Grade Three Main Lesson Blocks (Parts I & II)

Given that I have the freedom to combine elements of Montessori and Waldorf education, a lot of people have asked me what main lesson blocks I chose for each grade level. Here is what we've done over the past 5 years.

Grade Three is a special situation. As with a lot of parents, I felt pressure to start my child in Grade One at the age of 6. However, in Waldorf education, Grade One is begun when a child is 7. The Grade Three curriculum is then specifically designed to meet the developmental needs of children who are 9, which is a milestone called the Nine-Year Change. So what to do?

What I did is that I slowed down the Grade Three curriculum and we spent two years on Grade Three blocks. This actually works out perfectly for Grade Three, since this year is all about hands-on life skills. It's really nice to have enough time for a project like a Three Sisters Garden or a Cob Bread Oven!

Grade Three Main Lesson Blocks (Year I)

Sep - Cordage

Oct - Clocks & Calendars

Nov - Shelters

Dec - Class Play - Legends of Mongolia

Jan - Story of Written Language (4th G.L.)

Feb - Early Humans (3rd G.L)

Mar - Currency

Apr - Gardening (Three Sisters Garden)

May - Baking (Cob Bread Oven)

Jun - Stories of Household Items

For Science Club that year, we did Building projects and participated in the Great Carbondale Pumpkin Race and the Great Cardboard Boat Regatta!

Grade Three Main Lesson Blocks (Year II)

Sep - Fibers & Clothing

Oct - Stories of Creation

Nov - Grammar

Dec - Class Play - Grammar's Garden

Jan - Old Testament Stories II

Feb - Foods of the World I

Mar - Planting a Dye Garden (Cotton, Flax, Indigo)

Apr - Old Testament Stories III

May - Building a Tree Squirrel Playground

Jun - Foods of the World II

The Science Club theme was Spy Science & Magic Tricks! We also visited a small local farm each month, which I prefer over a traditional Farming block.

If you're lesson planning, don't forget that I have Ruzuku courses for many of these main lesson blocks (linked above) PLUS an Immersive Experience which contains all of my notes for the year (and you can ask me questions) here:

Third Grade Immersive Experience
$375.00

cohort limited to 15 people
8 spaces already taken

Grade Two Main Lesson Blocks

Given that I have the freedom to combine elements of Montessori and Waldorf education, a lot of people have asked me what main lesson blocks I chose for each grade level. Here is what we've done over the past 5 years.

Grade Two Main Lesson Blocks

Sep - Lowercase Letters (Chancery Script)

Oct - Famous Inventors

Nov - Column Algorithms (Place Value)

Dec - Class Play - Aesop's Fables & Puppetry

Jan - Jataka Tales

Feb - Shapes & Number Patterns

Mar - Word Families (SWI)

Apr - Native American Legends

May - Stories of the Saints

If you're lesson planning, don't forget that I have Ruzuku courses for many of these main lesson blocks (linked above) PLUS an Immersive Experience which contains all of my notes for the year (and you can ask me questions) here:

Second Grade Immersive Experience
$375.00

cohort limited to 15 people
7 spaces already taken

Grade One Main Lesson Blocks

Given that I have the freedom to combine elements of Montessori and Waldorf education, a lot of people have asked me what main lesson blocks I chose for each grade level. Here is what we've done over the past 5 years.

Grade One Main Lesson Blocks

Aug & Sep - Form Drawing

Oct - Quality of Numbers

Nov - Capital Letters I

Dec - Festivals

Saint Nicholas Day
Santa Lucia Day
Winter Solstice

Jan - Capital Letters II

Feb - 4 Seasons

Mar - 4 Operations (Math Gnomes)

Apr - 12 Archetypal Professions

May - 4 Elements

If you're lesson planning, don't forget that I have Ruzuku courses for many of these main lesson blocks (linked above) PLUS an Immersive Experience which contains all of my notes for the year (and you can ask me questions) here:

First Grade Immersive Experience
$375.00

cohort limited to 15 people
14 spaces already taken

Signs of First Grade Readiness (PDF)

Geologic Timeline

In February, our main lesson block topic is the Montessori Second Great Lesson: The Coming of Life. To begin, we first went over the formation and layers of the Earth, and then what was living on the planet during the Precambrian Time and the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Periods.

To help students understand the scale for all of this, we looked back at the 2026 Timeline of Life calendars which we made in December.

On Thursday, the students wrote down their first, second, and third choices for their report topics. Each person will make a backboard for just one of the Geologic Periods. We will be spending the next two weeks on these, and then putting them all in chronological order for the parents to walk through at the History Fair!

Here, if you're not familiar with it, is the terminology for the time periods:

Eon	Era	Period	Epoch	Old Periods
Phanerozoic Eon 541 mya to Present	Cenozoic Era 66 mya to Present	Quaternary 2.58 mya to Present	Holocene .012 to present	Quaternary 2.58 mya to Present
			Pleistocene 2.58 to .012 mya
		Neogene 23 to2.58 mya	Pliocene 5.3 to 2.58 mya	Tertiary 66 to 2.58 mya
			Miocene 23 to 5.3 mya
		Paleogene 66 to 23 mya	Oligocene 34 to 23 mya
			Eocene 56 to 34 mya
			Paleocene 66 to 56 mya
	Mesozoic Era 252 mya to 66 mya	Cretaceous 145 mya to 66 mya
		Jurassic 201 to 145 mya
		Triassic 252 to 201 mya
	Paleozoic Era 541 to 252 mya	Permian 299 to 252 mya
		Carboniferous 359 to 299 mya
		Devonian 419 to 359 mya
		Silurian 444 to 419 mya
		Ordovician 485 to 444 mya
		Cambrian 541 to 485 mya
Precambrian Time 4,600 to 541 mya		Ediacaran Period 635 to 541 mya
	Proterozoic Era 2,500 to 541 mya
	Archaean 4,000 to 2,500 mya
	Hadean 4,600 to 4,000 mya

The links in the table above are to fossils-facts-and-finds.com, where you can learn about each section of time. The children will be using their books on Geologic Time for their research. There is one per period. Here is a FREE sample in PDF form: The Cretaceous Period. As a Montessori teacher, these books by Doug and Claudia Mann are invaluable! Illustrated by David Cobb.

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

Philosophy: Pleasure vs. Happiness

Last Thursday we had discussion #2 for the Philosophy topic of Happiness (see Here Comes the Sun for discussion #1).

Discussion topic: what is the difference between pleasure and happiness?

I kicked things off by reading We Were Tired of Living in a House by Liesel Moark Skorpen.

Then I put forth this proposal: pleasure is short-term, but happiness is long-term. Each of the places the children tried to live in felt good in the moment -- and each had its little pleasures -- but ultimately they wanted to go back home and live in a house again.

I also explained the difference between a debit card (the cup of chips) vs. a credit card (the empty lid).

With a debit card, you are pulling from something. Money is in the bank.

With a credit card, you have nothing. The lid is empty. You are borrowing money and promising to pay it back. And then the bill comes in the mail!

Shopping feels good in the short term (pleasure) but long-term happiness comes from not having a huge amount of debt hanging over your head.

ALL of the children had seen a credit card, but NONE of them had ever seen a credit card bill. So I printed out a few of my Discover card statements over the years, enough for them to each have two bills to look at. I let them find and circle the following things on the bills, starting with the older one.

date

interest rate

total amount of interest paid year-to-date

credit score

Then I asked them to compare the two bills and let me know their general observations. I explained all about credit score (from 300 to 850... a higher number is better) and interest rate (where a lower number is better).

Then I had everyone go around and read off the New Balance amount.

They realized that the balance had changed very little over the years. I explained that when you have a large balance at a high interest rate, if you make only the minimum payment, most of that payment goes to the interest and it barely knocks down the principal. This is even more true if you continue using the card. Lastly, I drew their attention to this little box:

Imagine how it would feel to still be paying your credit cards at the age of 90! It was a very important lesson for them, and I think it had a big impact.

To me this lesson perfectly summarizes the difference between pleasure and happiness. What do you think?

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

Art History - Eva Hesse

In my 2025-2026 school year plan, I decided that our February artist would be Eva Hesse. (Here's the complete list of all the artists we've learned about so far.) Here are some resources and my planning notes:

Eva Hesse
1936 - 1970

also

Eva Hesse documentary (2016)
for teacher background
FREE with a Kino Film Collection one week trial

if you're interested in Sol LeWitt's entire letter to Eva Hesse, it is here, performed by Benedict Cumberbatch (this is NOT for children)

Eva Hesse on How to Be an Artist

Classroom Resource Sheet: Laocoön, 1965-66 (PDF)
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College

Study for Sculpture, 1967
National Museum of Women in the Arts

Expanded Expansion, 1969

The Afterlife of Eva Hesse’s “Expanded Expansion”
Guggenheim Museum

These Sculptures Changed What Art Could Be, Then Changed Themselves
The New York Times - Jul 19, 2024

The Encyclopedia of Artists

volume 3

---

week of Feb 2:

Wed

quick overview of Eva Hesse's life (I didn't show any of her art)

open-ended unconventional materials & texture exploration

we called this game "Factory Trash Pile"

I set out the following for them to explore:

clear contact paper
onion skins
balls of yarn
pile of yarn & wool scraps
metal shower curtain rings
Cheerios
bubble wrap
dot matrix printer paper edging
construction paper
origami cranes
pens / pencils / markers
kitchen countertop samples
plastic Easter eggs
colored cardstock with words (old Montessori grammar work)

they were allowed to do whatever they wanted with these materials; one child immediately opened up all the pens to take the springs out!

Thu

read from Eva Hesse on How to Be an Artist

Lesson #1: If you’re stuck, try new materials and methods

Lesson #2: Embrace the absurd

Lesson #3: Explore your materials with spontaneity

Lesson #4: Practice fearlessness

week of Feb 9:

Mon

activity inspired by Laocoön (1965-66)

Thu

activity inspired by Hang Up (1966)

week of Feb 16:

Mon

activity inspired by Study for Sculpture (1967)

Thu

activity inspired by Repetition Nineteen III (1968)

watch video about The Afterlife of Eva Hesse’s “Expanded Expansion”

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

Steam Engine Notes

We are wrapping up the first half of Local Geography & History (Southern Illinois) with a look at the importance of the railroad. In the second half, which I am combining with Personal Narratives, we will look at Industry.

Week One - Illinois State Symbols, Glaciers & Dinosaur Fossils

Week Two - Rivers & Drainage Basins, New Madrid Seismic Zone

Week Three - Mound Builders, Louisiana Purchase, Lewis & Clark

Week Four - Founding of Carbondale, Illinois Central Railroad

The railroad has been an interesting topic for kids. After reading portions of Illinois Trails & Traces: Portraits and Stories along the State’s Historic Routes (pp.171-179 and also the profile of Milton McDaniel), the children had lots of questions about how steam locomotives work. How did towns spring up along the train routes, and why did the trains specifically need water towers?

Today we are watching sections of this video on how a steam engine works, reading Locomotive by Brian Floca, and looking at a sheet of stamps for the 150 year anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

just a reminder that the lines shown snaking across the country are telegraph lines, not telephone lines

here are my notes on teaching Morse Code to children

Below I have organized my notes as to the sections of the steam locomotive video that I thought would be most accessible for ages 8-11. I am also starting by reminding the class that the Big Boy was the world’s largest and most powerful steam train! It is much larger than the locomotive in Locomotive, but the mechanisms of the steam engine are largely the same.

Begin video at 0:00

STOP after
“There’s a steam dome at the top where steam collects and flows out of the boiler.”

JUMP to 7:05

STOP after
“Water flowing into the boiler must be pumped or injected in to overcome boiler pressure.”

JUMP to 10:00

STOP after
“The piston and valve continue their synchronized movements, exchanging fresh superheated steam for spent exhaust, as the train chuffs down the track.”

JUMP to 25:15

STOP after
“It’s covered with critical instruments, gauges, knobs, and more.”

JUMP to 33:05 and watch to the end

We are extremely excited to have Daniel Overturf -- the photographer for Illinois Trails & Traces: Portraits and Stories along the State’s Historic Routes -- come in as a special guest on Monday to talk about Illinois rail history more with the children, and explain how the author and he organized all of this extensive information (which includes railroads but also land travel in Illinois more generally) into a 10 chapter book! Note: Their previous book together, A River Through Illinois, covered the main Illinois waterway.

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