Lesson Planning Pages

I just want to say that Melisa Nielson has a wonderful Waldorf homeschool planner and that you can see sample pages from it here. It is a dandy combo of homeschool planner and daily appointment book. To order ($40.00) click here (visit the Shop and type "planner" in the search box).

However, I find that a 3 ring binder with 9 tabs in it works fine for me. 9 tabs, or 12 if you homeschool all year round, one for each month. I find that I'm always printing things off the internet that I want to remember -- directions for a seasonal handwork project, for example, or Eugene Schwartz's notes on what is taught in each school year. Find a poem for the block you're doing in May? Punch it and put in in behind that tab. Come May, you'll be able to find it! Or I'm making spreadsheets of things I'm ordering to help me keep my budget on track. Or endlessly making lists of the books that would be good for a block. If I'm going to do that, I may as well keep my daily/weekly lesson plans there in that binder too, so that it is all in one place.

Type up a sheet and slip it in the cover of the binder with the child's name and the school year. Simple is the key. I like a blank white piece of paper so that I can sketch or draw diagrams, webs, or lists, etc. and I'm not constrained by those nasty little lines. You can buy plain white 8 1/2 x 11 paper already hole punched, which is handy. Three columns or three rows for Head, Heart, Hands. Date at the top of the page. Then plan your day. I write daily reflections on the back. That way, my notes on what worked and what didn't are also in the same place. I don't want to carry the binder around during the day so I usually make notes at night about what I'm thinking for tomorrow, take out that sheet and clip it to a clipboard, hang the clipboard on a nail on the wall -- or it will get L O S T -- and then take the paper back down and put it in the binder at the end of the day with my reflections. Think about it at night and plan for the next day. Some people do their notes in colored pencils so you could assign a separate color to Head, Heart, and Hands and do away with the lines completely if you wish.

Second Grade

Obviously, I teach both first and second grade in my classroom, as well as third grade Old Testament Stories for Sunday School, so I have a lot of notes to make as I get ready for this year! Don't we all. :-)

This is my version of the outline for the Second Grade year. This is using the Language Arts/Math/Social Studies/Science main lesson block rotation with the exception of December which is where I stuck Grammar. By December, your child should be learning how to read. If your child is not reading by halfway through the second grade year, please consider some outside evaluation. There are excellent remedial books available which are consistent with the Waldorf philosophy; Bob & Nancy's Bookshop (waldorfbooks.com) has an entire section devoted to these resources. Continue with Knitting. Crochet is the new handwork learned this year.


September: Aesop's Fables
(don't forget Arthur Auer's book on modeling for this block)

October: Shapes & Number Patterns

November: Native American Legends
(far north, pacific northwest, southwest)

December: Grammar

January: Hibernation & Migration, Animal Homes

February: Saints and Virtuous People, Jataka Tales

March: Column Algorithms, Word Problems

April: Native American Legends
(northern plains, southern plains, southeast, northeast)

May: Thornton Burgess
(and on through the summer, especially nature walks with a sketchbook)

First Grade

I am having a grand time gathering my notes for the conference this weekend. I have 6 big bins lining one wall of the living room with books, art and handwork supplies, puppets, and so on. I am going to get a real workout lugging all this stuff around! But one of the things that I got good positive feedback on last year was that I brought my book collection for people to peruse and make their own notes on what resources they'd like to buy. There's nothing like actually seeing the book to know if it will work for you! First and Second requires a lot more books than Third and Fourth because you are getting into so many new things... like reading, for example. So I have even more books to bring in.

Since I'm taking the time to write up notes for the First Grade curriculum, I thought I'd post some stuff here. Some of it will take the form of articles which I will add to the website. Some of it you only get if you come to the conference. But the general outline of the school year (my version) I am happy to share. So here it is. This is using the Language Arts/Math/Social Studies/Science main lesson block rotation with -- obviously -- Form Drawing to begin the year. Knitting is the new handwork learned this year.


September: Form Drawing
(this then becomes the Monday Heart lesson for the rest of the year)

October: Capital Letters
(consonants that make one sound)

November: Quality of Numbers

December: Winter festivals/World Cultures

January: 4 Seasons
(this is a great time to begin the Weather Tree from All Year Round)

February: Capital Letters
(consonants that make more than one sound, vowels done in eurythmy)

March: 4 Processes
(equals the raven, math gnomes)

April: Spring Festivals/World Cultures

May: 4 Elements
(wind, water, fire, air -- continue into summer)


If you give 2 hours to Head (your main lesson block content), 2 hours to Heart, and 2 hours to Hands, you may end up with a schedule that looks like this:

8 am to 10 am
10 am to noon
1 pm to 3 pm

The Grand

I discovered when going out West that the Grand Canyon is simply called "The Grand" if you're anywhere within 500 miles of it. Looking for a nice background photo for my computer, I found this one.

No photo can ever do it justice. Standing on the South Rim and looking at that thing, it just blows your mind. There is nothing but canyon from one end of the horizon line to the other. It is the world. It is everything. There is nothing else but The Grand.

Beautiful.

Cleaning Glass Candleholders

Getting things back in order for my Sunday School classroom. Here is a tip for getting the last melted stub of a beeswax candle out of a glass candleholder: simply put it in the freezer for a day! The wax will contract due to the cold, which causes it to slightly loosen its grip on the glass. Give a firm tug and it should come right out. However, bear in mind that being in the freezer will make the glass more fragile. Please be careful.

Lughnasadh

Saturday, August 1st, was Lughnasadh, also known as Lammas. I don't know if the people at my church did this on purpose or not but today was a Food Pantry Offering day. It felt so good to trot in there with two boxes of food to donate. I've certainly taken my fair share of help when my family needed it, including food, and it was a great feeling to be in a position to give back and have a turn to help those less fortunate. According to my day planner's notes on celebrating the Grain Harvest, "It's very important to share what we have, produce from our garden or dry goods for your local food pantry."

Today was a great day. First I gave back to my community. :-) Then I met with the other Sunday School teachers to talk about and plan for the upcoming school year as well as to figure out how to get our Children's Choir up and running again. Then I went to the Pancake Breakfast at the Community House and stuffed myself on chocolate chip pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit, and orange juice. After that I decided to wash my truck since all those unfortunate bugs had been running into it at 90 miles an hour. That's right folks, I haven't washed it yet after my long road trip. And, believe me, you can hit a lot of insects in six thousand miles. So I came home, changed into a little black bikini, tied on a hot pink sarong, and went outside to play Cool Hand Luke. I don't have any male neighbors so really I was just entertaining myself. I had to buy a large carwash sponge anyway for my puppet-making workshop with Suzanne Down, to use as a needle felting base, so I had one on hand. Why pay for a carwash when I can get the maximum use out of my $1.90? I also have a bucket. Free. And I have dish detergent right there by the kitchen sink. Also free. It was a lot of fun to hang out in the driveway and scrub away. Then it rained so I came back inside.

On the way home from the pancake breakfast I stopped and bought myself a HUGE bouquet of flowers and I've decided to clean my room. I always take care of everyone else first so why not me for a little while? I can't even see the floor of my bedroom for the boxes of unpacked books and the piles of laundry that I never put away. It's just plain silly that I should wake up each morning and the first thing I see be complete chaos. How can I be at my best for my children? So I am putting fresh sheets on the bed, taking out all the junk, cleaning my room until it sparkles and shines, and putting a big vase of flowers in it. Worth every penny of the twenty bucks I spent. And I consider it a fair trade -- a carwash for a bouquet of flowers. The flowers last longer and add more beauty to my day and scrubbing my car gets me outside, gives me some sunshine and fresh air, and even a little exercise.

Mouse Radio

Here is the latest and greatest invention in the war against rodents. Mouse Radio! Well, it's called something else: Victor® Sonic Mini PestChaser® Ultrasonic Rodent Repellent. I explained to the children, after our second catch-and-release trap didn't appeal to the snarky suspicious type mice we have living in our home, that we were going to get mouse radio. It was only for mice, not for children, so they wouldn't be able to hear it but it was going to play music that mice HATE and they will choose on their own to move out of our house. The units plug into wall outlets and we have one in the kitchen, one in the laundry room, one in the dining room, and one in the bathroom. The sonic waves don't travel through walls or furniture so you have to position them to bathe the area where the mouse have been hanging out in annoying sonic waves. The waves travel outward in a cone shape. The directions are so funny, they describe it as creating an acoustically untenable environment which rodents find offensive. I have to say that a slight buzzing noise comes from each unit, like the sound a TV makes when you've turned off the DVD player but accidentally forgot to turn off the television and you wander through the living room and think, what's that sound? But they aren't buzzing in the room where I sleep so I don't mind it so much. And we immediately saw a difference in our home. No sign of mice anywhere. 2-4 weeks is supposed to be the window for full eradication. If they can't stand the noise where their food sources are they will eventually just split and leave town.

Just to show that I have nothing against mice per se, and -- in fact -- just like Rose Fyleman's poem, "I think mice are rather nice," I have made this list of favorite mouse books.


An Ode to Mice

The Mouse Bookby Helen Piers

Alexander and the Magic Mouseby Martha Sanders



























Anyone think of others? I'd love to have these lists be collaborative -- write a comment and share your favorites!


Mice in the Kindergarten

Mice certainly get their fair share of attention in Waldorf education! Think of all the little verses, poems, finger plays, and puppetries in kindergarten. The seasonal verses, particularly in Autumn. The cleanup verse in A Child's Seasonal Treasury, ("Cleaning Up," page 9). If you go to the link (Amazon.com), click Look Inside, then Search Inside This Book and type "mouse" you will be able to see the verse.



Mice in Grade 2

Mice are back in a big way in The Fables of Aesop ed. by Joseph Jacobs ($3.00):

The Cat and the Mice

The Kite, the Frog, and the Mouse


I also like the collection by Ann McGovern($4.99) for her simpler retellings. I like Jacobs' volume for the variety of fables. I recommend having them both. She includes:

The Lion and the Mouse

The Mice in Council (this is another version of Who Will Bell the Cat?)



Mice in Grade 4

Then they get their turn to be in the spotlight again in the 4th grade Man and Animal (Zoology) block.

See some photos of main lesson book pages posted by Donna Simmons.

According to Towards Creative Teaching, which is an excellent resource for this block (as well as for many others -- keep in mind it's just $13.95), the Mouse is a trunk animal.

"To be a trunk-animal means to lead a life doing only what is useful for self-preservation." p.33

Sounds like a mouse to me!