Chicago Waldorf School

30 March 2008

Happy Spring! The 3rd grade has just completed a block on farming. This was a wonderful way for the children to experience a way of life unfamiliar to many of them. As the children pass through the nine year change, they begin to experience a separateness from their outer environment. They develop a private inner space, rich in imagination and thinking. They take a small step away from their loving parents’ arms and gaze out into the world. In essence, they “fall” out of paradise and stand a little more on their own. This newfound sense of independence longs to know the how and why of things. The children want to take up new challenges on their own. The farming and shelters blocks give the children the opportunity to take up the work of the world in practical and imaginative ways. They learn skills that build competence and capacity. They begin to see the interconnectedness of all of us and start to explore how human beings so depend on the gifts of the earth. We began the block by taking a look at soil, the farmer’s lifeblood. We discussed how the soil needs animals, how the animals need plants and how the plants need soil. These important relationships form the foundation for a farmer’s work and, ultimately, give us all that we eat. We talked about how the changing seasons impact the farmer’s work. We followed the cycle of the year and saw how the needs of the animals and plants change over time. The children drew pictures and wrote about life on a farm. We talked about farm animals and all that they offer us: food, feathers, wool, manure, transportation, protection. The class was surprised at the length of the list. We looked at the importance of water, in particular its relationship to the mill. The children drew several different types of mills and saw how they varied and worked to provide us with flour. We spent a week looking at the seven major grains: wheat, rice, corn, oats, millet, rye and barley. We talked about the soil conditions necessary for each grain to grow … rice was a favorite. Who imagined that a grain could grow in water! We compared how the different plants looked and the ways in which they were harvested. We discussed the importance of certain grains in certain cultures—corn in the Native American, rice in Asia. The children had a chance to examine, compare and taste each of the uncooked grains. Barley was the sweetest—no one knew it was an ingredient in malt! The children enjoyed all the activities and worked hard in their block books. The block nicely complemented their hard work in the garden last fall and their first hand experience of raw wool with Mrs. Holdrege. It also set the stage for our class trip at the end of May when they will get the opportunity to do the real work of a farmer. We can’t wait! Ultimately, this block’s goal was to plant a seed that will blossom into a reverence and love for the earth. Surely, this is what these children’s future is calling for.

20 February 2008

Greetings to All! The children returned from the holiday break in January looking older, rested and ready for work. We took the month to dive into arithmetic with full enthusiasm. The colder weather helped everyone focus on some new material and some rigorous practice with our old friends, the times tables. We began with a look at time. We discussed ways in which people kept time long ago and the different devices they came up with to keep track during the day. The children heard about sundials, water clocks, early mechanical pieces and the stars. They put their heads down on their desks, closed their eyes and raised their hands when they thought a minute had passed. They proved to have good inner clocks and a sense for keeping time. In the first week of the block, we drew large clocks on the floor and walked the beat of seconds to minute. Because everyone could count by fives, it was easy to count off the minutes. Children took on the roles of the minute hand (wearing a red cape because she moves pretty quickly) and the hour hand (in a blue cape moving more slowly). Eventually, the wild second hand joined in, draped in yellow, and time was alive and moving. After many movement experiences with the clock on the floor, the children went on to make their own individual clocks out of paper. We practiced all kinds of time telling with these clocks and explored terms such as: half-past, quarter to and quarter after, a.m., p.m. Everyone seemed to grasp the concept of telling time well. Next came a look at money. We discussed what kinds of things might have been used for buying and selling before money was invented. The children came up with a long list of valuables and goods for trading. We drew coins and paper money and defined each one’s equivalent worth. The children used beeswax to made items for a country store which they then bought and sold using play money and coins. Making change proved to be a good challenge! We practiced addition and subtraction of money using borrowing and carrying. We reviewed place value, also. This was a good way to work with the skills that were introduced last year. There was particular attention to problems involving borrowing with zeroes ($10.00 – 4.58). What do you do when there is nothing in the treasure chest?? move to the next one!! We did some practice work with multi-digit by one digit multiplication. Multi-digit by multi-digit will come in the next arithmetic block. During the entire block there was ongoing review of the times tables. We practiced them orally with bouncing balls, jump rope, hand clapping, metal rods. Every morning we chanted the tables with special attention to the 7s, 8s, 9s and 12s. After the movement work came the daily 3 minute timed review with 35 random multiplication problems. Those who mastered that sheet moved on to 40 problems and then to doing both in 3 minutes!! The children seemed to really enjoy this daily challenge and improvement came quickly for everyone. There was never a sense of competition or a disregard for those who struggled a bit. They cheered for each other and applauded everyone’s efforts. The last week of the block they received a new sheet with 65 problems and 4 minutes to do it. When the four minutes was up a fifth was added for those who needed it. The next block will bring a review sheet with multiplication AND addition and subtraction facts. Those need to be brought back and practiced again, also. The wonderful Bible stories continued during the block. The children heard the stories of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel. A few scenes were illustrated in their language arts books. The children worked very hard with arithmetic and learned much. They should a real enthusiasm for strengthening their skills and exploring new ways to work with numbers.
On to Farm Life!!

9 January 2008

Happy New Year Parents! December was a busy and joyful month. It was a time for hard work and many festival celebrations that captured the mood of inner quiet and reflection. Every Monday morning the entire school entered the darkened auditorium to experience the 11th grade eurythmy presentation of the Festival of Lights. The children seemed in awe of the high school students’ abilities to move complicated forms with grace, reverence and glowing candles! It was the perfect way to start off each week. The language arts block in December centered around punctuation. The children met King Period, Queen Question Mark, Princess Comma and Prince Apostrophe. They heard stories about how each ruled over parts of a sentence and how they worked to make sentences more understandable. The King often became furious when someone would not stop at the sight of his shining red sceptor. Sometimes he would shout, “Off with his head.” But the offender would quickly come to a full stop and the king would be forgiving. Queen Question Mark was very inquisitive and not so quick to jump to conclusions like her husband. Princess Comma gathered lots of things in lists. She wasn’t greedy; she just liked collecting. Prince Apostrophe had many possessions, as befitting a prince. The children acted out these characters in all kinds of sentence situations. Wearing different colored cloaks for each symbol, they would inject themselves where needed. The class greatly enjoyed these little performances and often the drama led to much heartfelt laughter. Besides the introduction to basic punctuation, the block also focused on more independent writing and dictation practice. The story content came from the life of Noah. It began with his birth, went through some stories of his childhood and moved to his experiences with the growing degeneration in human behavior. The story of the building of the ark, the flood and the beginning of a new world struck a real chord with the children. There were many discussions on the nature of good and evil. There was concern for the fate of the animals on the ark and the people who were lost in the flood. The children came with thought provoking questions and a wide variety of answers. I shared two wonderful books with the class. One was an artistic representation of the ark, the other was a collection called: Prayers from the Ark, a lovely book written by Carmen Benos De Gasztold. The children laughed over the cat’s prayer for a “celestial mouse” and the goat’s complaint about the sheep who “always face the same way”. This book inspired the class to want to do a play about Noah’s Ark. I will keep you posted. Every week the children did one dictation piece and one piece of independent writing out of the daily review. These exercises afforded ample opportunity to practice not only punctuation, but also spelling and compostion. The children came to the tasks with enthusiasm and confidence. No one hestitated! They were full of ideas and ready to write. This kind of practice builds skill that will continue to grow throughout the grades. Besides the writing, they drew wonderful pictures of Noah’s adventures and painted the ark in two different environments. The month was busy with many seasonal festivals. We lit the Chanukah candles, sang and heard stories from the Jewish tradition (some from out of Judy’s compilation!). The children had a visit from Bishop Nicholas who called for each child to stand individually and hear a strength and a challenge. He had many kind words of praise for several children who seriously took up his directions from last year and made substantial changes—some in behavior, some in expanding their circle of friends. The Bishop had a lot of good things to say and the children stood tall and open to his words. We enjoyed the 2nd grade’ Santa Lucia songs, procession and delicious buns. The children walked the Garden of Light spiral on the auditorium stage—the last time
until 8th grade! For the first time the class got to see “The Paradise Play” (who was that awful devil?—so hideous). They had heard the story of Adam and Eve and knew what was coming with the apple, though they probably were surprised by the toss to the audience. There was the Shepherd’s Play and a wonderful class party on the last day before break. The children drank in the light of the season and put their own light into their work with Noah. It was a full month in every sense of the word.

Shelters Block 9 December 2007

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a wonderful time at the holiday fair dipping candles, visiting pocket-man, shopping at the various vendors and making jump ropes and buttons. This was my first time experiencing the holiday fair and what a great time I had! I enjoyed seeing the children scampering through the hallways saying, “Ms. Meers, look at the button I made” or “look at my candle!” I had a great time. With the stormy winter weather approaching, we have just finished our shelters block. The block began with the story about Johnny going to the blacksmith’s for another day of work and finding no smoke rising from the hearth. The blacksmith had broken his arm while working in the smithy. The blacksmith arranged for Johnny to work with his brother, the carpenter, while he recovered from his accident. His first day with the carpenter had Johnny measuring logs to cut saddle notches, as the carpenter was building a log cabin. Johnny, fascinated with the carpenter and his work, asks how he learned to build houses. Thus the carpenter’s tale began. His father was a blacksmith and expected his two sons to take over his smithy. His older brother was broad shouldered and built for blacksmith work, but the carpenter was tall and lanky. He loved to climb trees and play in the woods rather than spend the day in the hot and stuffy smithy. When an Irish farmer moved to town and began building a log cabin the carpenter secretly began to help him. Upon finishing the log cabin with the farmer, the carpenter decided to tell his father his plans to take up carpentry. When his father heard of his wishes the carpenter was sent away. “No son of mine will be a carpenter. LEAVE THIS HOUSE” proclaimed his father. The carpenter was forced to leave and his journey began. Along the way he was saved by the Miami tribe who take him in and treated him as their own. He lived with them learning their language (Algonquin), customs and traditions. He learned how tipis (or tepees) were constructed, was given his own tomahawk and, as a right of passage, went on his first buffalo hunt. The children dove into the imagination of the carpenter’s journey and learned about the geography of the land, respect for Mother Nature and all of the creatures of the earth, traditions of a Native American tribe and characteristics of a tipi. One night the chief had a meeting about dangers that were lurking nearby. No one was to leave the campsite after dark, as a tribe of Pueblo Indians had traveled far from the south to kidnap workers. The carpenter was antagonized into a challenge by a naughty boy from the tribe which led to their kidnapping and an exhausting voyage to the southwestern desert. The boys were enslaved to help the Pueblo Indians re-build their adobe village which had been attacked. The carpenter quickly learned to make adobe with his own two hands and feet, build bricks, layer walls and build the roofs in the adobe village. The carpenter learned about the agriculture, traditions, culture and shelter of the Pueblo Indians. This block gave the children many opportunities for independent writing, as well as hands on experiences. Out of their own imaginations the students enthusiastically wrote compositions describing the appearance and construction of each shelter, the surrounding environment and cultural notes of the people who dwelled in the shelter. Each student built his/her own impressive tipi which were accented with detailed beeswax figures of animals, people and trees. During the last few days of the block the children got their hands (and faces) dirty, mixing recycled clay, water and straw to make adobe for a pueblo we are still constructing in the classroom. In the coming week or so we hope to build a three or four story adobe village equipped with ladders, people and hornos (ovens). So far children have worked together to form the first three floors of the village. I have been so impressed with their natural spirit of cooperation and care for one another. As the children move into the next language arts block, I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with your hardworking children and their amazing teacher Carol! Thank you so much for your support. I can’t wait to see how the children continue to grow and learn together.

Erika Meers

Below is a link to an album displaying the children hard at work on their shelters. Enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/erika.meers/ThirdGradeShelters?authkey=IRi9uVBmDWs