I thought it might be nice to share a little snapshot of a sample lesson with you. If you've never used my curriculum guides before, this is what you get.
An exciting aspect of the sixth grade Waldorf curriculum is a new area of study: Geology! Of course, students have been studying the earth since the beginning of their academic journeys: agriculture in third grade, gardening class, and more! This block is sometimes given the title “Mineralogy,” w
Lots of photos of our Waldorf sixth grade mineralogy main lesson book pages. The Ring of Fire, Abraham Werner, The Rock Cycle and the poem Fire and Ice
Let’s dive into the Waldorf upper grades curriculum resources available here at Waldorfish.com! Through art, science, and geometry, Waldorf upper grades curriculum (for grades 5-8) meets the growing student right where they are in their transformation from child to teen. From online homeschooli
Waldorf Astronomy is one of my favorite middle school blocks. I've put together a complete guide to teaching astronomy in sixth or seventh grade.
A running theme of the sixth grade Waldorf curriculum is the phrase “cause and effect.”
Lots of photos of our Waldorf sixth grade mineralogy main lesson book pages. The Ring of Fire, Abraham Werner, The Rock Cycle and the poem Fire and Ice
reverence and the rose Davis Waldorf School celebrated its first day of school with the Rose Ceremony. It symbolizes the beliefs of the Waldorf way: honoring the beauty of the spiritual nature of the child. With reverence and grace, each grades teacher proudly expressed the voyage of their students through the curriculum and through the developmental stage of that particular grade. As the sixth grade teacher for Davis Waldorf, I spoke of the new sense of reasoning awakening in the 12 year old child, which opens their hearts to the transformation of people and places in their curriculum. More importantly, the course of the year will see a transformation in the children themselves. offering a hand-made gift for my colleague, Coleen Borrego The opening day celebration centers around the Rose Ceremony. Ms. Ute Luebeck, our dear first grade teacher, shared heart-felt words with the parents. Truly, the first grade child will begin on a path of wonder and adventure, but they need not fear. With gentleness, our eighth grade children, young adults, offer the rose to the little ones as a token of friendship, peace, calm, and beauty. Then the parents had formed an arc of sunflowers that lead the way for Ms. Luebeck and the children to enter into the first grade classroom. It is a magical way for the little ones to begin the school year. my son Wilson gets a hug, a crown, a key, and an 8th grade buddy Angela Kost, our strings teacher, provides music for the ceremony a beautiful and welcoming display a new gate for the lower grades garden warm, calm, nurturing kindergarten spaces It was also a magical way to begin my first year with the sixth grade! With consciousness of the incredible task about to unfold, I prepared as best as I could for this day, for my year. I moved my family to Davis over the summer, a huge task in itself. I spent 5 intense weeks at Steiner College. I wrote a variety of material to organize my thoughts and plans for the year, created a Google Group for my parents, cleaned and organized my classroom, planned our sixth grade Mount Lassen filed trip, gathered resources, painted and sanded my gift for the fifth grade teacher the night before opening day, and it continues. This first day was key, it sets the tone for the year. Jennifer knitted me a tie to wear for Opening Day, which I was glad for. In so many ways, it was an important day. It was the first day of school for my three kids at Davis Waldorf, it was my first day to greet the community, it was my first day to be in the classroom with the sixth graders. And as I write this blog at the end of this first week, I will say that I am truly grateful for them. They have shown me this week that they have the courage, honor, faith, and heart to take this journey with me. And as I reflect on the first day of school with the children, I feel that a connection was made, and the natural bond formed felt as if I had been standing in front of the classroom with them much longer.
This past week we finished our Geometry block and I was thoroughly impressed with the work the students created! Definitely confirmed my conviction that the Sixth Grade Waldorf Geometry block is the best block ever! If you’re interested, I linked to my favorite resources in a previous post. I’m also happy to share my 6th […]
Things change and adjustments are made. Moving in and of itself is an adjustment to make. A transition that some children (and adults!) handle better than others. The move, away from family, to a c…
The kids and I are all down with colds, but I wanted to give you a little peek at some homeschooling from the past few months. I thought ...
Lots of photos of our Waldorf sixth grade mineralogy main lesson book pages. The Ring of Fire, Abraham Werner, The Rock Cycle and the poem Fire and Ice
A friend shared this puzzle on Facebook and I thought it would make a nice challenge to keep the kids thinking during their time off of scho...
The kids and I are all down with colds, but I wanted to give you a little peek at some homeschooling from the past few months. I thought ...
After my immensely popular tweet of these pictures: I figured I should blog about what we did for function notation in my class. We made this slider for our notebooks. The files can be found here. They are 3/page and 6/page with dotted lines where you need to cut. You will need to download into word for the files to be formatted correctly. We glued the top and bottom of the pink one down, so that the brown can slide. (Side note: 9th graders might need instruction and assistance with cutting the isolated slits on the brown one.) On the right side of our notebooks we worked through each different input value and simplified as much as we could. The next day we did a quiz-quiz-trade activity. This helped students gain confidence. After doing four problems quiz-quiz-trade style I gave them one to do individually and went around checking their work. I did a quadratic to make sure they were simplifying exponents BEFORE multiplying. If students didn't have it correct I could give them some quick feedback, they would fix it, and I would check it again. There's more to what we did (and are still doing), but that's all I feel like blogging about now. Thanks for all the encouragement via my tweet. It was amazing to see the power of twitter in that another teacher (in another country) took the idea and improved it and used it THE VERY NEXT DAY! My students all think I'm a super-star now and they are impressed that I had one idea of my own. It reminded me of what a blessing it is to be part of the #MTBoS! -Kathryn
Great hands on activity for 6th - 8th graders struggling or just learning the Distributive Property. I like to tell my students that ...
We’re excited to share the third and final guest post from author, educator, and all around amazing human, Elizabeth Seward! Elizabeth brings decades of experience, and is sharing her insights into Waldorf handwork.
Here are some resources and activities for teaching evolution by natural selection at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4. Bird beaks This is a fun activity for demonstrating adaptive radiation in birds, a…
Waldorf 6th grade geometry drawings and resources. This post is full of some great images of our main lesson book pages from this block.
Precalculus will be moving beyond their introduction to functions and function notation from Algebra II and into a in-depth development of transformations. We will be applying transformations (translations, reflections, dilations, etc.) to many of the parent functions included in the image above (we will save trigonometry for the Spring!). Understanding transformations is a crucial link between the algebraic form of a function and its graphical behavior. We will spend a considerable amount of time exploring this topic and working toward mastery. You all will continue to complete the lengthy linear programming problem set and for that reason I have a great deal of information to post--I will post the homework, reference materials, and a YouTube video that goes over the basics of linear programming from the previous week on linear programming as well as the upcoming information on transformations! Enjoy. Text Examplars: Homework Reference Material Wolfram Demonstration Upcoming Material for the next two weeks. Text Examplars: Homework Reference Material Videos on Transformations: Brightstorm Videos ______________________________________________________________________________ Algebra 2 will be moving into systems of equations through the lens of coordinate geometry. Below is a student work example of some of the resources I will be using and what we will be exploring. The purpose is for students to have a concrete link between their algebraic worlds and geometric worlds as well as to ground the solving of systems in the graphical world and slowly move to more abstract manipulation. Check out this 3D Lathe that will help you visualize the creation of 3D geometric figures from the two-dimensions of the coordinate plane. http://www.fi.uu.nl/toepassingen/00182/toepassing_wisweb.en.html Homework (from the University of Houston) Reference Material Reference Sheet 1 Reference Sheet 2 Brightstorm Videos: These videos are aligned to the sections from your textbook, so as you are completing homework from your textbook you can easily locate the most relevant videos for you!
Are you looking for a fun hands-on activity for teaching quadratic trinomial factoring? A factoring activity we did in class using cereal is described in this post as well as links to other fun quadratics activities.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve looked at those gorgeous main lesson pages on Pinterest and shamelessly copied every detail. I absolutely confess that when I’m feeling stuck, I turn to Pinterest for a well-spring of inspiration. But the truth is, those Pinterest teachers don’t always know what spoke most to my students about our […]
Let’s teach 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students about physical properties of matter. What are physical properties of matter? Physical properties of matter are characteristics that describe appearance of a substance without considering its chemical composition. Physical properties can be used to identify and distinguish one substance from another. Examples of physical properties include: ... Read more
As you read about the people who lived in Çatalhöyük and Jericho, you may have wished that you knew more about what they thought and did and...
What if your next unit were self-grading and had students clamoring to work ahead? Yep, you read that right. Your next unit, whether it's skills or facts, could be presented to students in a visible trail of learning that compels them to keep moving forward. In fact, in our classroom, we're doing a game board system for GRAMMAR, and students are doing above the minimum to compete, succeed, and be creative. I've been slowly improving this system for five years in my classroom, and it has manifested into a really cool grammar program for my seventh and eighth graders. Now, I'm finally ready to share it with you. What madness is this? As any quick Google or Edutopia search will tell you, game-based learning is hot right now. A lot of people are looking at different styles of gaming to think about how we can hack the brain's motivation, reward, and learning cycles to help our students make engaged progress. My take on gaming is a basic one, at least for now, but it works. The game board I created is basically the full cycle of learning in disguise: introduce new information, practice, formative assessment, respond to assessment, and repeat... until a final summative assessment happens at the end of the unit or academic term. ...But when presented in the game board, suddenly all this learning isn't just a pile of work anymore - it's a compelling trail that makes students say things like "Challenge accepted!" Example 1: Grammar When I teach The Grammar House Cup, students follow a learning sequence for each grammar topic, gathering "points" for their houses along the way. (Learn more in this blog post.) Example 2: Essay Writing What if you sequenced your "game board" to teach all the parts of an essay, alternating between instruction and writing? The game board could have built-in checkpoints so that you are giving rough draft feedback (OR actually grading the essay pieces) as you go! It also opens up self-paced learning and a writing workshop format. Get the EDITABLE templates! I hope you've been inspired to think of options for how you could reframe or reformat your teaching and learning sequence! Check out my game board download on Teachers Pay Teachers if you want to try a game board program out for yourself! What do you think of this game board madness? Tell me in the comments below!
Lots of photos of our Waldorf sixth grade mineralogy main lesson book pages. The Ring of Fire, Abraham Werner, The Rock Cycle and the poem Fire and Ice
Waldorf Classroom Photos | I put a couple of hours in at school today, just sprucing up a little bit. I’m just about done with my room.
Algebra resources for teaching and learning mathematics. Fun and visual resources for maths teachers and kids.
Enhance your child's science education with an engaging, fun lapbook of plant and animal cells.
Chemical bonding is one of the most basic fundamentals of chemistry that explains other concepts such as molecules and reactions. Without it, scientists wouldn't be able to explain why atoms are attracted to each other or how products are formed after a chemical reaction has taken place. To understand the concept of bonding, one must first know the basics behind atomic structure.
So, I bet you came over here expecting to see a long list of buttons and thank you notes, but... NOPE! I am D-O-N-E ... Done with that assignment. (That doesn't make me less grateful, it just makes me glad that I completed SOMETHING!) Today I am linking up with my sweet friend, Kristen, of Ladybug's Teaching Files, who has a Linky Party going on that invites you to share an anchor chart or two (or several!) If you haven't been by to visit Kristin lately, you have GOT to see how she has revolutionized the teaching of CAFE and Daily 5. That girl is a GENIUS! And she is generous with her sharing too. I could look at those cute little circle cut-outs all day long! At the moment, the anchor charts in my room focus mostly on reviewing for The Test. I will post some of those later this week. Today I am sharing two strategy charts that we have just revisited. My students often distance themselves from their reading. They seem to be more intent on turning pages and proclaiming (to my dismay) "DONE!" I feel like I am constantly asking them to engage with the text (and the characters when we are reading a narrative) and to think more deeply about what they are reading. I urged them to go back to their September strategies: Ask Questions, Visualize, Determine Importance, Make Connections, etc. We had just read a story and were were making connections to the text. Soon the whole discussion seemed to devolve into who had done the same thing as the author. They struggled, however, to make their connections support meaning-making in their reading. We had been talking about a text which included the character's affection for her dog. One person had shared a connection--and then that connection inspired more "connections," and we moved further and further away from the text. Five minutes into the "discussion" and it was hard to remember what the TEXT was about. They weren't making connections that helped them make sense of the text! The last three graphics are from DJ Inkers clipart So we made two charts. First, we talked about the different kinds of connections we can make when we are reading. This sparked the need to add Text-to-Media connections because that comes up a lot when sixth graders participate in a discussion. Then we discussed how the BEST connections bring you back to the text and help you make meaning. I simplified the concept so that all of my kids can understand the idea--even those with limited English skills. I recopied the charts at home (because my on-the-spot printing is atrocious). You can't tell because of the poor lighting in our room, but the connections chart has little plastic "connecting" chain links--and the link back to the text has a glittered pathway. I never added sparkle to an anchor chart before. I think I might like it! This morning things went a little better. As our discussion was about to get sidetracked (again), one student suggested we were "getting off topic." Another added that we were "moving away from the text." Suddenly sunshine flooded the room and I could hear angels singing... Okay, that didn't really happen. But I did point to the chart and ask them, "How does your connection help you understand the text?" It's hard to get 'tweenagers to invest in their reading. Maybe this strategy review will help draw them back into the text.
This is a guest post by our sponsor, Oak Meadow
