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We’ve done some wonderful work together and I hope to share more about that soon, but for now I’ll just share my chalkboard drawing of Yggdrasil. What fun it was to draw!

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With this in mind I thought I would share a couple of books I’m reading these days that I’m just loving.

When my last class was in fifth grade we read a short biography on Anna Botsford Comstock, the author of this great book Handbook of Nature Study. The book goes over how to teach children about nature in a very engaging, enlivened and experiential way. It is full of information and great ideas for presenting it. I think it’ll be great for my Human and Animal block this year.

I may be coming late to the party on this one, but I’m also reading The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. What a great book! It is such a sweet story and the little boy main character is such a great example of what it is like to study and learn about an animal. White weaves factual information about swans into the story in such a natural, beautiful way. I’m just trying to decide if I could assign this story as a class reader or if it will be a read aloud that we share together. Just wonderful.

Well, I’m back to the books for now. It’s a good thing I enjoy prep work so much!

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In this packet you’ll find my most essential Waldorf Grade Six documents. It is not a full curriculum guide but it gives a brief picture of the year as a whole and includes some of the most important documents that provided a framework for our work for the year.

• The Upper Grades Morning Verse — The translation I like best.
• A Grade Six Sample Block Rotation — When should you teach each main lesson block? Here is my calendar of the year in the form of main lesson content.
• A Grade Six Sample Weekly Schedule — Including my thoughts on what is the best weekly schedule.
• A Grade Six Sample Main Lesson Rhythm — The nuts and bolts of how that two hour main lesson block is spent.
• A Grade Six Curriculum Overview — A small taste of how and why the Waldorf Grade Six curriculum meets the 12 year old.
• A Main Lesson Book Liner — Does your students’ writing slope down the page? Print this out and have them put it behind their work to keep straight lines.

I hope to follow in the coming weeks with guides for many of the sixth grade main lesson blocks. Watch this space for updates.

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I have received some great ideas for this work from the following books and I highly recommend them.

This book, Assertive Discipline: Positive Behavior Management for Today’s Classroom by Lee Canter is fantastic. What I appreciate most about it is that it lays things out in a very systematic way. It is very straightforward as it goes through methods a teacher can use for managing her class. Things as simple as suggesting that after giving the class an instruction, the teacher should watch and within two seconds give the class feedback like, “Oh, I see that Mary and Michael are taking out their pencils like I asked.” Doing this means that the students are hearing the instructions again without you repeating them, which has always been a no-no in my book. Following this, Canter instructs the teacher to follow up with anyone not following the instructions within 5 seconds. Though I am sure these guidelines will be more flexible in practice, it is good to start out with techniques that are so clear and straightforward.

Teaching Children to Care by Ruth Charney is another gold mine of information. It is so clear and really emphasizes teaching children the simple activities in the classroom that we might take for granted they already know and are familiar with. She goes through techniques of building classroom rules along with the children and how to keep your discipline and attitude towards the children positive. I am just thrilled with this book and I can already feel it shaping my interactions with the students.

The First Six Weeks of School is another positive, straightforward approach to teaching children the rhythms and routines that will sustain your work all through the year. It is so clear that it gives a day by day schedule of activities for the first six weeks that teachers can follow and it varies this schedule for differently aged students. There is a K-2 schedule, a 3-4 schedule and a 5-6 schedule. It emphasizes that these rhythms and routines are the curriculum for the first few weeks, which is a concept I had never considered until reading this book. Of course, teachers will adapt this resource to their own particular situations (I can’t imagine following someone else’s schedule for the day) but having a template as a guideline is very helpful!

I’m starting to dive into the fourth grade curriculum, as well, but that’s a separate post.

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• The biggest news is that my family and I are moving. I am not continuing on to 7th grade with my fantastic group of students. Greater employment opportunities for my children’s father are taking us to a larger city.
• I will be teaching 4th grade next year to a large group of lovely and energetic students who I plan to take through to 8th grade. I’ve never taught 4th grade before, so I’m very excited! I’ve just returned from my summer intensive training and I can’t wait to plunge headlong into planning. (Packing and moving must come first.)
• I’ve received several requests that I make my 6th grade materials available. It is indeed my intention to pull those things together but with so much else going on this summer it will be difficult to make happen. Still, I will put something together but it likely won’t be before mid-August. Watch this space for updates.
• With this change, the question has arisen for me about whether I should continue to keep up this little space. I’ve thought about it a lot and I truly believe that maintaining this blog brings a new level of consciousness to me with regards to my work. I find that it supports my work and makes me more aware of what I am doing and the context in which it exists. I also love the sense of community that I feel through the comments and emails I receive via this blog. Recognizing that there are so many others on this journey brings comfort to a profession that can be very isolating.

So I look forward to another academic year — 2012-13 — with enthusiasm. I imagine my posts here will focus much more on the work, rather than the students. Photos will be of blackboard drawings and main lesson book pages, rather than of students. I have a lot of ideas for 4th grade and I can’t wait to get started!

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