Waldorf Grade 5 Botany

Erin has finished her second block of grade five Botany. In South Africa, our school years run from January to December, with holidays in between. We have both really enjoyed the Waldorf approach to Botany and learned so much. I thought I would share some of her drawings and activities that she did as well as books that we used for the block.

Erin has been drawing flowers that are indigenous to South Africa, this is our national flower, the Protea.

Another indigenous flower, the Strelitzia.

We have read all about the wonderful bees...

Studied the distinction between the lily and the rose.

Erin built a little terrarium, that is still a work in progress. She filled it with sand, moss, grasses and made a ladder and benches with toothpicks...

She is growing Mung beans, they have started to swell. It is so much easier growing beans up the side of a glass container instead of in a dish. This way you can see the progress of the growth and keep your plant from drying out too soon.

She has also picked flowers, leaves and grasses to make a Botanical picture, you can see Jenna's here and we will also make some window transparencies as soon as the flowers have dried out.

These are the books that we used to put our blocks together:

The Living World of Plants by Dr Gerbert Grohmann
Botany by Live Education
Botany by Donna Simmons
Botany by Charles Kovacs (awesome)
Tree of Life by Rochelle Strauss

Giveaway Winner:

RoseMamie said...


Happy Anniversary..and OH how lovely it all is here!! I just found you, but am now a follower and so glad!

Congratulations Rose! Your knitted treasures will be on thier way to you soon:)
xo
Linda

Here...

 Chickens sun tanning...

We have been having so much rain here in Benoni at the moment, that we are experiencing floods in some areas. This photo was taken by my hubby this morning when he was on his mountain bike ride...

This is usually a little stream, now it is a raging river...

Discoveries in the garden...

Today we went for a long walk down to the lake and as we were walking home, we found some stranded tadpoles, we have brought them home and will release them to our pond when they are fully grown frogs...

Erin has been learning about the lily and the rose in her Botany study as the two archetypal plants, one with a strong root system and the other a bulb... These are her representations of each one...

Jenna is finishing off Mineralogy, this is her drawing of a volcano...

Jenna's coloured pencil drawing of the life cycle of Limestone...

We have been enjoying our One Small Change and for this month, we have used oil lamps as often as we could at night and have really enjoyed this challenge. It has created the most peaceful atmosphere within our home and has really made an impact on our children about the use of electricity. We are discussing what our next challenge for February will be and I think we are all going to stop using shampo for the month of February and possibly thereafter. Instead of using shampo which flows down our drains and is quite full of harsh chemicals that ends up in our ground water and drainage systems, we will be washing out hair with Bicarbonate of Soda. I have used this before and it is wonderful for your hair and the environment too. I will post more about this tomorrow...

Homeschooling Grade 5, Botany

For the last 2 and a half weeks Erin has been enjoying her Botany block. It has been amazing and we have both learnt so much! I think we have enjoyed it so, because we are using a wonderful book by a writer called Charles Kovacs, his book is titled 'Botany' and is really worth having. We will be basing both of our botany blocks on this book. He is so descriptive in his words and explanations and as you read, it is like he is speaking directly to you. We are also using The Tree of Life a beautifully illustrated book about the different plant kingdoms etc...

We all went on a nature walk to see how many mushrooms, moss and lichens we could find. We did spot quite a few and we have been having so much rain lately, so our garden and surrounding areas are rich with beautiful mushrooms at the moment...

Aren't these stunning, Erin spotted them the other day from our car window as we were driving down our street. Such a lovely specimen of fungus.

These are some specimens of different kinds of mosses and lichens, they are sprayed with water everyday and we will return them to the garden in the next few days. The moss is amazing, we have found so many different types, some are flat, others seem like tall forests, some even look as if they have flowers, but they are simply the green stalks, they are all so beautiful...

We have also learned about penicillin, who discovered it and what it is used for. We let mould grow on a piece of bread and studied it with a magnifying glass. We have gone in this order so far, the study of the plant and its parts, fungi, lichens, mosses, ferns and horsetails, and today we learned about conifers... We have also included form drawings incorporating leaf shapes and stems, I will post these sometime next week. For the last two weeks we have been memorising a poem about trees and also learning how to draw leaves and flowers with light and shade.

We are so enjoying this block, it is wonderful! If anyone is homeschooling with grades 2, 5 and 7 and blogs about it, please could you email me your blog address, we would so like to see your progress and ideas:)

Happy Thursday to all:)

Pandora's Box Greek Mythology

We are still enjoying our Greek Mythology block, Jenna has just finished Pandora's Box, she made a little box out of clay for Pandora's box and this is her drawing of all the miseries that escaped from the box once Pandora's curiosity got the better of her and she opened it. Zeus knew that Pandora would not be able to just keep the box and not look inside, she was too curious....

We have now moved onto the stories of Heracles (Hercules, Roman name for Heracles) and Jen is enjoying them. I am still reading aloud from 'The Black Ships Before Troy' and Jenna is almost halfway with 'Hittite Warrior'.

What a lovely block.....

Greek Mythology

Jenna is really enjoying her Greek Mythology! I thought I would share some of her work with you. We are using Live Education for this grade five block and I am also using a wonderful book, called the D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. It is such a beautiful book with lovely illustrations. We are also using the Eyewitness book about Ancient Greece.

The pictures above are about Dionysus, the god of wine, and a beeswax model of the Parthenon and a writing from the temple of Delphi, which reads in English, 'Man know thyself and thus know the world.'

I am reading 'The Black Ships Before Troy' to Jenna and she is reading 'Hittite Warrior' independently. We are really enjoying this block!

Botany and Old Testament Blocks

This week Jenna has been learning about the grasses.....



When we were learning about Monocots, we learned that an Agapanthus plant was also a Monocot, ( this means that when the plant emerges from the bulb or seed, there is just one leaf, in Dicots, there are two that emerge),



In Charles Kovaca's book, Botany, (which is absolutely fantastic, by the way!!), he compares the flowers to butterflies and a monocotyledon, like an Agapanthus for example, could represent a butterfly, Jenna built a butterfly from an Agapanthus flower. The petals are the wings, the stamens are the antennae and legs and the ovary is the abdomen.






The rose, which is the perfect higher plant, beautiful with a beautiful scent is a Dicotyledon and is very special. If looking at the geometry of a dicotyledon, the rose, we found that it has five sepals that hold the petals and five main petals that surround the flower and many more petals but always in groups of five, thus if one had to draw these five points from the sepals we would be able to draw a five pointed star! In monocotyledons, like the Daffodil for instance, these have 6 points, because there are 6 petals. We have learned so much this week and have decided that we love Botany, so many discoveries.....





Erin is busy with her 3rd Old Testament Bolck and today she painted the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. We cut out paper and she painted it red and then she copied most of the letters with paint and these will be placed in her book that we are making for her block.

5th Grade Botany Block

Jenna has just started her second botany block for the year and we are learning about monocotyledons at the moment, it has been so interesting, I have learned so much myself, it's wonderful this homeschooling journey! This is her shaded drawing of an Arum Lily, she took so much care while drawing this picture. Tomorrow we will be learning about grasses, I can't wait!!

Great resources for your Botany block are 'The Living World of Plants', by Dr Gerbert Grohmann, 'Botany' by Charles Kovacs and 'Tree of Life' by Rochelle Strauss. I have placed the Loot links on the side bar.

Ancient Egypt: Drawings and Paintings Grade 5 block

These are a few of the drawings and paintings that Jenna has done in her grade 5 Ancient Egypt block that we have just completed, we have now moved on to our second Botany block.

Ancient India

Jenna has studied Ancient India this year, so we thought it would be a lovely activity to decorate our hands with henna cone pens. We came up with some lovely designs. When it is dry it leaves a very light colour of the pattern. It should wash off in about two weeks, (we hope).

Grade 5 Mesopotamia

Jenna has just finished learning about Mesopotamia. She built a replica of a Ziggurat out of clay. This is her impression. These Ziggurat's were almost as large as pyramids, but one could not go inside them, you would climb up the steps on the outside and enter the chamber at the top, which would be filled with guilded furniture and treasures for the gods.

This is Jenna's painting of Gilgamesh setting out upon the Sun Road. We read the story of Gilgamesh the King, this is one of the oldest stories from the time of Mesopotamia.

This is one of the clay tablets that Jenna made today. She made a stylus from a piece of beading and sanded it into shape. She is practicing the Sumerian alphabet here on this clay tablet. The different directions of the triangles all have a unique meaning.

Mesopotamia really has been an enjoyable block!

Jenna's painting of the Ancient Indian Creation Story.

4 March 2008

Today we are finishing off Jenna's Block on India. She has been busy with it for four weeks and we will then move on to a four week Block of Botany. We have enjoyed India and we have posted some of Jenna's art for Ancient India for you to see. Erin is finishing her first Old Testament Block and will be moving on to a practical Farming and Building Block, will post Erin's drawings in the next few days.