This episode is being brought to you by my curriculum guides, which you can find at my website. I’ve got a variety of guides throughout the grades — including ones for the life sciences, which we’re talking about in this episode. Whether you’re teaching Botany, Rocks and Minerals, Physics or Astronomy, I’ve got a guide that can help you out. Homeschoolers and classroom teachers in a variety of settings have found my guides to be helpful, so I hope you’ll check them out.

And if you’re just wondering about how to go about setting up your main lesson structure, every guide includes my Main Lesson 101 material, which will break it all down for you. Just this information alone is really valuable, so you might consider purchasing a guide, just to help you get started with your planning. I really recommend either my Astronomy or my Rocks and Minerals guides — those subjects are just so fascinating and both of those guides give a really good picture of what it’s like to plan a Waldorf Main Lesson.

Sponsor the podcast with Patreon.

Resources

• Waldorf Research Institute Ebook
• Waldorf Answers
• My middle school curriculum guides
• Email me.
• A Waldorf Journey Resource Room Facebook Group

The post AWJ 43 | Waldorf Curriculum Focus: Life Sciences appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

​I’m so excited to announce that my Waldorf 6th Grade Physics Guide is finished!

If you’re getting ready to teach 6th grade, you’re in luck! Because I’ve been working on putting together my 6th grade materials so now I’ve got just what you need to make the year go smoothly

Sixth Grade Basics will give you the big picture overview of what you need to know to teach the year.

My Rocks and Minerals Guide just got a makeover, with 30 new photographs of main lesson pages!

My Astronomy Guide is one of my most popular guides ever!

And now my Sixth Grade Physics Guide is ready to go!

You know those times when you take out your old work and feel suddenly satisfied with everything you’ve done? That’s exactly the experience I had putting this Physics guide together. Those kids worked hard and learned a lot!

In this guide you’ll find . . .

• ​a 25-page pdf document with explanation of main lesson format, an outline for the block, and day-by-day curriculum content with instructions for demonstrations
• ideas for review activities
• nearly 50 photos of main lesson pages
• handouts, dictations and a demonstration write-up form
• a block test
• a block summary and evaluation form
• primary resource suggestions
• product recommendations

This is my most thorough block to date — I wish I had it before I started teaching the block!​

And keep watching the site — it looks like 6th grade Geometry is next on my list!

Not quite ready for sixth grade yet? Check out my Grade Five curriculum guides here.

The post New Waldorf Physics Curriculum Guide! appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

Waldorf Electromagnetic Motor

Years ago, the first time I taught 8th grade, I attended the week-long summer intensive training The Art of Teaching 8th Grade at Rudolf Steiner College.

Those weeks are always a complete whirlwind! Desperate teachers, many of whom are still finishing their end of year reports, rush from class to class, frantically taking notes and trying to drink in as much information as they can so they’re prepared to teach the following year. We all know there is so much to teach and if we make the most of that week, our year will be so much easier!

Well, that year was particularly crazy because Mikko Bojarsky was teaching the science curriculum.

Remember that mild-mannered, somewhat kooky science teacher you loved in high school? That’s Mikko.

Mikko taught the bulk of the science curriculum during the day but he offered extra classes in the evening for teachers who wanted to make examples of some of the larger projects. We were so engaged with Mikko’s work that after we were dismissed from our last class at 9pm, we headed to the science lab to work with Mikko. We built motors, speakers and buzzers until 10:30 each night.

Mikko no longer teaches at Rudolf Steiner College, so I feel really lucky to have had that experience. He made me feel like I could teach this complicated curriculum and lead my students in creating those projects.

(By the way, I used Mikko’s book as my primary resource for my 8th grade physics block — you can see my outline here. I highly recommend all of his books — 7th Chemistry and Physics, 8th Chemistry and Physics — you can purchase them here.)

Note: I’ve now packaged up and put together a curriculum guide for Waldorf Eighth Grade Physics and Meteorology. I’m super-proud of it and I think you’ll find it really helpful!

So, when it came time to build motors with my students, I went to my 8th grade box of books to find the instructions. I couldn’t find them anywhere. Mikko is kind enough to publish his email address in the back of his books, so I sent him an email asking where I could find those instructions. (I also sent him a link to this blog and a post with some photos of work inspired by his curriculum resources.)

Mikko replied right away and sent me the instructions, complimented the blog and said he would love for me to share the instructions with all of you!

“The design for this motor is my gift to students everywhere, and I’d love as many children as possible to make it.”

What a great guy!

The easiest way for me to get you these instructions is for you to fill out the form below. Just pop your email address in the box and I’ll send it off to you right away. (This will put you on my updates email list. I don’t send updates very often — feel free to unsubscribe if you wish.)

Please share this post with as many people as possible. I’d love to see lots of kids making these motors. And if you make one, send me a photo!

Here are some photos of the 8th graders at work. Make sure you watch the videos, too. So much fun!

The post Waldorf 8th Grade Physics | Electromagnetic Motor Instructions appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

This block gives some great opportunities for outdoor/experiential learning and I think a highlight for the students was our trip to iFly.

These lucky kids got to experience a simulated skydiving jump! They absolutely loved it and there was no better way to experience how surface area influences how air and water work. See how the guide is standing on his feet, while my student is soaring? They all completely understood that it was because they were exposing more surface area to the wind than the guide was.

This kind of thing is so great to do at the end of a block. It allows them to take everything they’ve learned and synthesize it into a unique, one-of-a-kind, memorable, sensory experience. So, pro-tip, wait until the end of the block for those great field trips. They’ll be so much more meaningful.

Meteorology

The iFly trip was the perfect punctuation mark between the two different parts of our physics block. On the Monday after the trip we started taking a look at how the air dynamics that we just finished studying work together to create our weather patterns.

So, what were the great things we learned? (Just as a reminder, my primary resource has been the Golden Guide to Weather.)

1. The names of the clouds, as defined by mild-mannered pharmacist Luke Howard.

2. How different types of precipitation are formed.

3. The layers of the atmosphere, what they’re named and what they’re made of.

4. How high and low pressure systems work and cause weather.

5. What tornadoes and hurricanes are and why they form. We took a closer look at Hurricane Katrina and how she managed to cause so much damage.

We also watched our first in-class film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Below are some of the main lesson pages we finished at the end of the physics portion of our block. I’ll follow up with more meteorology pages later.

We’ve got just a couple of days left of this block (we’re building a motor! more on that later) and then we’re on to history.

I really love teaching the sciences because they make for some pretty dramatic observations, but I’m really looking forward to diving into some history. I’m missing story-telling and writing assignments.

Speaking of writing assignments, today I gave my students an Election Project assignment and I’m so excited to see what comes of it!

I’ve taken on a writing project, myself, too. I’m writing an e-book! I’ll post more about it soon, but if you’d like a sneak peek, take a look here.

The post 5 Cool Things We Learned in Our Waldorf Meteorology Block appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

Click here to check out my new Astronomy Curriculum Guide.

I just loved teaching my 7th graders Astronomy last year and I’ve spent the past few weeks looking back through my notes and remembering all of the great content we covered together. Those kids did some great work!

I gathered all of my notes, as well as the tests, quizzes, worksheets and assignments I used and put them together in a nice little package you can use to teach this super-fun block — whether you’re doing it in 6th or 7th grade.

I included indications about the new content that are more extensive than my other guides (it helps to have a little more guidance in those upper grades) and I’m sure this guide will support you in putting together a completely inspiring Astronomy block.

Click here to check out the Astronomy Curriculum Guide.

Not sure about buying the Astronomy Curriculum Guide yet? I’m also giving away my Zodiac Project Assignment for free. Just fill out the form below.

Enjoy!

The post Waldorf Astronomy Curriculum Guide! And a free giveaway! appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

Waldorf Eighth Grade Physics Curriculum Guide

Check out my complete curriculum guide for this block, with six weeks of daily lesson content, tips, and inspiration.

Physics Main Lesson Book Pages

These kids have been pouring (hehe) so much care and attention into their main lesson book work, I wanted to share with you some of the fruits of their labors.

The eighth graders are at the point in their work that I don’t give them much direction on their pages. They know what I’m looking for and they’re free to use their own creativity. On very rare occasion I complete a sample page, but they get so many great ideas from each other, I don’t really need to. This is, I think, one of the advantages of a larger class. When I had fewer students, I had to work a bit harder to come up with the ideas. With this class I usually I just need to be clear about how much writing vs. illustration should be on the page, and that’s enough for them to run with.

Here are some examples . . .

What are your best tips for inspiring your students’ main lesson book work? Share in the comments!

The post Waldorf Physics Main Lesson Book appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.