Recorded here is my own personal collection of articles, resources, favorite links, teaching ideas, and lesson plans. It encompasses many years, from the very beginning of my experience studying and learning about Waldorf to the present time. People from all around the world visit my site and recommend it to others. Welcome!
This site records my journey. I hope my honesty is encouraging and helps break down some barriers that may prevent people from trying Waldorf methods. Because this is an ongoing site documenting my curriculum planning and ideas, some materials are more Waldorf-y than others. Please feel free to take what you like and leave the rest.
This page has helpful links and LOADS of free resources to help you plan your fifth grade year. Enjoy!
There is a lot of content to cover in Botany, so this is can be done as one block or two. If you prefer one block, I would suggest only using
my first block's notes (on the Botany page). If you prefer two blocks, you can use the Thomas Elpel materials to go into more detail. This second Botany block can be done in 5th grade or 6th. Please do note that these resources are for teaching Botany in North America.
I decided in the 2020-2021 school year to do two blocks of Botany, each
with a focus on hands-on projects. Our first block focused on Herbal Medicines; our second
block focused on Planting a Tallgrass Prairie.
My second grade class, who are doing Nature Study as their Science topic, will use this time to help plan and plant
the Tallgrass Prairie with their older classmates, and to study Beneficial Insects.
Sample Lessons and Free Curriculum
Prairie Grasses lesson plans from Flint Hills Discovery Center, Manhattan KS
FREE Lesson Plans from Tallgrass Prairie Center University of Northern
Iowa
PRAIRIE ROADSHOW
Grades 4-5
Students turn a school hallway into a prairie roadside, while learning about the important services provided by prairie roots.
ROOT KERPLUNK
Grades 4-6
With the help of jumps ropes and nerf balls, students explore two ecosystem services provided by prairie roots: nutrient reduction and invasive weed control.
MUDDY WATERS
Grades 4-6
Students play a variation on the game of Tag to learn how prairie buffers capture runoff in agricultural fields.
PRAIRIE AND CULTURE: ROOTS THAT BIND
Grades 5-7
Students learn the similarities between cultural roots and prairie roots. Both provide a foundation for understanding Iowa's rich soil and how it's defined the state's cultural heritage.
INCREDIBLE CARBON JOURNEY
Grades 5-8
Students become a carbon atom and experience the movements of carbon through the environment, including its time sequestered in prairie roots.
ROUTES FOR INFILTRATION
Grades 5-8
Using observations in the field, students test and compare the rates at which water infiltrates soil with difference amounts and/or kinds of roots.
ROOTS - WHY SO FINE?
Grades 5-8
Using root models made of commonly available materials, students explore how the size of roots affects their ability to exchange materials with soil.
BATTLESHIP ROOTS
Grades 6-8
Pairs of students play a battleship-style game to show how roots explore the soil to obtain resources.
ROOT COMMUNITY
Grades 7-8
Students use hand lenses to search for, identify and quantify invertebrates in soil samples with and without perennial roots.
SCHOOL OF ROOTS
Grades 7-8
Students learn about ecosystem services provided by prairie roots by matching them to services provided by various components of a school.
they have a fantastic FREE 7 poster set called "Jewels of the Prairie"
Mesic Prairie
Dry Prairie
Wet Prairie
Oak Savanna
Blooming Dates
Blooming Heights
Prairie Roots
they also have a "Pollinator Poster Series"
Bees
Beneficial Insects
Butterflies & Moths
Monarchs & Milkweed
there are other helpful publications as well; nice resources!
Illinois Prairie Wildflowers Poster
Prairie Primer - Activity Book and Poster
Illinois Prairies Coloring Poster
Illinois Department of Natural Resources also has traveling trunks (or they did before the coronavirus; I'll have to check now)
and there's one for the Prairie. These are available at state parks and public libraries across the state
they have quite a bit in this bin about the history of the animals and people who have been on this land (ancient mammals, Native Americans,
pioneers), so I guess you have to decide if you want to put a little of that in or just keep it purely
on the Botany track
if you do incorporate discussion of Native Americans of the prairie lands, I strongly recommend
this
AMAZING interactive map (for helping you figure out "whose land are you on?") at https://native-land.ca
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve - Kansas nice list of Animals at the Preserve
organized in the following categories: bats, carnivores, deer, rodents, hares and rabbits, marsupials, moles and shrews
Planting native plants for wildlife! You can attract butterflies and hummingbirds to your yard naturally with native plants. Here's a list of plants that are available in some nurseries (you might want to call around before investing time and gas)
Note: don't ever collect these plants in the wild - purchase them from a nursery:
Butterfly milkweed - aptly named - the butterflies love it!
Common milkweed - the host plant for Monarch butterfly caterpillars
Dakota verbena
Rose verbena
Cobaea penstemon
Shell-leaf beardtongue (also a penstemon)
Purple coneflower
Black-eyed Susan
Liatris/Gayfeather
Asters - lots of different types
Prepare the soil with a good mix of native soil, sand and compost and then plant. Then simply wait for the butterflies and hummingbirds to arrive!
I can always go look at the native prairie plants garden, nearby at the General John A. Logan Museum in Murphysboro IL,
and they have handouts there about prairie plants
Books to Buy
These are two books from the IDNR bin that I would like to buy:
In truth, tallgrass prairie isn't quite the native biome for where we are located here in Southern Illinois. I found that out when a Botany
special guest came to our homeschool co-op. If you look at a biome map, Illinois is where the temperate forest and the grasslands meet.
In fact, I just noticed when writing this that
on the North America Biome Puzzle, Waseca Biomes has Illinois as forest
but on the North America Stencil, they switched us to grasslands. Interesting!
North of us, where the glaciers scraped the land flat, it was prairie but here in the south
where the glaciers didn't come (they stopped just a few miles from our town) it was forest. The kids got really curious about tallgrass
prairie when we studied Local History & Geography in grade 4, and since it was the last biome in the U.S. to form and the first
to be destroyed, we wanted to bring some back.
Now that we know it was actually forest in this place, the plan is turn part of my yard into
a food forest and part into prairie. Even if this land wasn't ALL prairie here, we can still do a little something.
Having space dedicated to plants that are being eradicated
is helpful to wildlife.
Waseca Biomes - Grasslands of North America three part cards
At this point, this block is still in the planning stages and I'm looking for a place to put all of my ideas.
If you have a wonderful resource or suggestion for this project, email Renee!
this is from an old book series that is extremely hard to find now... but the books were great!
CHILDRENS BOOKS / SOUND FILMSTRIPS / ANIMAL LIFE STORIES ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA EDUCATIONAL CORP / CLASSROOM COMPLEMENTS
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