Yesterday was the culminating field trip in our Autumn Botany block. We will resume this science topic in the Spring. We've done a lot with Botany so far!
For our field trip, we walked along the path at Campus Lake and the children practiced their tree identification. Our special guest also helped us identify trees we didn't recognize. Even if trees have already shed their leaves, you can tell a lot by their bark. Persimmon trees have a blocky "checkerboard" design on their bark. Ironwood trees have a grey bark with a sinewy texture that looks like muscle fiber. Sycamore tree bark looks grey at the bottom but it fades to bright white bark at the top, so you have to look all the way up!
We saw many plants we had studied, such as bald cypress, Osage orange, and cattails. It was perfect fall weather and the kids had a wonderful time!
In October we did an SWI investigation for the bound base < lect >.
My oldest student is using the fabulous cards from Emily O'Connor over at Truer Words as her spelling lists (there are four sets of these wonderful cards; you can find them here). Some of these are morphological relatives; others are etymological relatives.
I also did a deep dive into the upcoming General Election. I first had my students gather in pairs and use a graphic organizer to list things they already knew about the upcoming election and questions they still had.
Then I spent some time answering their questions!
We discussed the three branches of government at both the national and state level, as well as the basic concept of representative democracy.
We looked at the U.S. Senate being fair in one way (each state has the same number of senators - 2) and the U.S. House of Representatives being fair in another way (each state's number of representatives is based on population, and changes every 10 years in response to the Census).
In the 2022 midterm elections, per the 2020 United States census, Illinois lost a congressional seat.
Note: This also means that a state's number of electoral votes in the Electoral College keeps changing, so if you have a copy of Election Night, make sure it's the board for the 2028 Presidential Election!
Every State is allocated a number of votes equal to the number of Senators and Representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation -- two votes for its Senators in the U.S. Senate plus a number of votes equal to the number of its Congressional districts.
We also looked at preview ballots for Jackson, Williamson, and Perry counties, provided by the County Clerks. We sent these home, and I encouraged the children to ask their parents about their Voting Plan.
At their request, and to help answer a lot of their questions about the nuts & bolts of the actual voting process, we had Bill Sasso come in as a special guest. Bill has served as an election judge many times, and was able to walk us through the entire process. He showed us a sample of the voter registration form, and explained how election judges confirm identity on the day of voting, and what they do if someone has voted early or already voted in another polling location. He explained spoiled ballots, contested ballots, and more! He explained how the ballots are physically transported to the courthouse after the polling place closes, and how there are multiple layers of security to ensure that the voting is free and fair and cannot be hacked.
I also found out that our local election judge training is open to anyone in the community who would like to attend. I think that this can help a lot of people who are concerned about election security!
the students got to act out each step in the process
here Zac is being the machine that sucks in the paper ballot!
using the perforated margins from our dot matrix paper stash as the "receipt" that the machine prints out
the paper ballots AND the printed receipt from the machine AND the computer chip from the machine are all transported securely to the courthouse after the polls close
the children love acting out the jobs of the five election judges, and practice "voting" several times
In September we looked at the bound base < mort >.
A bound base is a base that does not exist on its own as a complete word in English. It must have a prefix, suffix, or another base attached to appear!
In our case, the word < mortally > came up in our reading of Tatsinda.
"The owl doesn't (or didn't) like the sun, but the giant, I am certain, fears it mortally."
The children did not know what mortally meant, but figured it out by looking at the word immortal. Then we brainstormed other words built on this base.
We came up with
mortally
immortal
mortal
mortality
mortuary
mortician
Morticia
Although, technically, you cannot do SWI with names, Morticia Addams from The Addams Family was a very clear connection!
Words we were unsure about: mortified, mortgage, mortar, and mortise.
Using etymoline, I found out that the root of < mort > is the Latin mortalis "subject to death, mortal, of a mortal, human."
Remember that a morphological relative is based on the same morpheme (word part) so it shares BOTH a modern day spelling AND meaning.
An etymological relative will go back to the same ancient root and have a similar meaning, but we see that the spelling became changed over time.
A word that shares a similar spelling pattern but is completely unrelated in meaning is not a relative. That's a coincidence!
To see if mortified, mortgage, mortar, and mortise are related to the rest of our list, we have to see their historical origins.
< mortar > is itself a base and it goes back to Latin mortarium "mortar, mixture of lime and sand."
The entry for < mortise > is an interesting read. It is of uncertain origin, possibly coming into French from the Arabic murtazz "fastened."
Both < mortgage > and < mortified > are related to < mort > but in ways that may surprise you. Personally, I always thought mortified carried a sense of "so embarrassed you feel like you're going to die," but originally it was used to specifically describe a wound that turned gangrenous (death of one part of the body while the rest is still alive) leading to amputation or death.
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This short spontaneous SWI investigation tied in very neatly with our September & October Philosophy study of Death. Although initially surprised that we were "allowed" to talk about Death in the classroom, the children quickly warmed up to being able to share their ideas and ask their questions. We enjoyed Tuck Everlasting as a lunchtime read aloud, which lead to some interesting questions — Would you drink that water? Will she?
—
and we had the immortal toad as a Halloween Handwork option.
We listened to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and shared why we thought this piece of music is often chosen for funerals and memorial services. Then we considered the fact that this music is only considered "sad" for those who grew up in the Western European musical tradition. We wondered,
what does funerary music sound like in other parts of the world?
We invited Larry Millard to come into the classrom as a special guest. Larry is a musicologist; he shared musical recordings from his travels, specifically funeral services in Ghana. It was so interesting to hear about funerals there, and to hear the music! We learned a lot. In learning about funerals in other parts of the world, we tried to figure out: what is truly universal?
Several children in our group also visited the General John A. Logan Museum to see the Funerary Practices of the Past exhibit.
We are also pleased to welcome Erin Darnell
into our classroom as a special guest. As our final activity in our Philosophy study of Death, Erin will speak about her work as a professional death doula.
This has been a very rich and beautiful exploration of a challenging topic!
A list of Halloween-related activities. Some we are doing this year; others we either have in the past, or I would like to remember them for the future!
Handwork
Spooky Stone Weaving
from Making Zen Sep 2026
Hand-Stitched Franken-Fabric
from Making Zen Sep 2026
Special Note: We are reading pretty factual books about how an oak tree grows and how it decays back to the soil. For a more Waldorf-y option, the "Brother Acorn" chapter in Sieglinde de Francesca's A Donsy of Gnomes: 7 Gentle Gnome Stories is a lovely choice. Her website is Teach Wonderment.
Waldorf curriculum conversations...
Integration and places of intersection of Waldorf ideas with traditional approaches, homeschooling, Montessori and Reggio methods, and academia. Linked to waldorfcurriculum.com.
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