A New Book for Our Classroom Library

My mom shared this book review with me and it definitely piqued my curiousity:

A Kids’ Novel That Delights in Disorder
Philip Stead’s “A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic” gleefully ignores all the storytelling rules.

(this is a NYT gift link, so everyone can enjoy reading it!)

Since we are doing Personal Narratives as our 4th grade Composition focus, I thought this could be a fun read aloud (we just finished Mr. Popper's Penguins) and so I checked it out from the library. YEP, it's one to buy. So I just bought it. I am really looking forward to sharing this with the children!

A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic
Or, Like Lightning in an Umbrella Storm:
A Story Out of Order
by Philip Stead

Here is the "out of order" order of the chapters:

In Medias Res

13 - The Possibility of Danger

14 - A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic

15 - Failing Up

In Principio

2 - Goatnapped

3 - Perseverance

Omnia Mea Culpa

4 - Lancelot Makes a Run For It

5 - Why Bernadette Was Always Having to Repair Her Roof

6 - The King Loses His Balance

7 - The Royal Bearer of Good News

16 - A Moment of Pure Beauty

8 - The Royal Bearer of Bad News

9 - A Moment of Pure Despair

Oops! Erravi!

10 - The Tollbooth

11 - The Tree Who Does Not Grant Wishes

12 - Loopholes

The End... But Not in the Usual Sense

17 - Carelessness

18 - Gravitas

Fors Hoc Doleat!

19 - The Parade

20 - The Mountain of Regret

What Was Left of Bernadette's Ending

21 - Giddyup

22 - A Potion

23 - A Powder

Acknowledgments

24 - A Little Bit of Magic (and a Plain Gray Rock)

The End

1 - A Moment of Pure Generosity

The story also begins with a Map of the Entire Kingdom and the Cast of Characters, and ends with a place for you to write in all the Morals (which are thoughtfully punctuated by goats) that they learn along the way.

This book looks like a ton of fun! I'm sure the children will absolutely love it.

e.e. cummings broke all the stuffy rules for punctuation and capitalization... and now we have Philip Stead joyfully playing around with chapter order!

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Local Industry - Fruit

Our fifth Local Industry for Southern Illinois!

timing:

late 1800s - present day

Rendleman Orchards was founded in 1873

Illinois Central Railroad #14713, a ventilated fruit car dating from 1893 (image taken from Wikipedia Refrigerated railroad car article)

Zac, age 3
Greer's Lost Creek Blueberries

resource list:

Peach Festival - Cobden IL
held each August


Apple Festival - Murphysboro IL
held each September


Apple Books blog post


Residents Learn about Production and Marketing of Fruit
Illinois Extension - Jul 15, 2019
Mileur Orchard


We the People: Southern Ill. orchard celebrates 138 years of rich history
KFVS - Mar 23, 2026
Flamm Orchards


Rendleman Orchards celebrate 150 years
The Southern Illinoisan - Jun 29, 2023


Since our special guest is from the 4th generation of the Rendleman farming family, we focused on the story of that farm:


The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990
by Jane Adams

"The Rendleman Farm," pp.21-24

"Rendleman Orchards," pp.24-28



All Anybody Ever Wanted of Me Was to Work: The Memoirs of Edith Bradley Rendleman
edited by Jane Adams

art ideas:

Baking Soda Paint
Since this reaction leaves a fuzzy texture, it is perfect for painting peaches! (I like to use this template. Print it, cut it out, and use that to trace a peach shape onto your watercolor paper. Then cut out the watercolor paper shape.)

Positive / Negative Art
This technique workes really well for apples or pears!

special guest:

fruit farmer

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

Eating Insects for Earth Day

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Today I checked one thing off my bucket list by snacking on an ant lollipop. Many thanks to the family who donated it to our classroom!

Here's the TED talk I like to use for this: Marcel Dicke: Why not eat insects?

I've been interested in eating insects ever since we began to learn about it for Earth Day back in April 2012. Insects are a very healthy, humane, and inexpensive source of protein. Eating insects for protein has been common throughout the span of human history.

I well remember my daughter Leah's poster that showed two bright red circle graphs of how many people around the world eat insects compared to the United States. Sadly I don't have a picture. Everyone else is doing it... why aren't you?

The children have been working on their Personal Narrative pieces all month alongside our Local Industry topic. Persuasive writing is quite another thing, and we don't do much with it before grade 8 (developmentally, you have to be ready to do Persuasive Essays).

But I thought they would -- like Leah -- enjoy doing a poster project.

So much more fun than "persuade your parents to give you a later bedtime." I remember being given this prompt in elementary school and hating it because it wasn't authentic. There was no way. My bedtime was set in stone!

Can you persuade your parents to eat insects?

(Not into ants? If cicadas are your thing, try ‘CICADA-LICIOUS’ COOKING.)

Local Industry - Coal

Our fourth Local Industry for Southern Illinois!

timing:

1810 - present day

resource list:

Old King Coal Festival - West Frankfort IL
held each May



Tales & Trails of Illinois
by Stu Fliege

chapter 9
"Black Diamonds" Along the Big Muddy: Illinois's First Coal Mine

chapter 28
Illinois's Worst Coal Mine Disaster: The Cherry Mine Fire



Southern Illinois Coal: A Portfolio
photographs by C. William Horrell






Tell Me a Story: Memories of Early Life Around the Coal Fields of Illinois
Coal Research Center, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

"This booklet contains essays written by senior citizens about their experiences with coal mining in southern Illinois from the late 1800s through the 1950s. The essays were finalists in a writing competition held during Coal Awareness Week in October 1990. Coal Awareness Week was held by the Office of Coal Development and Marketing, of the Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources, and by the Coal Research Center at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale."

we read the following essays:

Part I: About the Mines and the Miners

p.16 - "A Day in the Mine with My Father, Thomas Morton, in the Years 1900 to 1929"

p.22 - "Tate's Block Coal Mine"

p.28 - "Illinois Mining: A First Person Account"

p.32 - "Hauling Coal with a Team and a Wagon"

p.36 - "A Lifetime of Coal Mining: The Change of Dayton McReaken"


Part II: About Home Life and the Woman's Role

p.41 - "A Nostalgic Look at Coal Mining in the Depression Years"

p.54 - "Coal and Coal Mining in the State of Illinois:

p.56 - "Buckets to Bliss"



Growing Up in Coal Country
by Susan Campbell Bartoletti


"Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford

"Coal Miner's Daughter" by Loretta Lynn



Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth
by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm


Buried Sunlight: The Story of Coal
by Raymond Janssen


"Coal - Black Diamonds" chapter
in It's Fun to Know Why, pp.21-30


handouts from SIU Climate Action Plan presentation given by the
Senior Engineer, Facilities & Energy Management, SIU Physical Plant
(how is the university going to eliminate its use of coal by 2050?)


we have learned about Coal in the past in

Stories of Household Items - Jun 2024

Art History: Friedensreich Hundertwasser - Apr 2025

Timeline of Life Resources: Carboniferous Period - Feb 2026

artifacts:

lump of coal (it's a rock... but not a mineral!)
found at a student's 1930s-era house that had a coal chute

coal chute illustration in Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion

special guest:

coal miner

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

AWSNA

This blog post is for people who regularly visit my website, waldorfcurriculum.com.

AWSNA has service marked the term Waldorf® and recently reached out to me to request that I remove it from my domain name. Therefore, I have copied and moved my website to wcurriculum.com. Please visit me there!

Unfortunately, they currently do not allow homeschoolers or homeschool groups to license the term. Although I have had my website at waldorfcurriculum.com for 20 years, I am still required to move it.

I have set up a permanent (301) redirect, so if you type in the old domain you should automatically be sent to the new one without any problems.

Thank you!
Renee

P.S. Because I don't have a team and have never taken any classes in web design, some things may end up acting strangely on the new site. If you find a page with a problem, please leave me a message in the comments below.

Local Industry - Bricks

Our third Local Industry for Southern Illinois!

timing:

Murphysboro Paving Brick Company
1909 - 1931

resource list:

Murphysboro Paving Brick Company and the Panama Canal


Brick by Brick: Murphysboro company's product goes around the world
The Southern Illinoisan - Oct 18, 2011


Eric and the Little Canal Boat by Lillian Bason

Panama Canal Information - FREE on TpT

Panama Canal Graphic Organizer - FREE on TpT
(which we did instead of the reading comprehension questions)


Coal Mines in Illinois: Murphysboro Quadrangle
Jackson County, Illinois (PDF)
Illinois State Geological Survey
location of the Murphysboro Paving Brick Company Shale Mine


The 1925 Tri-State Tornado Damage Path and Associated Storm System (PDF)
Electronic Journal of Severe Storms Meteorology
Appendix C: Supplemental Material
first-hand accounts from workers at the brick plant, pp.C13-C14


In my overview of this block, I wrote that we wanted to visit the Jackson County Historical Society in Murphysboro, Illinois.

This portion of the block is the perfect tie-in!

I would like the children to see what kinds of historical materials are kept, how the different resources are carefully stored, and what steps people generally follow when they want to research a topic. We can use the brick plant that was located in Murphysboro as our example.

artifacts:

vintage "Egyptian" brick

follow ups:

it would be fun to

Learn About the Telegraph!

On October 10, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button in his White House office and caused an explosion 4,000 miles away.

The blast occurred when a spark of electricity traveled across a telegraph cable that connected Washington, D.C. to Panama.

CANAL IS OPENED BY WILSON'S FINGER; Gamboa Dike Blown Away as President in Washington Presses Button.
The New York Times - Oct 11, 1913

Practice Morse Code!

Morse Code

The Collages (Morse Code, part 2)

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

Educational Game: Robbin' Eggs!

I'm adding this math game to my series of posts about Educational Games!

previous posts:

Adsumudi - 4 operations

The Allowance Game - coins

Gnoming A Round - negative numbers

Jump One series - skip counting

Poetry for Neandertals - syllables

Today I'm writing about Robbin' Eggs! by Haywire Group.

Here is a video tutorial on Robbin' Eggs!

Sadly, this game is no longer being made but it is well worth tracking down. Many thanks to my co-teacher, Ms. Megan, for recommending it to me!

I use it in the classroom after introducing negative numbers with Gnoming A Round and a hands-on manipulative (we use the Mortensen math material).

When children are ready to think of subtracting as adding a negative, we play Robbin' Eggs!

In the Waldorf scope & sequence, integers are part of grade 7 Algebra. In his middle school book, Jamie York strongly recommends starting children out with the idea of a bank account instead of a number line.

When you enter deposits and withdrawals into the bank, the bank keeps track of them. Each new transaction is a line item (addition means "and"). For a withdrawal, you are adding a negative amount. If you spend more than you have, you have a negative balance! If you deposit funds into the bank, sometimes you still have a negative balance (if it wasn't enough to bring you out of the red) and sometimes you have a positive balance.

Note: After playing Robbin' Eggs!, I have children practice adding and subtracting integers with a traditional worksheet (FREE at TpT).

While talking about this worksheet with a student the other day, I realized something: subtraction is always rewritten!

subtracting a positive number is rewritten as adding a negative

subtracting a negative number is rewritten as adding a positive

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