Saturday, March 22, 2025

Booklist: Cotton, Flax, Indigo

In part II of Fibers & Clothing (part I was Natural Dyes), we will be planning and planting a garden!


Our fiber garden will consist of stinging nettle (already planted), cotton, and flax. We will have our own little flax patch here and will also be helping with the flax section of the demonstration garden at the One-Room Schoolhouse.

Our color garden will focus solely on planting and caring for just one plant... indigo.


    A Weaver's Garden: Growing Plants for Natural Dyes and Fibers
    by Rita Buchanan

    This little book is amazing! It has everything we're planting, plus

    1 - Plant Fibers for Spinning and Stuffing

    2 - Dyes from Plants

    3 - Soap Plants for Cleaning Textiles

    4 - Fragrant Plants to Scent and Protect Textiles

    5 - Plant Materials Used to Make Textile Tools

    6 - Creating a Garden


The two oldest students are doing Geometry this month, so that leaves 9 children. I can have them break into teams of 3 and each "adopt" a plant. First step, make a list of questions to research about your adopted plant. What do we need to know in order to grow it?

So it's back to using the index, which we practiced in our Geography reports! I should make a list of the additional books I have about each plant.


Cotton

blog posts

Cotton
Oct 2024


books

Cotton
by Millicent E. Selsam

The Story-Book of Science, chapter XVII "Cotton"
by Jean-Henri Fabre (FREE at Project Gutenberg)

Eli Whitney
by Jean Lee Latham

Where Did My Clothes Come From?
by Christine Butterworth

Roses Love Garlic: Companion Planting and Other Secrets of Flowers
by Louise Riotte

A Beetle Is Shy
by Dianna Hutts Aston


articles

Plan for Cotton and Flax in Your Garden
Homeplace Earth

Cotton Seed Growing Instructions
Thunder Acres

When to Plant Cotton
LSU Ag Center

Cotton Companion Plants
Savvy Garden

How to Grow Heirloom Arkansas Green Cotton from Seed
Running Bug Farm



Flax

blog posts

Picnic & Play: How a Shirt Grew in the Field
Sep 2019


books

How a Shirt Grew in the Field
trans. by Marguerita Rudolph

The Story-Book of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre, chapter XVI "Flax & Hemp"
(FREE at Project Gutenberg)

Linen: From Flax Seed to Woven Cloth
by Linda Heinrich

The Big Book of Flax: A Compendium of Facts, Art, Lore, Projects, and Song
by Christian and Johannes Zinzendorf


articles

How to Grow and Care for Flax Plants
The Spruce

Flax Companion Plants
Greg

Plan for Cotton and Flax in Your Garden
Homeplace Earth

Grow Flax for Linen in Your Garden
Homeplace Earth



Indigo

blog posts

Indigo


books

A Dyer's Garden: From Plant to Pot, Growing Dyes for Natural Fibers
by Rita Buchanan


articles

Stirring Up an Indigo Revival Where Slave Cabins Still Stand
The New York Times - Sep 19, 2024

Growing Japanese Indigo
Cedar Dell Designs


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Friday, March 21, 2025

Make More Mistakes (Measurement Edition)

Measurement is a big focus of Waldorf Third Grade Math, and I've been thinking a lot about it. I try to put plenty of opportunities to practice measurement in our school year! As part of Algae Academy, the children had to measure their algae culture and media in milliliters, and read their Secchi stick in millimeters. We've been practicing reading a thermometer each day for our Weather Tree. This year in Science Club we made Secret Book Boxes. Last year in Science Club we built and raced Cardboard Boats.


This spring, we will be building a PVC Pipe Loom and planting a garden of flax, cotton, and indigo for part II of the Fibers & Clothing block, and designing and building a Tree Squirrel Playground to learn Simple Machines.


However, something is missing from our measurement projects, and that's Mistakes. To be more specific, the Consequences of Mistakes.

To learn something, you have to practice it a lot. You have to get it wrong, see why getting it wrong matters, troubleshoot and figure out what went wrong, and learn how to not repeat that error again. Because all of these measurement activities are real-life and significant (which I chose deliberately, so that the skills would have an authentic context), mistakes would matter. Measurement mistakes that would have caused the project to fail (like with the book boxes or the cardboard boats) were fixed by adults before we cut the pieces.

The problem with adults being helpful in this way is that it short-circuits the learning.

If I want my son to learn to tie his shoes, I don't buy him Crocs. I buy him shoes with laces. And just having shoes with laces is NOT enough! If I tie his shoes for him every day because it's faster, he will not learn how.

So now I'm brainstorming Mini Measurement projects that aren't expensive and don't really matter. By which I mean, I won't be tempted to come along and remeasure and fix it and make it right. They can mis-measure and goof it, and then get more supplies from me and make another one until they get it measured correctly.

I have one idea right off the bat, which is a really cool activity where you make a tiny gift box from a greeting card.


More ideas:

Cut a 10 inch length of ribbon to tie your bouquet for Daffodil Day!


If anyone has additional ideas for projects like this, please share!


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Saturday, March 15, 2025

2025-2026 Main Lesson Blocks

Very excited for all of my students who are returning next year, and I wanted to share my school year planning for 2025-2026!

We will be doing the classic Waldorf blocks for 4th grade (age 10).


Main Lesson Blocks

Sep
Landforms & Water Features


Oct
Zoology I


Nov & Dec
Norse Mythology (with Class Play)


Jan
Local Geography, History & Industry


Feb
The Timeline of Life (with History Fair)


Mar
Fractions


Apr
Personal Narratives


May
Zoology II


Jun
Tall Tales


Specials

Science Club: Human Anatomy & Physiology


Art History

    Sep Giuseppe Arcimboldo
    1526 - 1593

    Oct Paul Klee
    1879 - 1940

    Nov Mark Rothko
    1903 - 1970

    Dec Nonny Hogrogian
    1932 - 2024

    Jan Yoko Ono
    1933 -

    Feb Eva Hesse
    1936 - 1970

    Mar Lita Albuquerque
    1946 -

    Apr Maurizio Cattelan
    1960 -

    May Kiyan Williams
    1991 -


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Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Algae Academy

We are very excited to be participating in Algae Academy, a STEM program funded by the Department of Energy which provides a FREE curriculum including scientific equipment and live algae for students to work with!

I'm not used to a curriculum that includes videos but I think it's important that we follow it as written, since we are required to give our honest feedback at the conclusion of the program. To help me keep track of all the links -- I'm doing the Elementary lesson plans for most of my class and the Middle School lesson plans for my oldest student -- I'm going to put them here! Feel free to watch them to see what your children are doing each day!


Algae Fun Facts (PDF)



Tue Mar 11 - Algae Delivery and Setup Instructions



Mon Mar 17 - DAY ONE
Introduction to Algae



Tue Mar 18 - DAY TWO
Setting up your algae culture and sampling



Wed Mar 19 - DAY THREE
Looking at algae under the microscope and dichotomous key activity

    Elementary
    do alongside Middle School student but use worksheet pp.11-13



    Middle School
    slides 47-64, worksheet pp.6-9

    Glowing Beaches (3:01)

    The mystery surrounding glacier ice worms (2:17)


    have middle school student help prepare wet mounts in advance

      Spirulina platensis

      Isochrysis galbana

      Micrasterias radiata

      Nannochloropsis (the algae we are growing)



Thu Mar 20 - DAY FOUR
Sampling algae culture and measuring for growth



Mon Mar 24 - DAY FIVE
Data Nugget

    have everyone work together

    read p.12 of Middle School packet

    do pp.16-17 of Elementary packet



Tue Mar 25 & Wed Mar 26 - DAY SIX
Design Challenge



Thu Mar 27 - FIELD TRIP (AM) & PRESENTATIONS (PM)



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Saturday, March 8, 2025

Games to Play with a Deck of Cards

I have very fond memories of playing cards when I was a kid. Someone always had a deck of cards up at the pool, so that we could play Hearts while it was adult swim for 15 minutes at the top of the hour. Someone always had a deck of cards at the Community House, so that we could play Poker during boring parts of the play rehearsals (in fact, I remember when Frankie missed his cue during a production of Tom Sawyer because he was backstage deep in a hand of Poker). My parents and grandparents played Bridge every night when we were there for Christmas, and it was a big deal when the children were considered old enough to be initiated into the club and taught to play Bridge. I remember sitting on a trunk in the Amtrak station in Chicago playing Bridge while we waited for our train. My brother and I played War for hours. I played a million games of Solitaire by myself.

I still have my favorite most-played deck from childhood (bear in mind that I was at a very "I heart butterflies" age!)

I also have the double deck that I begged my mom to get me from the Metropolitan Museum of Art catalogue. At that point I had moved on to the "I heart Tiffany stained glass age"!

And I don't remember where this deck came from but I've had it since I was a little girl. It is soooo cool that I protected it fiercely and hardly ever played a game with it. It comes in a cool storage case, and the letters for the face cards are different because it's French! It also has "1" cards instead of Aces!


Fast-forward to a few weeks ago when I taught my after school Magic Class the Kid's Spelling Trick. Then I told Zac that he could keep the deck for his very own. It's an adorable set of Dog playing cards, with a different puppy on each card. (The Saluki is on the queen of hearts.) I thought he'd be thrilled! Instead he was baffled. He asked me why some of the cards had letters on them. What is A, K, Q, J?

It was then that I realized that my son is almost 10 and he had NEVER SEEN a deck of playing cards.

He explained to me later that he thought every card game had a specific deck of cards that went with it. Think Clumsy Thief, Check the Oven, Blink, Plop Trumps, Find My Behind, Rack-O, Rhyme Out, Ravine, None of a Kind, etc.

He never knew that there could be one deck of cards that you could play many games with!!!

So I promised Zac that I would spend some time over Spring Break teaching him card games, and now I'm looking up and making sure I know the rules for a few that are rusty. Since it has been many many years since I played with a deck of cards! If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to add to this list!!

search for more game rules at bicyclecards.com


Games for One Player

Solitaire


Games for Two Players

Cribbage *

Spit

Trash

War


Games for Four Players

Bridge


Group Games

Crazy Eights (2 or more)

Egyptian Rat Screw (2 or more)

Go Fish (2 or more)

Slapjack (2 or more)

Hearts (3 or more)

Old Maid (3 or more)

Spoons * (3 or more)

Pig (5 or more)


* requires additional equipment


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Friday, March 7, 2025

Art History - Leonora Carrington

In my Art History 2024-2025 blog post, I decided March would be Leonora Carrington. Here are some resources and my planning notes:


Leonora Carrington
1917 - 2011



also

Art History Kids - October 2022

    Week 1 Project
    Surrealist Self Portrait Collage, p.20

    Week 2 Project
    Paint a Realm of Dreamy Details, p.21

    Week 3 Project
    Paint on Dark Colored Paper, p.22

    Week 4 Project
    A Literary Sculpture, p.23


    Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse), 1937-38

    Green Tea (La Dame Ovale), 1942

    Artes 110, 1944

    The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg), 1947

    Ulu's Pants, 1952

    And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, 1953

    How Doth the Little Crocodile, 1998 - painting

    How Doth the Little Crocodile, 1998 - large sculpture


Leonora Carrington: The Celtic Surrealist
Exhibition Notes for Primary School Teachers (PDF)

Iguana and Fox, 1948-58 (tapestry)

LEONORA CARRINGTON by Pamela Robertson-Pearce
excerpt from the film GIFTED BEAUTY (Ragg Film, 2000)

The Surrealist Muses Who Roared
The women of the surrealist movement were often written off as silent and subservient. In fact, a group of them were creating extraordinary work – and lives – in Mexico
The Guardian - Jun 1, 2010


extra ideas I had that we didn't get to


I recommend joining Lotus Stewart's Art History Kids website (The Studio) and getting access to her past lesson plans. I like her work, and find it's really helpful to have so many ideas that I can use as a jumping off point.


week of Mar 17:

Mon

    read excerpts from The Milk of Dreams by Leonora Carrington

    play WatchamaDrawit

    look at Childhood Imaginations from The Celtic Surrealist PDF p.3 and do "create your own magical land" prompt

    continue creative writing project begun last month


Thu


week of Mar 24:

Mon


Tue


Wed


week of Mar 31:

Wed

    look at Artes 110, 1944

    look at Ulu's Pants, 1952

    look at How Doth the Little Crocodile, 1998

    do Week 3 Project from Art History Kids
    with 12 x 12 inch black scrapbook paper


Thu


A Silent Movie That Is 101 Years Old
Mar 1, 2025 blog post

I watched this movie, for completely different reasons, at the start of March... and then Peter Pan was mentioned in Lotus's video about shadows! So this will be the perfect chance for me to show my students a little bit of a silent movie. That's something I've always wanted to do in the classroom!!!


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Thursday, March 6, 2025

Ethel, part 2

I discovered, while doing this whole Ethel Pochocki Marbach project, that she wrote one more book for St. Anthony Press, which is a season-by-season calendar of the saints. As before, when Bethlehem Books republished the book, they took out a significant number of stories (indicated here in red).

Saints of the Seasons for Children
© 1989 St. Anthony Messenger Press

    Ruth
    David
    Isaiah
    The Immaculate Conception
    Elizabeth and Zechariah
    John the Baptist
    Luke
    Simeon and Anna
    The Magi
    The Holy Innocents
    Nicholas
    Lucy
    John the Evangelist
    Elizabeth Seton
    John Neumann
    Thomas Aquinas
    Frances of Rome
    Paul Miki and Charles Lwanga
    Patrick
    Joseph
    Adam and Eve
    Noah
    Abraham
    Moses
    The Woman at the Well
    The Man Born Blind
    Veronica
    Simon of Cyrene
    Dismas
    John Bread-and-Water
    Peter
    Thomas
    Stephen
    Paul
    Catherine of Siena
    Cosmas and Damian
    Vincent de Paul
    The Heavenly Helpers: Archangels
    Therese of Lisieux
    Guardian Angels
    Francis of Assisi
    Hedwig
    All Saints Day
    Martin de Porres
    Frances Xavier Cabrini
    Francis Xavier


Here are my notes as to the revised version, published by Bethlehem Books.

Around the Year Once Upon a Time Saints
© 2009 Bethlehem Books
includes three new stories

    Francis Xavier (Dec 3)
    Nicholas (Dec 6)
    Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec 12)
    Lucy (Dec 13)
    The Holy Innocents (Dec 28)
    Elizabeth Seton (Jan 4)
    John Neumann (Jan 5)
    Thomas Aquinas (Jan 28)
    Paul Miki (Feb 5) and Charles Lwanga (Jun 3)
    John Bread-and-Water (Lent)
    Frances of Rome (Mar 9)
    Patrick (Mar 27)
    Joseph (Mar 19)
    Catherine of Siena (Apr 29)
    Our Lady of Czestochowa (May)
    Paul the Apostle (Jun 29)
    Thomas the Apostle (Jul 3)
    Our Lady of Knock (Aug 21)
    Cosmas and Damien (Sep 26)
    Vincent de Paul (Sep 27)
    The Heavenly Helpers: Archangels (Sep 29)
    Therese of Lisieux (Oct 1)
    Guardian Angels (Oct 2)
    Francis of Assisi (Oct 4)
    Hedwig (Oct 16)
    All Saints Day (Nov 1)
    Martin de Porres (Nov 3)
    Frances Xavier Cabrini (Nov 13)


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


For those keeping track at home, yes, I did buy (and read and color-code the table of contents of) SEVEN books in order to fully answer the question of whether Ethel Marbach and Ethel Pochocki were the same person.

But if I'm going to recommend a resource to a homeschool consulting client, I need to know whether or not that book has come back into print, and whether the text has been revised in any way if so. So what else can I do???

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Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Ethel Pochocki Marbach

Dana K. White from A Slob Comes Clean says that finishing a project IS decluttering. So I am going to finish this blog post from last July!!!


I have a homeschool consulting client who is currently working on preparing for the Saints block, a classic Waldorf 2nd grade block. A theme in the curriculum for the 8 year old child is the struggle between opposing forces, so we study fables (Aesop's Fables and Buddhist Jataka Tales) as well as traditional stories of Saints around the world. Modern day Heroes such as Helen Keller, Dr. King, and Gandhi are also often included in this block.

I have many notes in my blog and on my website as to what Saint stories I've used in the past, but I noticed something strange when I went to recommend a particularly beautiful retelling of the story of Martin of Tours.

I couldn't find the book link on Amazon.

A Note About Something Which Further Adds to the Confusion

So... something came up while I was searching all over for this old book.

The book series I have by Ethel Marbach seems to have the same exact titles as a book series by Ethel Pochoki (and Ethel is not a common name) but the saints included don't seem to match. So are they the same books? And is she the same person?

I spent an inordinate amount of time researching this question.

The upshot of the story is that Ethel wrote two books (Once-Upon-a-Time Saints and More Once-Upon-a-Time Saints) back in the 1970s using the last name Marbach and they were published by St. Anthony Messenger Press. These books are wonderful!

Decades later, these books were significantly reorganized and republished by Bethlehem Books, this time using the last name Pochocki.


All of that to say that, yes, there's just one Ethel.

Below I've put the table of contents of each of the original books, and marked in red any legends that didn't make the cut when they were republished later on. Sadly, the story of Martin of Tours -- which got me started on this entire project -- seems to be out of print completely!


Once-Upon-a-Time Saints: Faith-Tales for Children
© 1977 St. Anthony Messenger Press

    Germaine
    Felix
    Kentigern
    Hubert
    Joseph of Arimathea
    Dorothy
    Swithin
    Hyacinth
    Clement
    Comgall
    Benedict of San Fradello
    Martha
    Edward the Confessor
    Zita
    Longinus
    Brigid
    Barnaby of Compiegne
    Joseph of Cupertino
    Margaret of Scotland


More Once-Upon-a-Time Saints: Faith-Tales for Children
© 1978 St. Anthony Messenger Press

    Joan Delanoue
    Philip Neri
    David of Wales
    Catherine (Kateri) Tekakwitha
    Martin of Tours
    Elizabeth of Portugal
    Christopher
    Rose of Lima
    Francis de Sales
    Teresa of Avila
    Anne
    Adauctus


And here's the table of contents of each new book. I've put the original copyright dates of the St. Anthony Messenger Press stories beside each chapter from Bethlehem Books. Note that things look all mixed up, but that's because Bethlehem Books decided to put the saints in alphabetical order!

It is important to me that we be able to find her old stories, because they are written so beautifully! Let's see where we can find these stories today.

Once Upon a Time Saints
© 1996 Bethlehem Books
includes four new stories

    Alice
    Ambrose
    Anne (1978)
    Barbara
    Barnaby of Compiegne (1977)
    Benedict of San Fradello (1977)
    Christopher (1978)
    Clement (1977)
    Comgall (1977)
    David of Wales (1978)
    Dorothy (1977)
    Edward the Confessor (1977)
    Elizabeth of Portugal (1978)
    Felix (1977)
    Genevieve
    Hubert (1977)


More Once Upon a Time Saints
© 1998 Bethlehem Books
includes eight new stories

    Hyacinth (1977)
    Joan Delanoue (1978)
    Joseph of Arimathea (1977)
    Kentigern (1977)
    Longinus (1977)
    Martha (1977)
    Melangell
    Moses the Black
    Nicolas Postgate
    Pharaildis
    Rigobert
    Servulus
    The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
    Simeon the Stylite
    Swithin (1977)
    Zita (1977)
    Adauctus (1978)


One last book that I purchased... and greatly regret.

Saints & Heroes
© 2011 Bethlehem Books

I do NOT recommend this book as it contains significant edits of her original chapters, covered up by the innocuous words "Further revisions in 2020."

So it does include several of the stories that are marked in red above, but I continue to have them marked in red because they are NOT THE SAME.


One More Note About Ethel

It is my belief that Pochocki is her maiden name. (In her obituary in the Bangor Daily News, Ethel's last name is listed only as Pochocki [with no née] but all of her sons have the last name Marbach. Neither her marriage nor her husband is mentioned in the obituary. So my guess is that Pochocki is her maiden name and that she had an acrimonious divorce and chose to resume the use of her maiden name. Of course, I don't know that for sure.)




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