Classroom Photos from August

This school year (2021-2022) began remote because of the COVID numbers in Illinois, then went to hybrid (with children having their own personal days of one-on-one instruction), and then to all the children coming in person full-time. During the time that I was lending families hands-on Montessori and Waldorf materials from my personal curriculum library, I had each child doing his/her own topic, so that I didn't have to share materials between children.

Plus, I didn't have to buy duplicates of anything so that the students could do the same thing at the same time. That was a big expense in 2020-2021!

The massive individualization was helpful in many ways, but led to it being incredibly difficult to write up any notes here on the blog of what we were doing. Everyone was doing something different all the time! Instead, I simply updated my notes on the relevant pages on my website. So, if this blog has seemed less active than usual it's because all my current teaching notes are being recorded elsewhere.

For topics that I'm not currently teaching, I'm often adding notes to the Ruzuku course for that main lesson block, as I write more and more courses. If there's a course that you'd like to see, please let me know!

But, although I don't have as much to write, I still have lots of photos to share! Somehow it is January and I haven't yet put up any pictures from the school year. So the next thing on my to-do list is to post photos from August, September, October, November, and December.

Thank you to all of the families in our homeschool co-op who have patiently put up with all of the calendar and curriculum changes due to COVID. Hopefully we will be out of the woods soon!

On August 23, 2021, Zac began First Grade!

Rose Ceremony

his first day of First Grade gifts were a rose, a golden pencil, and a small ball of yarn with a nature treasure hidden inside it

when you practice winding a ball of yarn by unwinding/rewinding (using the end to be the beginning), the nature treasure is a lovely surprise!

First Grade in Waldorf begins with Form Drawing, and the first lesson is always straight line and curve

we do a nature walk to hunt for straight and curved lines

practicing lines in the rice tray

watercolor painting inspired by You and Me by Martine Kindermans

making forms with sticks

then drawing the stick designs with sidewalk chalk

wool painting is also a lovely kindergarten or early First Grade project

it is monarch time!!!!!

setting up tubes of swamp milkweed cuttings in the terrarium

SO MANY monarchs! we begin to take some to friends and neighbors

practicing diagonal lines

Zac comes up with the idea to make a crown

I like the idea of cutting strips of paper and doing a line collage

these examples are from Teaching Art with Books Kids Love by Darcie Clark Frohardt, pp.8 & 9

this is an excellent use for small pieces of scrapbook paper, since they are colorful and appealing to kids...

and they are white on the back, which makes them easier to cut!

simply use a ruler to trace a line and the child can cut on the line

(if your child needs a lot of cutting work, you can also draw wavy or zigzag lines for some bonus cutting practice)

don't forget sensory play!  who wouldn't want to go ahead and just STAND in the shaving cream, after practicing drawing lines in it?

different combinations of straight line and curve from Creative Form Drawing with Children Aged 6-10 Years: Workbook 1 by Angela Lord

practicing patterns by stringing beads

we also make patterns by moving our bodies in different ways... so fun!

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