes & Photos from week 4:

Mon - Converting Mixed Numbers to Improper Fractions

Fractions Group 1 -
Fractions of Shapes (quick review), Around the Room practice



Fractions Group 2 -
Mixed Numbers (quick review), show how to write them as Improper Fractions, Converting Mixed Numbers to Improper Fractions practice

Tue - Elapsed Time

read The King, the Dragon, and the Witch by Jerome Corsi

review reading an analog clock and look at a clock as a fraction
(half hour, quarter hour, 3/4 hour past = 1/4 hour till) and note that one minute is 1/60 of an hour and five minutes is 1/12 of an hour



do Elapsed Time practice or finish up yesterday's work as needed

Wed - Making Arrays

add new observations and new questions about fractions to the MLB

lay the foundation for tomorrow's lesson with Around the Room x, ÷

Thu - Using Arrays to Simplify Fractions

read Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille by Jen Bryant
(for Monday's special guest... but it also ties in so well with arrays!)

have students review fractions by doing Fraction of a Group and Colorful Fraction Circles independently



use small stickers (check your office supply stash!) to create an array



revisit arrays using the example on my poster:



explain that 8 dots out of 32 dots is the same as saying 1 row out of 4 rows... and, mathematically, we would write this as 8/32 = 1/4

is there a way to figure out equivalent fractions without having to make a visual each time? yes!

show students how you can multiply or divide your fraction using a "special form of 1" (ie. a fraction which has the same numerator and denominator) to get a new -- and equivalent -- fraction!



have students make arrays of their own using tiny stickers and then write equivalent fractions



show them how to "double check it mathematically"
4/12 is the same as 1/3
because 4 divided by 4 is 1, and 12 divided by 4 is 3

I got the idea of the sticker arrays from this TpT lesson using Emoji Arrays. It is SUCH an easy way for children to create their own arrays. Plus, once you have actually made them yourself, you start to see arrays everywhere!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

The Immune System week 3

Today was a great Science Club session! We meet for two hours each week; here is what we did for the third week of the Immune System:

read from Bill Nye the Science Guy's Great Big Book of Tiny Germs

We're Outnumbered!, pp.4-5

do Metric Stair activity
from gigameter to nanometer; "Grey Mat for Metric Measurement" handouts plus the Nienhuis Montessori place value colored pencils

dark green, dark blue, and red for whole numbers

light green, light blue, and pink for decimal fractions

this activity is a wonderful introduction to negative exponents!




Bacteria: They're Old and Tough, p.8 and p.10

do balloon / vanilla extract experiment






Viruses: The Enemy That Gets Within, pp.12-14

do balloon / skewer experiment






Germs Get Around!, p.17

look at doubling cube from Backgammon game






What's in a Vaccination?, pp.34-35

lay out nomenclature for Immune System from ETC Montessori

read from Daring Cell Defenders by Rebecca L. Johnson

chap 3: First Responder Cells

look at three-part cards: white blood cell, neutrophil, macrophage

look at Macrophage plush



make a slime recipe using white school glue, baking soda, and contact lens solution and use it to surround and engulf glass gems



Slime Recipe (PDF)






chap 4: Hunting Down the Enemy

look at three-part cards: helper T-cell, killer T-cell

look at Killer T-Cell plush






chap 5: Armed with Antibodies

look at Antibody plush






chap 6: Cells with Long Memories

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Introduction to Fractions week 3

Work with Fractions continued! (Here are notes from week 1 and week 2.)

Mon - Restaurant Simulation

do Restaurant Simulation (FREE on TpT)
we used pretend bills but real restaurant menus and real coins

Tue - Coins as Fractions & Decimals

play Race to a Dollar / Race to a Hundred Dollars
FREE download from Aimee Salazar's blog post (scroll to bottom)

again we used the pretend bills, real coins, and my 10-sided dice

add Coins as Fractions & Decimals to MLB



bonus question #1: how would we add a dollar coin to this chart?
bonus question #2: how would we add a half cent to this chart?

Wed - Operations with Fractions

introduce operations with fractions: +/- (with same denominators) and x/÷ (a fraction by a whole number) using Nienhuis Montessori Fraction Activity Set 1 and the Cut-Out Labeled Fraction Circles

Thu - Converting Improper Fractions to Mixed Numbers

Fractions Group 1 -
Penguin Trek (review fractions of a group) and Create Your Own Fraction Problems (adding fractions with common denominators)

Fractions Group 2 -
do Crack the Code! (multiplying fractions by a whole number, simplifying "top heavy" improper fractions to mixed numbers)

note: all three of these activities are FREE on TpT




write about what we did today in the MLB along with new wonderings

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Philosophy week 3

The discussions about Reality continued! Previous posts in this series:

part 1 - "The Velveteen Rabbit"

part 2 - The Big Muddy Monster

This week we considered the new spider species, Taczanowski waska.

I began by reading a section of Zombie Makers: True Stories of Nature's Undead by Rebecca L. Johnson.

Side note: This is a sensational book! Here are all the species included

Chapter 1: A Fungus Among Us

Zombie Maker: Fungus, Entomophthora muscae
Zombie Victim: Housefly, Musca domestica
North America and Europe

Zombie Maker: Fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis
Zombie Victim: Carpenter Ant, Camponotus leonardi
Southeast Asia


Chapter 2: The Worms Crawl In, The Worms Crawl Out

Zombie Maker: Hairworm, Paragordius tricuspidatus
Zombie Victim: Cricket, Nemobius sylvestris
Europe

Zombie Maker: Guinea Worm, Dracunculus medinensis
Zombie Victim: Human, Homo sapiens
Africa


Chapter 3: Can We Eat the Babyitter?

Zombie Maker: Jewel Wasp, Ampulex compressa
Zombie Victim: Cockroach, Periplaneta americana
tropical parts of Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands

Zombie Maker: Parasitoid Wasp, Glyptapanteles
Zombie Victim: Moth Caterpillar, Thyrinteina leucocerae
North and South America


Chapter 4: Going Viral

Zombie Maker: Rabies Virus
Zombie Victim: Mammals
Every country except Australia and New Zealand


Chapter 5: Try Me, You'll Like Me

Zombie Maker: Roundworm, Myrmeconema neotropicum
Zombie Victim: Giant Gliding Ant, Cephalotes atratus
rain forests of Central and South America

Zombie Maker: Protozoan, Toxoplasma gondii
Zombie Victim: Rats and other warm-blooded animals
Everywhere cats are found

For this lesson, I read them the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis chapter (victim: carpenter ants). Then we reviewed Kings Play Chess On Fine Grains of Sand, also known as Linnaean classification.

It is easiest to explain this using our own species Homo sapiens!

Kingdom: Animals

Phylum: Vertebrates

Class: Mammals

To further explain Order: Primates
we like to play Primate Bingo



To further explain Family: Hominids
we like to play the Hunters and Gatherers Simulation Game



Genus: Homo

Species: sapiens

After that quick review, I read them a New York Times article from Mar 20:

'The Last of Us’ on Eight Legs (guest link)

Now, on to the Philosophy discussion:

Did Taczanowski waska exist before it was discovered?

AAR - Yes, it was alive before it was discovered, that one. If it wasn't, it would have to be just made. It was there before that second he found it.

FR - Yes. Things like that need lots of time to evolve. And that seems like it's been doing it for a while, playing dead. So yes I think it did.

Z - You can't. You can't prove it.

AAR - Unless there's footprints or something. But it's not heavy enough to make footprints.

CB - I don't think that it was real. You can't prove that it's there before it's been spotted or made. How do you know if it's there if no one ever saw it before he spotted it?

EF - Yes, it existed. It has to be made before someone finds it. Because if it's made after, well, if someone finds eggs, that's one way that you could. But if something already hatches and you find that, it has to be made before.

If we are sure that something exists because we have the evidence, was it real before we had the evidence?

CB - You can't, there's no way to prove that it's real if you don't have evidence before you found it.

Z - Yes, but, if you have evidence now and you didn't have evidence before, is it not real before?

FR is making the argument that that evolution takes time. How do we know that the rules of evolution are the same for this species?

CB - We don't have the evidence of that. We don't have a report of when it was actually here before they found it, and figured it out. We don't know when it came to Earth.

FR - Evolution takes time. Look at the simple things; those still took thousand of years to evolve. If they took years and years to evolve, what about this spider? It's a lot more difficult. Plus it's mimicking an organism that's been infected. That takes time to build a disguise like that for wildlife. It can't just be around for like 20 days or something. It had to be around for at least a few decades at least.

AAR - It can't just pop into nature. So many other creatures took so long to evolve. So this creature must have taken a long time to evolve too. It can't just go in just like that. It needs time to evolve those tentacles. It can't just see an organism dying and be like, oh that's a good idea and then tentacles pop out. It can't just do that.

Z - How would this species know that this fungus exists? It wouldn't know how to mimic it, if it didn't know that that fungus existed and what it looked like and what it did to the other spiders. (That's not evidence to me. I'm just arguing that.)

Here's the Wikipedia page for this new spider. From that page, "Arachnologist Nadine Dupérré subsequently located another specimen, collected in Bolivia in 1903, in the holdings of a museum in Germany."

So our evidence for its existence goes back to 1903. Did it exist before then? Can you explain in what way it existed before it was discovered?

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!