Fifth Grade
updated March 7, 2019

Morning Verse for Upper Grades
by Rudolf Steiner

FREE Examples of Chalkboard Drawings and Main Lesson Book Pages
Beautiful and inspiring

How to Bind a Main Lesson Book

Movement for Childhood - WONDERFUL site!

Waldorf Today Gallery of Main Lesson Book Pages - Elementary School

Gallery of Chalkboard Drawings in the Waldorf Classroom

Main Lesson Book pages shared by Christopherus Homeschool Resources

Waldorf Inspirations Gallery

browse through my collection of Pinterest Boards with samples of chalkboard drawings and main lesson book pages for many blocks

*NEW* Waldorf Science Newsletter - issues available in PDF format for FREE

page 13 of Vol.1 has a Science Curriculum in the Waldorf School Grades 1-8 overview / one page handout, page 14 has the same for High School Grades 9-12

Summary of Math Skills for Grades 1 through 8 (PDF)
A Grades 1 through 8 Math Curriculum Overview (PDF)
Word Problems in Grades 1 through 8 (PDF)
written by Jamie York

What's Taught?
The AWSNA Curriculum Chart is an INVALUABLE resource
Highly recommended, inexpensive, concise format, yet detailed and thorough -- and it's only $8.00! If you plan on homeschooling with Waldorf, you need to get this.

The Waldorf School Curriculum - Grade 5
Block Rotations and Course Descriptions by Eugene Schwartz

Block Rotations Grades 1 - 8 (PDF)
written by Jamie York

Grade 5 Content from Waldorf Teacher Resources
An unbelievable resource with FREE main lesson pages and lesson plans (called "gems")

Class Play (The Ramayana, The Iliad)

Movement

Music

Circle

Language

Samples from the Fifth Grade Curriculum by Live Education!

A Sample Block Rotation for the Year from Introduction to the Fifth Year

Brahma the Creator from Ancient India

Form Drawings Using Iranian Motifs from The Ancient Culture in Persia

The Fertile Crescent from Ancient Mesopotamia

The Birth of Isis and Osiris from The Culture of Ancient Egypt

Know Thyself from Teaching Ancient Greek Mythology

Algae and Seaweed from Botany

Discover the Triangles from Geometry and Number

Read My Blog - to follow our homeschool journey day by day...

Visit the Links to the Left - to download my compiled printer-friendly notes about each block...

Check out Additional Lesson Planning Notes below:

• Color Coding - how we organize our daily record keeping / plan books
• Hands, Heart, Head - how we organize our daily school schedule

• Plan Book Pictures - pictures of my planner and my daughters' plan book pages
  A picture is worth a thousand words!

  

• Misc. Additional Resources
• Summer Reading Lists
  from the San Francisco Waldorf School
• BLACKBOARD SKETCHING book By FREDERICK WHITNEY (1908)
  available online for free - with step by step directions and illustrations
• Books for Fifth Grade from the Baldwin Project

my blog posts:


• "I Dreamed About Hydroponics Last Night"



• Simple Editing and Penmanship

Main Lesson Blocks - Specific Resources

Literature

• Poems and Speech Exercises for Grades V and VI
  by Promethean Press

Composition

• Breaking Down the Skills Needed to Write a Research Paper

Botany

The Bee Book
by Jakob Streit
available free from the Online Waldorf Library

The Living World of Plants
by Gerbert Grohmann
available free from the Online Waldorf Library



• Botany
  by Charles Kovacs



• Drawing from the Book of Nature
  by Dennis Klocek



• Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification: An Herbal Field Guide to the Plant Families of North America
  by Thomas Elpel



• Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children
  by Michael Caduto



• Seed Leaf Flower Fruit
  by Maryjo Koch
• "The Truth About Cauliflory: Flowers That Bloom On Tree Trunks"
  Don't miss this site! It's an absolutely fascinating look at specialization.
• Eco-Dyeing with Flowers blog post - so pretty!



• Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas
  by Cheryl Bardoe
  lesson plan ideas (PDF)
• Great series of FREE videos on how to make your own herbal remedies in your kitchen at learningherbs.com

  We also really love their cooperative board game about medicinal herbs

  
  Wildcraft! An Herbal Adventure Game

Geometry

• Waldorf Geometry for Homeschoolers by Barbara Dewey



• Geometry Lessons in the Waldorf School Volume 2: Freehand Form Drawing and Basic Geometric Construction in Grades 4 and 5 by Ernst Schuberth
  also available as a FREE download from the Online Waldorf Library here
• Ways to Reinforce Geometric Shapes blog post



• Agnesi to Zeno: Over 100 Vignettes from the History of Math by Sanderson Smith

Mathematics

• Making Math Meaningful: A Source Book for Teaching Math in Grades One Through Five
  by Jamie York (grades 1-5)



• Making Math Meaningful: Fun with Puzzles, Games, and More!
  by Jamie York (grades 4-12)



• Hands-On Math!: Ready-To-Use Games & Activities for Grades 4-8
  by Frances Thompson
• Teaching about Money
  blog post - Switzerite

Ancient India, Persia, Mesopotamia

See my NEW Ancient Mythologies page

An Outline of Fifth Grade Ancient Mythologies by The Parenting Passageway


The Golden Bull: A Mesopotamia Adventure
by Marjorie Cowley (historical fiction)

Ancient Phoenicia

• Milad: The Voyage to Ophir (historical fiction)
  Switzerite blog post
  *NOTE* as of 09/25/16 two brand-new copies of this excellent book are available on eBay, shipping from Australia
  I've also found a link to a teacher's guide (PDF)

Ancient Egypt

• Passing Through the Netherworld: the Meaning and Play of Senet, an Ancient Egyptian Funerary Game
  once available from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, now "out of print"
• Osiris and Isis article from the Online Waldorf Library



• Mara, Daughter of the Nile
  by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (historical fiction)

  

• The Golden Goblet
  by Eloise Jarvis McGraw (historical fiction, Newbery honor book)

• 10 blank sheets of Egyptian papyrus



• Fun with Hieroglyphs
  rubber stamp kit



• Life in Ancient Egypt
  by Adolf Erman
  the DEFINITIVE source for factual information



• Pyramid
  by David Macaulay
• Making a Chicken Mummy blog post
  We did this and it worked GREAT. I kept the mummy on my front porch in a humid Southern MD summer and you never even knew it was there. We have since kept it in the classroom and not a single visitor knows that we have a Cornish game hen which has been out of refrigeration since February 2nd, 2012.

Ancient Greece

• Ancient Greece
  by Charles Kovacs



• D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths
  by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire



• D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths (audio CD)
  read by Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Kathleen Turner, Matthew Broderick



• Chapter 8 of Games Children Play: How Games and Sport Help Children Develop is called "The Greek Olympics" and details how to set this event up, what games to play, and how to play them. Holding a Greek Olympics is traditional at the end of the year in Grade 5 of Waldorf schools.
• Another Second Poetry Book ed. by John Foster
  "Minotaur" by Robert Fisher (page 114)
  

North American Geography (or your home continent)

study of biomes

Waseca materials are THE BEST for this in my opinion

an introduction to the biomes with curriculum - elementary (includes free downloads)

Wooden Biome Puzzles -- as well as many other materials, such as early readers:
Africa
Antarctica
Asia
Australia
Europe
North America
South America


The LEAST EXPENSIVE way to have these maps would be to spend $25 and get the complete set of control charts
they are double sided and you could photocopy the uncolored side and have your child color it in, use them to inspire MLB pages, and/or

wouldn't it be spectacular to transfer them to graph paper and cross-stitch a biome map of your continent?


their canvas biome map of the world is beautiful and we used it for so many things when I had one in the classroom! to me, this is worth buying again as a homeschooler

for example, here was a lesson on understanding the Richter scale
after the earthquake in Chile

General Resouces

Literature & Composition

• Teaching English
  by Roy Wilkinson (grades 1-8)

• Teaching History: Suggested Themes for the Curriculum in Waldorf Schools
  by Christoph Lindenberg (grades 5-12)

Drawing, Painting, Modeling

• Painting and Drawing in Waldorf Schools: Classes 1-8
  by Thomas Wildgruber



• Learning About the World Through Modeling: Sculptural Ideas for School and Home
  by Arthur Auer (grades 1-8)



• Creative Pathways: Activities that Strengthen the Child's Cognitive Forces
  by Elizabeth Auer (grades 1-8)

  AVAILABLE FREE as a download from the Online Waldorf Library

Class Plays

• List of Pedagogical Plays by Arthus M. Pittis
  useful for homeschool groups or Waldorf schools - contact him to purchase scripts

Is there a subject you're having a hard time finding resources for? Please contact the Yahoo Group for suggestions from our members or consider hiring a consultant.