Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Practical Botany in October

It's easiest for me to write up my notes in pieces, updating as we go along. Here, if you missed it, is my topic overview post: Notes on Practical Botany.

Now, on to the plants!


Milkweed

Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)


Bur Oak

Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa)


Judean Date Palm

Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera)


Osage Orange

Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera)

    look at osage orange fruit

    experiment with using osage orange as a natural dye

    nature sketch

    add to MLB under Tree Identification

    note: due to its nasty spines, osage orange was widely used for fencing to define property lines until the introduction of barbed wire

    Maclura pomifera
    North Carolina Cooperative Extension


Persimmon

American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)

    look at persimmon fruit

    recipe?
    here is my 2024 post of Persimmon Recipes

    nature sketch

    add to MLB under Special Plants - Edible


Chestnut

Chinese Chestnut (Castanea mollissima)
American Chestnut (Castanea dentata)
Horse Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum)

    look at Chinese chestnut burr and nuts

    recipe?
    here is my 2023 post of Chestnut Recipes

    nature sketch

    add to MLB under Botany Basics (Scientific Name)


    horse chestnuts are extremely poisonous and MUST NOT be confused with Chinese chestnuts; note that they share the first part of their scientific name with the also-poisonous red buckeye (Aesculus pavia)

    sketch Chinese/American chestnut leaves (edible nut) compared to horse chestnut/red buckeye leaves (poisonous nut)

    add to MLB under Botany Basics (Simple vs. Compound Leaves)


    Match a Leaf: A Tree Memory Game


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Monday, October 5, 2026

Notes on Practical Botany

We are beginning our study of Botany! In Waldorf, this is a major grade 5 topic. I have a LOT of resources in my stash already, which can be really overwhelming. So I've decided to just think about one plant at a time.

Since we are focusing -- if at all possible -- on plants that are located near us and doing something interesting at the present moment, I'm going to organize these notes by month. (I'm in the temperate forest in the Northern Hemisphere, so it's early Autumn right now.) We have two Botany MLBs which we will keep out and available all year, in case a plant near us unexpectedly starts doing something interesting. They are tricky that way!

Our two MLBs are divided into two parts each, so four chapters in all:


MLB #1

Botany Basics

Tree Identification


MLB #2

Special Plants - Medicinal

Special Plants - Edible


I even got different MLBs (one with onion skin and one without... both green of course) so that it's easier for the children to tell them apart while we are adding in our information. I'm excited to see how the books come together!


Many thanks to Ms. Megan for the Botany books she's lending us this year:


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Sunday, October 4, 2026

Factor Trees Are Confusing My Child

A special blog post for parents whose children find the process of creating factor trees to be completely opaque. You could also introduce this technique to a class before moving them on to factor trees. This is from Jamie York!


Without exception, I would recommend Jamie York's excellent book for Middle School Math.

Making Math Meaningful:
A Middle School Math Curriculum for Teachers and Parents


The process Jamie recommends requires rewriting the number multiple times, so just know that it will likely take your child one sheet of paper for each prime factorization problem. Let's take 270,000 as our example.


270,000

300 ⋅ 900

2 ⋅ 150 ⋅ 900

2 ⋅ 50 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 900


Get the idea?

It is a lot of rewriting, but the children can easily see that all of these rows will still multiply together to equal 270,000, which they CANNOT see with a factor tree. You just keep going until the whole thing is prime numbers.


2 ⋅ 25 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 900

2 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 900

2 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 300

2 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 150


While it may be tempting for us as adults to start to put the prime factors in order from smallest to largest, don't have a child do that. They need to get an idea of where these numbers are coming from! Plus, you want to be able to go back and check their work if they get the wrong answer at the end.


2 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 6 ⋅ 25

2 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 25

2 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 5

24 ⋅ 33 ⋅ 54


When you are ready for factor trees, I love


You Can Count on Monsters: The First 100 Numbers and Their Characters
by Richard Evan Schwartz


See my past blog post on how to draw these "Monstrously" Cool Factor Trees


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Saturday, October 3, 2026

John Cage - Oh, How We Love You

This year I'm teaching an Art Club for 5 & 6 year old children.

I absolutely love John Cage...

and so I chose him as the focus of our first two Art Club sessions!


Beautiful Noise: The Music of John Cage
by Lisa Jean Rogers


In the past, we've often learned about John Cage in Philosophy:

    Is It Music?
    Jan 1, 2024

    What Is Music?
    Oct 12, 2016

    My favorite quote ever from doing that lesson with children:
    "That music lacked music."


If you're unfamiliar with 4'33" here is an NPR article:


A quote from this article:

    For the second, the provisionally entitled "Four Pieces," Tudor starts a stopwatch, sits down in front of the piano, closes the lid and begins a performance in which he never plays a note.

    After 30 seconds of silence, Tudor resets the stopwatch and times another two minutes, 23 seconds of silence, then another one minute, 40 seconds of silence. But is it silence? ....

    The silent composition, which became known by its duration of four minutes and 33 seconds, was influenced by Cage's encounter with the so-called "white paintings" by his friend Robert Rauschenberg — huge canvasses of undifferentiated white whose surfaces vary infinitely with particles of dust and light reflections.



Nothing: John Cage and 4'33"
by Nicholas Day


John Cage was in the news during COVID:


John Cage has come up in our Art History studies of Sister Mary Corita Kent, Yves Klein, and Yoko Ono. His book with Lois Long, Mud Book: How to Make Pies and Cakes, is also featured in my list of Books in ALL CAPS.



Mud Book: How to Make Pies and Cakes
by John Cage & Lois Long


We will also probably spend some time on John Cage when we do Inventors and the Slinky! In 1959, John Cage composed an avant garde work called "Sounds of Venice" scored for (among other things) a piano, a slab of marble and Venetian broom, a birdcage of canaries, and an amplified Slinky.

But on to my notes from Art Club:


Fri Sep 25 - introduction to mark making / graphic notation

    read Beautiful Noise: The Music of John Cage by Lisa Jean Rogers

    pass out large sheets of paper and colored pencils

    make sounds and have the children create marks which go with them (shake water bottle, stamp feet, tap pencil, sweep broom)

    look at examples of birdsongs in graphic notation

    have each person sing one of the birdsongs
    can we figure out which one they're singing?

    have each person sing a wordless song of their choice
    while we draw the colors & marks that go with their voice

    set out a selection of musical instruments

    demonstrate the sound made by each

    have each person draw a set of colorful marks
    then choose instruments and perform their "piece"

    take a Nature walk and listen for birdsongs

    this page is from a vintage children's encyclopedia


Fri Oct 2 - tactile exploration / sensory play

    read Nothing: John Cage and 4'33" by Nicholas Day

    sit on a yoga mat in silence for 4 minutes and 33 seconds
    what did you hear?

    add drops of food coloring to water and watch it swirl around

    read Mud Book: How to Make Pies and Cakes by John Cage

    go outside to the mud kitchen to mix up recipes!
    to the mud we added our colored water and some seashells

I did a whole blog post on Fun Things We Add to the Mud Kitchen. I find that colored water is such a simple addition and a surprisingly big hit with kids!


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Thursday, October 1, 2026

Botany: Art & Handwork Ideas

It's Making Zen right now and I'm having a great time. I also remembered that there have been several projects over the past 3 years (6 Making Zen conferences) that I mentally tagged as being good possibilities for Botany.

And now we are beginning Botany!

I'm just going to make myself a master list of Art & Handwork Ideas. Feel free to add to it if you found a great online tutorial, or a lesson in a book.

Speaking of books... Drawing from the Book of Nature is KEY for this block. I'll have to make another post listing all of the Botany chapters.


workshops from Making Zen

Amy Maricle

    Fine Line Flowers
    Oct 2025

    watercolor paints: indigo, rose madder, lemon yellow


    Mini Watercolor Leaves: Beautiful Botanicals Made Simple
    Sep 2026
    inspired by Broadhead Arrowleaf

    cold press watercolor paper

    watercolor paints: indigo, lemon yellow, olive green


Darcy Hunter

    Hand-Stitched Red Poppies with 3D Elements
    Oct 2025


    Painting Fabric with Watercolour and Inktense
    Sep 2026


Kristin Peterson

    Abstract Textile Seedpods
    Sep 2026

    inspired by Milkweed


Lisa Goddard


other workshops, tutorials & ideas


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Wednesday, September 23, 2026

Geodesic Dome... Conquered!


HOORAY!

First of all, color coding is key.

For our dome project (see my previous post on Buckminster Fuller and Geodesic Domes), we used

The 5 orange straws are the star at the top of the dome. This helps keep everyone on your team oriented spatially as you assemble the structure.


We also used


These jumbo 20 inch long straws are awesome, and having all the different colors really helps!!!


STEPS IN ASSEMBLY

1. Lay out straws by color. Cut the yellow and orange straws to 17.5 inches.

2. Lay out paper clips by color. Make 4-way, 5-way, and 6-way connectors.

    Use the yellow paper clips to make the 5-way connectors
    (these are for the centers of the orange and yellow stars)

    Use the green paper clips to make the 4-way connectors
    (these are for the base; they go into the "feet" of the yellow stars)

    Use half of the white paper clips to make five 6-way connectors
    (these are for the top points of the yellow stars)

    Use the remaining white paper clips to make ten 3-way connectors
    (these are for the "hands" of the yellow stars and will join together to become 6-way connectors upon assembly of the dome)


3. Make the orange star (which is the top of the dome). Set it aside.

4. Make a yellow five point star.

5. Add the following connectors to the open ends of your yellow star

    4-way connectors at the feet of the star (left and right)

    3-way connectors (1/2 of six) at the arms of the star (left and right)

    6-way connector on the top point of star
    note: this connector will go into the orange star "cap" at the end


5. Insert the pink straws into the connectors all the way around your star to form a pentagon panel. These panels are the sides of your dome.

6. Make 4 more yellow stars / pentagons in this way. You will have five in all.


6. Assemble your pentagon panels into a circle, with the left and right arms touching. The white 3-way connectors there will need to be linked together to form a 6-way connector. At the base and at the top of the space between the panels you will place a pink straw. It will look like an hourglass shape.

On the floor, all the way around the base of the dome, you will see green connectors and pink straws.

The first row of triangles above the base will alternate between having yellow sides and having pink sides.

There will be five pentagon panels that make up the circular walls of the dome. One pentagon panel will be the cap on top.

yellow stars, highlighted

the orange star proudly takes its place at the top of the dome


In my experience, it takes A LOT of people to help hold each panel in place while the pink straws are being put in between them.


The design will be very floppy and it can be quite frustrating... until the cap is placed on top, at which point it will snap into place and become rigid and very strong. Buckminster Fuller came up with an amazing building!


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Buckminster Fuller & Geodesic Domes

Science Club weeks 2 & 3 are follow up to our week 1 disaster. We are learning about the work of Buckminster Fuller and his Geodesic Domes.

The combination of curve and triangle in dome structures makes them strong and stable during an earthquake. Dome houses are also economical and environmentally friendly, requiring only a small amount of materials.


According to Buckminster Fuller: Poet of Geometry by Cole Gerst, Fuller's personal Dome Home in Carbondale IL "took only seven hours to build."

The American Institute of Architects calls the geodesic dome “the strongest, lightest and most efficient means of enclosing space known to man.” (pacificdomes.com)


Preparation:

straws - Perfect Stix 20" Extra Long Neon Straws - Pack of 300

    35 straws, 20 inches long

    30 straws, cut to 17.5 inches

    our dome design is smaller and simpler than the illustration above, which shows 3 colors for 3 strut lengths


paper clips - enough to make the three following types of connectors

a huge thank you to the creator of DesertDomes.com!


the connectors slide inside the straws to hold them together, as shown below


Buckminster Fuller Book Display


also


Activities:

review last week's disaster

explain Richter Scale and demonstrate with a math material to scale

    level 1 - 1

    level 2 - 10

    level 3 - 100

    level 4 - 1000

    level 5 - 10,000

    imagine level 6 - ten 10,000s

    imagine level 7 - a hundred 10,000s

    imagine level 8 - a thousand 10,000s

    imagine level 9 - ten thousand 10,000s!!!

a level 6 would be ten of these 10,000 squares!


recall the destruction in the 1811 New Madrid Earthquake (8.1)

look at Earthquakes infographic in Earth: By the Numbers, pp.14-15

read excerpts from Buckminster Fuller: Poet of Geometry

use straws and paper clip connectors to build a geodesic dome


DOME NOTES

As part of a Housebuilding summer camp in August 2018, my three daughters successfully built a geodesic dome with these straws:

I could never have done it without Natalie and Leah!


This year we were determined to do it again. And so I am going to take VERY detailed notes as to how to be successful!

We had a lot of questions. Do you make the stars first (some with 5 spokes and some with 6)? Do you start at the top and work your way down? Do you start at the bottom and work your way up? Do you make all the connectors first or construct them as you need them?

As soon as my students and I figure this out, I will write it up!


Articles & Links:

    10 Largest Earthquakes Ever Recorded
    usgs.gov

    Many thanks to desertdomes.com for help with the math. This is an amazing website which helps you build your own geodesic dome. Simply put in the radius of the dome you wish to build, and it will tell you how long to make your struts and how many of each length you will need, plus how many connectors of each type you will need.


Field Trip:


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