WHAT ARE MAIN LESSON BOOKS? | WALDORF HOMESCHOOL
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2017
- The Waldorf curriculum we use doesn't have a teaching manual and textbooks. There are no workbooks. We might not even see regular subjects as you'd expect in other traditional methods and the scope and sequence may be new to you. So what do you get when you order a Waldorf curriculum and what will your children do?
I'm sharing our main lesson books for 5th grade. They are over a period of several years and with multiple children as well as my own 'teacher' main lesson book I make to use as an example for my children.
I'm sharing with you the main lesson books for Botany, Geometry, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient India, The Ancient Culture of Persia and Ancient Greece.
You can see the complete lessons for Botany by clicking here:
• WALDORF MAIN LESSON BO...
You can also see the complete lessons for Geometry by clicking here:
• How To Do A MATH Unit ...
Though we didn't do a main lesson for Ancient Egypt recently, we did do an Ancient Egypt Unit Study:
• How To Do A Unit Study...
You can find Year 5 Live-Education curriculum here:
www.live-education.com/fifth-...
*For my Muslim audience, if you have questions about the religious nature of the ancient history main lesson blocks, please message me or leave a comment. Early on in our homeschooling journey I chose not to include these main lesson blocks as presented, then later I changed my mind. The artwork by no means glorifies the traditions of other civilizations; it is a teaching tool. As these main lesson blocks are coming around again for my third child, I will be modifying the lessons once again.*
Share pics of your projects with me!
/ pepperandpine
/ pepperandpine
/ pepperandpine
www.pepperandpine.com
These are some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Seriously, what beautiful work.
Project Happy Home Tanya, thank you!! My kids will be so pleased to hear it. Our main lesson books and finger puppets are on our "save from a fire" list we made several years ago when our community was threatened by a wild fire. I know we'll treasure them because my siblings and I still have our main lesson books from when we attended a Waldorf school.
Thank you for sharing this. Your children did an amazing job! We appreciate your dedication to inspire & educate us & we love the time to take toshow us love :)
These are absolutely beautiful Hana!!! Definitely something to treasure for years to come!!
Thank you, Jackie :) I imagine they will be since my siblings and I still have our main lesson books from school.
Do you bind your child's main lesson books at home or have an office store do them for you? If you do them at home, what tools do you have on hand to help you? Also, for the oil pastel lesson books: where did you find the wax sheets to go in-between each page? My daughter loves oil pastel and I've been trying to figure out how to preserve her work; this looks like a beautiful option!
This was so beautiful and enjoyable to watch! I love how the main lesson books turned out! How wonderful it must be for you to look back and see how well and far your children have grown and come in the learning. I pretty much have every piece of paper my children have written on, because I'm the sap that can't bear to throw them away. Sadly I'm only just now figuring out how the organize it. As I am learning more about teaching and educating my children. I'm find better ways to save their work. This school year we are studying middle ages; so I bought a sketch book and some nice map pencils for the boys to draw their narrations and I write them out for them, which is so much nicer than last year when all we used was pain paper and cheaper map colors. I'm very happy with how it's going, but wow your inspiring me to do even better. the only problem is I'm not much of any artist and don't have a clue how to use all the extra nice art supplies. But I can most certainly see why the better quality of supplies is well worth the investment even when your not a full blow out artist. The other day we were doing our lessons and in a picture book we read there was a tree we had talked about in our previous lesson so I got inspired(by you) to have us all make a watercolor of the tree and do some copywork. it was fun and nice, but my boys didn't follow me at all; they did very much their own thing, which is fine. The result weren't terrible but for the time and effort; I would like to have had better quality watercolors. I can't thank you enough for taking the time out of your day to share all of this it's wonderful to see and add bit of it to our homeschool! God Bless!
How wonderful that you and your boys did some artwork to accompany your lessons. If they are eager to do their own thing then on a more regular basis, I'd include art with you so they can get creative, then hopefully, they'll be more likely to follow along with you when it comes to a lesson. It also depends on the age of the child. My six year old does her own thing inspired by our work, but she's too little to achieve the same results, so instead of struggling and getting frustrated, she just finds her own path. Good quality art supplies are at the core of Waldorf education. All supplies the children come in contact with are of high quality. Once you add high quality into your lifestyle, it's hard to go back. You appreciate the quality and soon you can start to tell the difference. When starting out, choose just one set for all of you, but make it the best you can afford. Save the nice paper for the projects you work on together. It'll be nice to make the whole process something special.
Beautiful, as always
These are beautiful Hana. I really love the main lesson book idea. I am thinking to incorporate it. We have been doing a wildflower unit and H has been loving drawing and writing.
That's great, Sayeda, even if you don't do one alongside your children, they could certainly make them themselves. They'll be so pleased with it, I'm sure :)
Wow, thank you so much for sharing this. I'm a university student in mathematics and I am interested in education. My interest really started when I discovered the artistic aspect of math. I love how even your younger children were able to explore geometry in a natural way, I think that this will really help them build a strong intuitive understanding of complex concepts. I can't wait to see more of your videos.
Thank you, Mel. Math is so beautiful and I love how this curriculum explores and illuminates that aspect of it. I think it resonates for me more now as an adult, but I hope my children get something of its beauty out of it, too. I hope you continue to find the beauty in math as you get further in your studies :)
These books are so beautiful Hanna, thanks for sharing! :)
Thank you!
Oh I love your books. So, so beautiful. I just want to run out and buy some botany books now. Technically I could put my own together, but yeah. I just want to have an "art" piece in with every piece of work now. :)
You can! I've seen your lapbooks, so it's totally doable. You have the crafty bone, so I'm sure you'll find a personal way to add in more art into your projects.
We do a lot of watercolors rather than block crayon drawings too. We solve the "losing all the loose paper" problem by hanging all our paintings on the wall in the morning room(where we do lessons) as we make it. We get to enjoy the artwork and have a passive 'review' of sorts whenever we walk through the room. Then at the end of the block/unit we take them down together and talk about all we learned as sort of a wrap up. I haven't gotten anything bound yet, so for now they live in folders by my desk, but before we start the new year we will either bind them ourselves or take them to be bound 👍
Sooo beautiful...seriously love the whole idea ...of when to present an idea or concept!
Thank you! I think a lot of people are drawn to the main lesson books, and then it sparks an interest in the educational philosophy. Plus they are beautiful pieces to keep long after the kids graduate!
So beautiful!
very pretty thanks for sharing this!
Thank you Lindsey :)
I wish I could the lesson blocks in singles...
I love to do the geometry my son would love it!
Maybe I can come up with something.
You know, you're not the first person to ask this. I've asked Live-Education if they'd be willing to sell the main lesson blocks individually, and they are passionate about delivery a complete Waldorf experience. And it really makes sense because each main lesson blocks works on its own as well as in conjunction with the other main lesson blocks for that year. You can reflection and foreshadowing in each block, so it coordinates perfectly with the other blocks. I have shared a number of geometry lessons as well as my materials list on my channel, so that might be a good start :)
czcams.com/video/T-_sZH657xQ/video.html
Hi Hana! I really enjoyed this video. We are just starting out with waldorf. I was wondering do you do form drawing with your children?
Anna Mary Hi Anna! Yes, so far all my school aged children have done firm drawing. It's actually a bit more challenging than you'd think but makes for a great pre-writing and concentration exercise. I don't have lessons on those yet on my channel because I started 1.5 years ago when my third child had already done it and my fourth hadn't yet. You can buy form drawing books or you can come up with your own design. Just start with a straight line and a curved line like a "C" as your first lesson and then do mirror images of the "C". Also work on large paper with a block or stick crayon.
I love your channel, my son is starting Kindergarten we also choose a charter to homeschool through(& Waldorf Yay!)! I've watched so so many of your videos! any resources on how you bind these books of the artwork? I love this idea! Thank you!
Rebecca Beverage hi Rebecca! That's great that you're also choosing a charter school to homeschool with. Are you in California? I'll have to do a tutorial on binding our books. But basically you can take your papers and artwork to Office Depot and have them do a coil binding. I think for our botany main lesson book I will do you a binding that is similar to our math in the garden notebook. The only thing I regret about doing this is that I was not mindful of where the binding was going to go and I think it's going to cut into our narration or artwork.
Thanks! I would love to see a tutorial! Yes I am in Southern California we are homeschooling with Inspire. :)
Nice! You may even be able to use funding for book binding. There are also home book binding machines if you really get into it.
Where did you get your pages from the bound book you made of the watercolor art and narration? It looks absolutely beautiful and I would like to create something like this for my kiddos and their watercolor art. Can you show what paper is used with specifics? Thank you!
Hello! Those main lesson books were from years ago, so I can't say for sure what paper I used. These days, I use two kinds of paper. Strathmore 140lb. paper and Fabriano 90lb watercolor paper. The heavier the paper, the better it will hold up to wet on wet watercoloring. The paint was Stockmar and these days I use Stockmar and Distress Inks by Tim Holtz. I bound the books at OfficeMax with a plastic spiral.
Which watercolor papers, brushes, and watercolors do you recommend?? Sooo beautiful!
Here's a link to the papers and brushes we like
www.waldorfsupplies.com/?s=watercolor+paper&post_type=product
With the addition of these watercolors:
achildsdream.com/stockmar-watercolor-paints-set/
I also like the Distress inks by TIm Holtz
www.dickblick.com/products/ranger-tim-holtz-distress-ink-pads/
Hana, these are SO gorgeous!! I have a question. To give you some background, we are not using a waldorf curriculum, but are doing the waldorf inspired block lessons. We have 5 total blocks this year. I want to keep track of their work in a main lesson book for each block, and make it much like yours. I'd REALLY prefer to purchase the main lesson books, but i want to work in pencil, watercolor pencil, and watercolors (cake watercolors) i'm guessing that wouldn't work. I was also considering doing the work seperately on watercolor paper and then gluing the page in, using my ATG gun, so strong adhesive that doesn't warp. i'm concerned though that that might make the book too big. maybe i'm better off just making the books myself, maybe with lined paper on one side and watercolor paper on the other? Idk... ugh. Do you have any ideas? i'd rather not have to keep track of all the papers and have them bound. i'm SO not that organized.
Thank you, Becca! Since you are pretty crafty, I think you have a couple options that I could see you actually achieving without too much difficulty. The first is what you suggested, which i think is a fine option and pretty easy. We did that last year with our Geometry book. Yes, it was bulky and it's not my favorite choice, but I think it's a very good one if you want to do multiple mediums. The second is one I'm doing now for Botany, and that's to have loose sheets of paper and binding it at the end when the block is over. This is great for multiple mediums but terrible if you're prone to losing things or struggle with organization. The other option is to take sheets of good quality watercolor paper and bind a main lesson books with watercolor paper. I would alternate watercolor paper and drawing paper. You could use the drawing paper for writing narrations or for color pencils, then use the watercolor paper for watercolors and pastels. You might consider adding some tissue paper between the sheets to avoid transferring pastels onto the paper. Let me know what you end up doing.
Thank you! I will let you know :) Thanks for all you do, and for sharing your insight!!
How many pages in your drowing books? Thank you.
Hello Hana, The main lesson books are beautiful. When working through each lesson block, do you use all work/lessons in the Main Lesson book? I hope I've worded this properly.
Hi Michelle, so most of all the final drafts do make it into the main lesson books. I don't keep the rough drafts in the main lesson books. The main lesson books don't include daily math or grammar, it's just the content for the main lesson.
Pepper and Pine
Hana, thank you so much. I'm in my planning phase with our curriculum. My 11 almost 12yr old is very excited. Our day won't look like yours. That's fine. But we are eager to begin.
Sounds very promising!!
Are these done wet on wet or are some wet on dry? TY
Hi Hana! So sorry I have been asking so many questions I am just so excited to get started with Waldorf in our homeschool. What are your thoughts on a child who is 10 but is doing more third grade work still due to some learning struggles challenges, should I get the third grade curriculum or the 5th grade?
When my children have been a little bit behind or I have delayed in presenting work that’s more “grade level “I find that they do just fine with the skills and story content. When it comes to skills, I feel like the later you teach skills the faster a child will learn them. This is assuming there aren’t any other challenges going on. I’m also assuming that bad habits haven’t been formed, in lieu of learning those new skills. For instance, when my children were young and they would write letters backwards, I thought to myself, “they would eventually learn how to do it correctly.” I didn’t want to press them too much on the issue. I learned later that some things are better to catch early, so that those skills can be corrected and proper habits learned.
So inspiring!!!! I am NOT an artist but this makes me want to try 😂. I think it will be helpful in helping my daughters remember what they are learning. One of my daughters is a perfectionist, how do you deal with a kid who gets easily frustrated if they can't make it look exactly the way they want to make it look.? Or exactly the way a picture looks? She is only six but she desperately wants to keep up with her big sister 🙂. She really enjoys drawing, and I just want her to have fun with it and not really feel any pressure but she puts pressure on herself. Does that make sense? 😝.
Thank you, Faith!! I hope by seeing my artwork as well as the kids, you can have the confidence to try it out. None of us are great artists, but we certainly do our best at copying :)
My boys were not perfectionist, but I think my six year old daughter might have some perfectionists characteristics. Sometimes it's worth repeating, sometimes it's not. What I discourage with my kids is angry dismissal of their work. When they get frustrated and toss the paper or pencils aside is something I redirect. I acknowledge their frustrations and try to help them achieve something they are proud of and that they made a decent effect at. I don't think each assignment has to be their best work. Here's a video that shows how we both redid a project that neither of us was happy with
czcams.com/video/2KXn9XLtvxM/video.html
Pepper and Pine thanks so much!😊
Faith Gross I agree with Hannah! I also tell my boys that they are still learning and it take practice and experience to do things as well as mom (me). And that usually helps them feel better about their work. as a child and an adult I am a perfectionist and I suggest pointing out the imperfections in nature and just everyday life to show the child that imperfections are art in themselves and still beautiful. For example: if drawing or painting a tree and she messes up on a branch, turn it into a branch that looks broken and about to fall off the tree. This has helped me in all areas of my perfectionism. I hope this is helpful to you!
Creekside Homeschoolers oh wow LOVE THAT SUGGESTION!! Definitely going to use that with my middle daughter! I really believe that will help!!!! Thanks both of you!!💕
Would you suggest 1 medium per unit? Or do you do some water color some pastel some colored pencils?
Yes, I would suggest one medium per unit with the default being color pencils. I love the vibrancy of oil pastels and watercolors, so I love how those main lesson books turned out, but they were more time consuming.
Pepper and Pine I am excited to add this into our unit studies for my teenagers (they all love art). And then we are starting the woldrof curriculum with my little ones.
How exciting :)
Can we purchase just components of their curriculum? Like can we just buy the Main lesson book or Math or Science separately?
Unfortunately as far as I know you have to buy the curriculum as a set for each year.
Aw. Too bad. Well thank you very much for your reply!
my goodness your kids are doing lessons for college kids!