Stories of Household Items
updated February 13, 2022
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 third grade year. Enjoy!
I'm tutoring via Zoom because of COVID right now, doing some
Waldorf main lesson blocks online with families, and one little girl asked
for the story of how household items came to be and who invented materials or was the first to use them... things like
pottery and wood and stone and metal.
What a cool idea for an MLB! I'm really excited about it.
And it goes so well
with other Third Grade practical wonderings... the story of measurement, the story of money, the story of clocks & calendars,
the story of clothing, the story of shelter building, and the story of food & farming.
In fact, if you don't have enough time this school year to give all of those their own main lesson block, you could just put many
topics under the umbrella theme of "Stories of Household Items" and explore a little bit of a lot of things!!!
Here are my planning notes as I put this block together.
this experiment will be done again in 8th grade Nutrition with more of a look at the science behind it;
several of these topics come around again, like Iron and Coal
I strongly recommend a book that I've also suggested for the
Fibers & Clothing block. It is the now out-of-print but absolutely wonderfulIt's Fun to Know Why: Experiments
with Things around Us by Julius Schwartz (1952).
This book about the science of everyday materials -- wool, paper, glass, bread, iron, salt, rubber, and more -- has great information plus lots of hands on experiments.
This is what I would suggest for the rhythm:
Week One (Early Humans) - stone tools, fire, cave paintings
Week Two (Time / Money) - calendars, clocks, money, salt
Week Three (Foods / Farming) - bread, milk & ice cream
we would have done more foods but we took a few days off for sickness
Week Four (Clothing) - cotton, wool, rubber, plastic
Week Five (Misc.) - soap, books, paper, iron, coal
Week Six (Housebuilding) - nails, cement, glass, lumber
I am planning 22 lessons in all, but of course you could do more or fewer. She's really into this!
Planning & Teaching Notes:
STONE TOOLS - Tue, Jan 19
briefly review the idea of the Tree of Life,
find scientific names of bacteria on a yogurt container, explain that scientific names help us see
the relationships between living things (Canis lupus, Canis lupus familiaris)
how long ago do you think early humans lived?
compare Ape Skull to Homo habilis Skull in Early Humans by Michelle Breyer (pp. 111, 122)
if Homo habilis lived 2.4 MYA, we can compare that to a 24 hour day, where each hour represented 100,000 years
we know Homo habilis had not tamed fire; at what point in that 24 hour day do you think later species
of early humans were able
to make fire whenever they wanted it?
there are different answers to this question depending on interpretations of archaeological evidence; answers
vary from
1 MYA to 700,000 years ago to 400,000 years ago to 100,000 years ago
there is a difference between capturing and keeping embers from naturally occurring wildfires (controlling fire)
and making fire
some ancient tools required glues that could only have been made using fire, so finding those
tools at an archaeological site is evidence of mastery of fire
700,000 years ago would be 5 pm
400,000 years ago would be 8 pm
100,000 years ago would be 11 pm
humans survived for a long time without the ability to make fire at will!
of course, it would be great if you can have a special guest come show the children how to start a fire; if not, here is a
good video of the Bow Drill Method
measure dry rice into half gallon jars to compare the brain size of Homo habilis (800 mL),
Homo erectus (1100 mL), and Homo sapiens sapiens (1800 mL)
compare Homo erectus Skull to Modern Human's Skull in Early Humans by Michelle Breyer (pp. 129, 154)
look at illustrations of cave paintings; make a piece of cave painting art for the MLB with yellow, orange, red, brown, and black
on crumbled brown butcher paper (charcoal and chalk pastels are best for this)
read When Cave Men Painted by Norman Bate (worth tracking down, this historical fiction picture book
imagines the story behind a specific illustration on the cave walls at Lascaux)
watch virtual tour of Lascaux on Vimeo, pause at the illustration which goes with the story (2:20-2:32)
do Finger Knitted String and
Colored Index Card activities
(scroll down through my Maths of Practical
Life: Time blog post to find these activities described and pictured at the end)
teach the knuckle trick for remembering how many days are in each month
the "Stories of the Days" and "Stories of the Months" materials by Montessori for Everyone are very useful if you don't have Betsy Maestro's book or if you'd like
some follow-up work
find a sand timer of unknown duration; use a stopwatch to measure it
use a stopwatch to measure how much time passes between when your eye blinks and when it blinks again; is it the same as someone else's?
extra time: Roman numerals
possible follow-up activities: pendulums OR Investigation #6, "Shadow Changes," from Puddle Questions for Science: Grade 2
by Heather McDonald and Joan Westley, pp.52-59
MONEY - Wed, Jan 27
discuss barter, the need for money, early forms of money
(such as stone money on the island of Yap), and that paper money is only valuable because
we all agree that it is
learn about how coins are designed and minted in The Buffalo Nickel by Taylor Morrison
look at examples of U.S. coins and foreign coins; discuss the Euro and how it made things easier, and
how the U.S. colonies each minted their own coins (which made things difficult)
set up a pretend store and "shop," practicing counting money and making change
BBC food has a Vintage
Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that uses exactly these ingredients and, as a bonus, is written with metric measurements
BREAD - Thu, Feb 4
read and do experiments from "Bread - The Staff of Life" chapter in It's Fun to Know Why,
pp.83-92
look at whole head of dried wheat; talk about the steps in processing wheat into flour
look at pictures of cutting wheat with a sickle, threshing with a flail, and grinding with a millstone in
Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle
look at pictures of George Washington's 16-sided threshing barn in
Farmer George Plants a Nation by Peggy Thomas, pp.26-27
grind einkorn wheat berries in an old fashioned hand-crank coffee grinder to make flour
start a wheat plant from seed (in a damp folded paper towel sealed in a ziploc bag and placed in a warm place)
and look at seed packets for amaranth and quinoa
look at examples of grains from the pantry (wheat, barley, rice, cornmeal), wheat germ,
popcorn, and alternative flours (almond, coconut)
even for older children it is fun to make a Flour Sensory Bin; we used home-ground and
store-bought wheat flour plus oat flour, rye flour, almond flour, and coconut flour
In a small resealable plastic bag, combine 1 cup of half-and-half with 2 T sugar and 1/2 tsp. vanilla.
Carefully push out all excess air and seal tightly.
In a large resealable plastic bag, combine 3 cups of ice and 1/3 cup kosher salt.
Place the small bag inside the bigger bag and shake vigorously, 7 to 10 minutes, until ice cream has hardened.
Notes: Bags with sliding "zippers" don't work as well for this as they tend to leak. Double-bag it and/or do this activity over a sink if you are concerned about drips.
if you want to do a day on farm animals instead, consider
chickens,
goats, or pigs
COTTON - Tue, Feb 9
read Where Did
My Clothes Come From? by Chris Butterworth, an overview of clothing
(she actually did a pretty good job with the variety of fibers)
jeans - story of cotton also mentions linen and hemp
sweater - story of wool
also mentions yaks, bison, camels, llamas, alpacas, cashmere goats, angora goats, musk oxen, and angora rabbits
party dress - story of silk
soccer uniform - story of synthetic fibers
fleece jacket - story of recycled plastic bottles
rain boots - story of rubber
look at a real cotton boll; look at the boll weevil in A Beetle is Shy by Dianna Hutts Aston
look at a picture of the cotton gin (short for engine)
look at some of the tags in your clothing to see what it's made of
if you'd like to do the story of flax/linen instead, I suggest How a Shirt Grew in the Field translated
from Russian by Marguerita Rudolph
RUBBER - Wed, Feb 10
do a rubber hunt for items in your house that you think are made of rubber
read and do experiments from "Rubber - Jack-of-all-trades" chapter in It's Fun to Know Why,
pp.54-61
if you want to purchase some rubber latex to do these experiments with, I recommend
Rubber Latex 16 Ounces
from BeakersWorld.com
(instructions are here)
get out your button box and look through all of the many kinds of buttons
look at vintage Bakelite poker chips
do Sculpted Science: Turn Milk Into Plastic
experiment from Scientific American
I do recommend laying a cloth napkin or pillowcase over a large basin and holding it in place while you pour the curdled liquid through. You get
all of the curds that way!
WOOL - Mon, Feb 15 and Tue, Feb 16
DAY ONE
feel wool roving from a variety of sheep breeds (Corriedale, English Leicester, Romney)
read and do experiments from "Wool - Fleece for Man" chapter in It's Fun to Know Why,
pp.62-69
read and do experiments from "Wool - Fleece for Man" chapter in It's Fun to Know Why,
pp.70-74
this section on weaving reminded me of the guard invented by Margaret Knight (age 12) to stop a flying shuttle,
as they would break free and fly across the room, striking the workers
PAPER - Wed, Feb 17
read and do experiments from "Paper - A Web for Words" chapter in It's Fun to Know Why,
pp.107-119
read and do experiments from "Coal - Black Diamonds" chapter in It's Fun to Know Why,
pp.21-30
having some artist charcoal on hand is useful
if you talk about the "canary in the coal mine"
consider also chapter 12, "Fresh Water to Drink," of Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
another really fun project for Housebuilding is the "Brick-Making Challenge" on page 172 of Early Humans
by Michelle Breyer (Ancient Mesopotamia)
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