It's a quintessential rite of passage to grow plants from seeds, and now you can watch the growth of the roots with this Root Observation kit from Nature-Watch.

Here's a fun little project you can do so you can have fresh herbs at the ready when cooking. A big bonus is that these frosted blue mason jars look super cute on your kitchen counter. And once the herbs start growing, they add a splash of vibrant green that brightens your space and brings the outdoors in.

Welcome to my garden! Again, I'm trying to grow a little vegetable and herb garden and soon I want to add fruit trees, too. But my problem is that I don't have a green thumb! In fact, I'm pretty convinced I have the opposite.

I can't tell you how much we love the kits we got from Nature-Watch. The one I'm sharing to day is a classroom kit for 25 students called Forever Forests. In addition to providing content for a lesson, this kit comes with enough supplies to plant more than 25 pine trees from seed

There are two ways to compost: The right way and my way ;) I don't compost with the intention of balancing nutrients; I compost primarily to keep our kitchen waste from ending up in the landfill.

We made this Medieval herb garden for the first time back in 2010. I kept the materials and used it again in 2014 when we returned to this unit and again 2018 when we circled back to that unit for the third time (my children are about four years apart so we tend to circle through our units every four years).

Grow your own herb garden using supplies you probably already have around the house. This DIY indoor Mason Jar herb garden was easy to do and you can make one, too! All you need is a mason jar or similar jar. Wide neck is easier than a narrow neck. You also need sand, rocks, soil and seeds. We used basil for our herb garden, but you could use a variety of herbs.

I can't say enough about the Nature-Watch kits we've used so far. They are well designed and take all the hard work out of doing hands-on projects and replaces with simple projects that are easy to do with great results. The projects are meaningful, educational and long lasting. And because we've purchased the classroom kits for projects, we have left overs to use again and share.

Curious to see what kitchen scraps look like after three weeks in the dirt? It's probably what you'd expect, but each time I turn over soil that's been composted, I'm always surprised and thrilled at the same time. It's incredible how quickly the right materials will decompose and how unchanged materials that take eons to decompose look like after weeks, months or years. Another surprise is the temperature.

Growing mushrooms is watching nothing happen for weeks and then suddenly they emerge and grow overnight doubling in size in days. That's what happened with our Mushroom Adventure Grow Edible Mushrooms kit from Gardeners. We bought this kit for our spring nature study, but really had intended to buy when we did our Botany Main Lesson Block to accompany the lesson on fungi.

Growing a Bee Friendly garden is just about as easy as growing wildflowers in a pesticide free urban garden. We used the Nature-Watch classroom kit for this project. The kit comes with everything you need to grow wildflowers in easy-to-transport containers for 25 students. We love the kits from Nature Watch and have used them in our homeschool for years.

These adorable peg dolls represent the seasons. We use them with our calendar peg dolls. Each day, the kids replace the day of the week and day of the month peg dolls. And each month and each season they replace another one.

This is a super cute and fairly easy four seasons mini peg dolls tutorial. We made these super fast and they were easier than the original set of four season peg dolls.

This has to be the cutest way to learn the days of the week. These little peg doll gnomes are easy to make, especially if you don't complicate the process as I did! I'll tell you how I did this project with my daughter, and I'll also tell you some shortcuts you take to make this project faster, but just as cute.

Invasion of the mini gnomes has begun! Brace yourself for this cuteness. These 31 calendar mini peg dolls are for our homeschool calendar. These small peg dolls were easy to transform into gnomes. I painted the peg doll with Lyra watercolors and twisted a triangular shaped piece of wool felt into a gnome hat. I love the colors and they look darling on our homeschool room window sill.

These Months of the Year . We use them with our calendar peg dolls. Each day, the kids replace the day of the week and day of the month peg dolls. And each month and each season they replace another one. It's a fun way to keep track of the days, months and seasons. Each morning the kids look forward to changing the day. They can also use these with our weather gnomes we made last year.

These are probably the cutest peg dolls I've ever made! I actually made a complete lunar phase set to last an entire month! Granted it did get a little tedious and some crescents and moons look awfully similar to one another, but we got a complete set! Now we can track the lunar cycle with these adorable moon phase peg dolls.

Making a Ramadan Calendar for you and your kids is a great way to track this blessed month. There are so many different ways to do it, and this is just one color, crafty method.

Our fall table ended up being more of a fall themed interactive table that my six-year-old loves for a few reasons. Before I tell you what she loved about it, let me share with you what's on our table. Our nature table is the top of a Kallax bookcase from IKEA. It's a snug space, but perfect for displays and perfect for standing-height play.

Fall is my favorite season. It doesn't last long enough. September is still hot and by the time October is over, winter decorations are already hitting the stores! Eek! Too fast for me.

Felting pumpkins is one of the easiest beginner projects. Just be careful when working with children as the needle is very sharp and it's all too easy to accidentally strike your unsuspecting finger while felting.

This is probably my favorite upcycling project yet! I’ve been saving the last bits of candle from our beeswax candles for a couple years waiting to make them into new candles. Recently, I found what I needed: A candle making pot!

Have you ever limited your paint pallet to just yellow, red and blue? Having the freedom to choose from a myriad of colors is thrilling, but equally thrilling is being able to make a variety of colors with just the three primary ones.

If peg dolls weren't cute enough, they go and make these tiny bunting babies! They are adorable no matter how you make them. This set is for our nature table in our homeschool room. They were easy to make and are perfect for using up scraps.

I admit when I bought this kit, I thought it was a needle felting pumpkin kit. But you can't imagine my joy when, after a moment of confusion, I realized it was a wet felting kit! I haven't done wet felting in years, and I'm excited to get back into it.

Making decorative window art is fun and beautiful. These laminated translucent pumpkins can be reused each year. This is a great project for kids four years and up. If you aren't doing this project in the fall, you can print out a simple image of a tree or flower. I find that pencil drawings or silhouettes work best for this project.

It's official, it's no longer pumpkin season, it's peg doll season! We've made more peg dolls in the past month than all the peg dolls we've ever made combined. We're on a roll. And now we are adding themed ones to our nature table and having a blast doing it.

This was the best activity we did during Kindergarten Week. My five-year-old daughter loved this project in part because she could do it all on her own! I showed my kids how to roll one, then they rolled the other five.

I had the best of intentions when I bought pound after pound of fresh gala apples at the start of apples season. I wanted to make all kinds of apple deliciousness. We did manage an apple pie and some caramel apples, but then our apples rested at the bottom of the crisper for literally months....

This is one of my favorite recipes of all time! It's so warming, nourishing and healthy; it's perfect for cool autumn days or for a cozy dinner with friends. I have my dear friend, Laura, and her husband to thank for sharing this recipe for me.

WoolPets are the best kits for beginners looking to try wool felting. The kits are also an amazing value, you can get at least 4 owls from this kit (the package says 2), and if they are a bit smaller, you can get 6 adorable owls :)

Baking bread is a quintessential kindergarten experience in a Waldorf school. We take this tradition and bring it home. In this video, I'll show you a quick and easy recipe for making bread

Did you carve a pumpkin this fall? I hope you saved those pumpkin seeds because you can roast them with a bit of salt and olive oil for a fast, tasty and healthy snack. Don't forget to reserve a few seeds to plant them next spring/summer and hopefully you'll have your very own pumpkin next fall!

This is a show stopping center piece that tastes great and looks amazing! Add drama and intrigue to your dinner party with this perfect-for-fall vegetable soup served in a pumpkin. It's actually easier than you'd think to make, is the perfect meal or appetizer for large groups and warms you to the bone on cold autumn nights.

It is timely that our unit study on the Colonial Times, the voyage of the Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving nestled perfectly with this time of year. Reservations about the actual events aside, this pumpkin pie was delicious, easy and ties in well with our unit study.

Tortilla soup is a family fall and winter favorite because it's so warming, hearty and delicious. It's also super fast! Not only can you make the soup in about 30 minutes, while it's simmering, you can garnish the soup with cilantro, avocado, pepper jack cheese and fresh homemade tortilla chips.

These little sleeping babies in walnut shells are adorable. They'd make charming ornaments, cute table scape decorations or one-of-a-kind party favors. We made them to decorate our Fall Nature Table, but truthfully, they were barely there before being swept away to be played with along with our peg dolls and finger puppets.

Every fall, we seem to add a new autumn inspired project to our repertoire, and this year we are knitting pumpkins! This is a super easy and very satisfying project that takes little time and other than the stem, doesn't require many supplies.

Welcome autumn with this simple, yet beautiful handwork project that's great for children about eight years and up. All you need is felt and embroidery thread. You also need a needle and a pair of scissors.

Curious how we are doing our non-religious winter themed unit? I'm sharing what materials we are using and how we picked them. This Waldorf inspired winter themed unit will last from December through February and will include fairy tales, songs, poems, activities, watercoloring, block crayon drawings, form drawing, crafts and cooking.

This winter inspired nature table is more than a place to display our nature finds from walks, it's a themed table with winter peg dolls, winter books and an assortment of decorations that turn this winter nature table into a themed play center.

Making suncatchers is an easy satisfying craft for the whole family to enjoy. You can find this kit at A Child's Dream. It comes with an instructional book with several star designs with easy-to-follow step by step instructions.

If you're looking for a simple winter inspired peg doll tutorial, this is it! These bunting babies with white painted snowflakes and petite bonnets are fast, easy and super adorable. I made this trio of snowflake babies to accompany our other peg dolls and finger puppets on our winter themed nature table

I made this set for my daughter for our Winter Nature Table. While these are winter peg dolls, I found that because of their detail and size, they did not get enjoyed as much as the simpler, more generic dolls and so they were gifted.

It's time for some winter crafts! Do you make peg dolls, finger puppets or anything with felt? Check out this winter collection by A Child's Dream. It's called Winter's Cape and the colors are beautiful for all kinds of fall and winter inspired projects.

Looking for a creative way to use up old bits of candles? Try melting them down to make new candles! We did just that for this project. I used leftover wax from a large three wick candle from Colonial Candles from Cape Cod.

This is one simple yet beautiful project you can complete in no time, especially if you do the stitching like my 11-year-old son and not like me! We used gold and metallic DMC thread to stitch designs on the wool blend die cut snowflakes using two simple stitches: the running stitch and the back stitch.

How darling and cozy do these little winter inspired dolls look?! I have to say that to date, these are my favorite set of finger puppets. I had to dip into a large 18x18 inch piece of grey felt that I was saving for another project, but it was worth it!

It's the season to get cozy with hot chocolate sitting by the fireplace while the little ones play. Add these charming winter inspired dolls to your kids' pretend play toys for hours of open-ended creative play. Supplies for this project are wool felt, wool batting, wool yarn, finger puppet base, enamel dots, glue gun and scissors.

This is the last in a set of three winter inspired finger puppets. Perfect for this winter season, whether you live in a place that snows or not. These cozy looking puppets will inspire sitting around the fireplace with hot cocoa. Add these puppets to your kids' stash of pretend-play toys for hours of creative open place.

Looking for felt that's of better quality than the acrylic felt from craft stores but more affordable than 100% wool felt? How about a wool blend? Or bamboo felt! I found Over The River Felt during a search on Amazon and later contacted the company to see if they'd like to donate products for my felt comparison video.

Let's see how we did. Our winter themed Waldorf inspired unit has come to an end. Some things we enjoyed and others really started to annoy me. I was surprised that winter themed books were eventually going to rub me the wrong way.

Like clockwork, when spring makes its first appearance, the energy in our home shifts. Suddenly, we can't sit still, we can't concentrate and the strong urge to declutter and clean out takes hold of me. Though I'm a big fan of winter and cozy evenings, I found that we didn't get the winter we hoped for.

It's spring and that means it's time for a new unit study. It also means it's time to put away our completed history units and bring out the new spring science units.

Welcome spring with a craft the whole family can enjoy. Suncatchers are star shaped origami designs you can make with your children. My six and ten year old made these with me and now they are hanging in the homeschool room window adding a bright festive spring feel.

We've started a new tradition this year and that's to have a special seasonal finger puppet for the our nature table. Our Nature Table is more of seasonal table decorated with toys, crafts, books and things found in nature.

I wasn't sure about this kit the first time we placed it in our cart. Then it sat in our school room for a month or so. Finally I opened it and looked curiously at the contents. I didn't feel like putting it together, but my kids were restless that spring and I handed my 11-year-old and 7-year-old this kit. An hour later I was blown away by what they made!

In a last minute moment of inspiration, I turned these darling spring bunting baby peg dolls into magnets. I used super strong magnets, and it worked! I love the versatility of these mini peg dolls. Since the fall, I've had a set of three seasonal peg dolls grace our nature table. Each set has been unique.

This is my first attempt at making animal peg dolls, and I can tell you, I love it!! These adorable ladybugs were inspired by both a similar design in Margaret Bloom's Peg Doll book as well as a mini glass ladybug my sister gave me. To get the shiny gloss, I polished them with all natural beeswax polish.

I'm once again impressed by the kits by Nature-Watch. They are creative, innovative and educational, not to mention environmentally responsible. These seeds are sourced from Costa Rica and are hand-drilled by local artisans.

I can't say enough about the Nature-Watch kits we've used so far. They are well designed and take all the hard work out of doing hands-on projects and replaces with simple projects that are easy to do with great results.

With minimal video edits, you get to see from start to finish how I teach a form drawing lesson. This lesson works with my 6-year-old's skill set, but also works for my 11-year-old's ocean studies unit. Plus form drawing is a relaxing meditative activity that has far reaching benefits.

Lesson one was the introduction of the straight and curved line. Filming while doing a lesson is an unusually thing for us, and trying to orient all our main lesson books for the camera is unnatural. It's harder to write this way, and it's definitely not remotely ideal for my 6-year-old daughter who needs to do these lesson not just for the artistry, but for the hand mechanics of learning drawing and pre-writing skills.

Lesson two is patterns with straight lines. In today’s lesson, we worked with long and short lines, and later we did patterns with increasing and decreasing lengths and lines going in horizontal and vertical orientations. We also introduced varying colors.

Lesson three focused on straight lines of varying lengths. We chose to do some embroidery as well as another representation of the form we drew. We used embroidery hoops, spare cloth and embroidery thread.

Here’s a tutorial for a tactile pre-lesson activity we did for our Form Drawing main lesson block. This activity was easy to do, but it did take about 30 minutes to prepare. You can do this project independently of the form drawing lesson or along with it and have the children help make these tactile projects.

Lesson four introduced nesting half circles similar to a rainbow. This would be an ideal opportunity to share a story about the rain, sunshine and rainbows. We alternated colors, made rainbows, and worked on small semi-circular shapes.

Lesson 5 continues the the semi-circular shape from lesson four. We continued to use our pre-lesson hand-on material we created in our previous lesson.

Lesson 6 focuses on half circles that nest and radiate out from the center of the page to fill the whole paper.

Lesson 7 continues the curved line with variations on the rainbow shape and curved lines that look like hills.

Lesson 8 introduces loops of various sizes that are all connected of various heights and widths.

This is officially lesson 9 for this main lesson block.

After taking a long break, we are back at doing our Live Form Drawing Tutorials. We picked up where we left off which might not have been ideal. After taking so much time off, my now 8-year-old daughter was hastey and out of practice.

Lesson 11 focuses on undulating waves.

While this may be a step by step tutorial, you'll find that I made a number of mistakes while instructing my 7-year-old daughter. This is a live lesson with no edits, so you'll see the whole process from start to finish. I show how to mix Stockmar watercolors, which paper we use, how to mount the paper and which brushes work well.

At times this video is painfully slow and quiet. I decided to leave this as unedited as possible so you can see how a lesson proceeds from start to end with unexpected changes and challenges. At the end of the video, I share some reflections on the lesson. It seems like most recent watercolor lessons have been flops.

Lately, I've been using open glass jars for our paints and they've worked well for one surprising reason: The paint doesn't mold! Instead, the water simply evaporates and and leaves a dried cake of paint which can be rehydrated for later use. This has worked out well for this series of lessons because, while we are working through lessons almost daily, we are not using all the colors at the same time, so some of them dry out and all we need to do is add a bit of water and get painting!

Lesson 1 is all about exploring the color yellow. It seems simple enough and yet in practice it was really challenging! I’m not sure if the challenge is universal and only felt with adults who have already spent their whole life working with colors rather than creating shades of a single one. What you might experience as you go through these lessons is that you, the teacher, are learning too.

In lesson 2, we dive further into the color yellow. Because the Stockmar paints come with a bright yellow and a warm golden yellow, this lesson lent itself well to exploring both yellows together. While this is a suitable second lesson, you may wish to continue exploring yellow on its own during this lesson, but use the golden yellow instead.

In lesson 3, we explore the color blue. For this lesson we made arches in varying intensities of blue. You may find that some students and teachers are firm, defined and somewhat rigid. Can you tell between us which person was like that? If you look at the final paintings, you’ll see how beautifully my daughter’s shades blended into one another. Mine are so defined and in my opinion, not as beautiful to me for what I was wanting.

Watercoloring is one of my kids' favorite artistic outlets. I'm going to show you a few different techniques that you can do using a typical Waldorf technique called 'wet on wet' watercoloring in which the watercolor paper is first wet with water using a sponge or dipping it into a basin of water.

Did you know that you can do nature study in the city? You don’t need beaches, mountains or valleys to partake in nature study. In fact, when you have to search and appreciate the smallest amount of nature pushing through in a crack on a sidewalk or the relentless caw of a crow, you find that nature is a force to be reckoned with and revered. If you choose to do your nature study at the beach, forest, canyon or mountains, or anywhere else, here are a few ideas on how you can enhance the experience.

Everyone has an inner artist we can all nurture. I wanted to share the tips that might help you enjoy the art process and help you be more satisfied with your artwork. These tips are pretty simple and maybe you already do some of them, but for me it was a learning process of discovery.

Here's a little snippet of our homeschool day. We are working through our Live-Education Waldorf inspired curriculum for our Botany Main Lesson block and took a little detour.

There is a deep education in being able to be present with your surroundings and having wonder and curiosity in what you see without having to understand it on an analytical basis. And that’s why I had mixed feelings about this lesson. Flower dissection is reserved for older students, but is included here as often our lessons include mixed grades.

I should know better than to expect sit down work from my boys when we are out in un-landscaped wild nature! They would rather explore, hike, forage, and make fire than sit and draw.

Have you ever heard of a Micro Hike? I hadn't until I picked up the book by Joseph Bharat Cornell called Sharing Nature With Kids.

I can't tell you how much we love the kits we got from Nature-Watch. The one I'm sharing to day is a classroom kit for 25 students called Forever Forests. In addition to providing content for a lesson, this kit comes with enough supplies to plant more than 25 pine trees from seed

Here's a fun little project you can do so you can have fresh herbs at the ready when cooking. A big bonus is that these frosted blue mason jars look super cute on your kitchen counter. And once the herbs start growing, they add a splash of vibrant green that brightens your space and brings the outdoors in.

Self directed learning never looked so good! We got these samples from a Nature-Watch kit called Forest in a Box. It came with 20 forest specimens enclosed in zipper bags with cards describing each sample.

It's a quintessential rite of passage to grow plants from seeds, and now you can watch the growth of the roots with this Root Observation kit from Nature-Watch.

For our Nature unit we studied conifers. As part of the lesson activities we decided to weave pine needle baskets. This is a great activity for a nature unit study or for an Indigenous People.

Want to make a quick and easy nature journal? You don't need many supplies. I made these using watercolor paper, drawing paper, a long reach stapler and a paper trimmer. It was a lot of fun watercoloring the paper.

Join me as we learn how to make hiking sticks from found branches and sticks. We cut them down to size, removed protruding parts and sanded them down using a power sander, metal file or sandpaper.

I think games are a great way to learn or review. Want to play a cooperative board game with your kids while learning about herbs and their medicinal qualities? Check out this video. It's especially enjoyable for kids under puberty as there is no competition nor strategy. It's pleasantly informative and fun to play and the cards and board game are a work of art.

Games and hands-on projects are a staple in our learning environment. Into The Forest is a nature game we used to play in our Opening Activities and as inspiration for art projects.

We love making things! This paper making kit from Acorn Naturalists comes with everything you need to make homemade paper (except the paper scraps). The DVD and paper directions were easy to follow.

There are two ways to compost: The right way and my way ;) I don't compost with the intention of balancing nutrients; I compost primarily to keep our kitchen waste from ending up in the landfill.

Make a charming nature inspired doll house for fairies, finger puppets or gnomes. Find all the material you need for this project in nature or at your local craft store. You can also find assembled kits at A Child’s Dream.

This is another awesome kit from Pied Piper Crafts. This wind car kit is designed for kids eight years an d up and comes with everything you need to make one wind car. The only thing you'll need is a pair of pliers. The best part: It actually works!

I'm so pleased with the kits by Pied Piper. This sailboat kit comes with everything you need to make a real working sailboat. The only tool you need is a hammer. It's perfect for children ages six and up, though you may need to help young children.

I shared what we keep in our nature bag when we go to the park for our nature study lessons. We use a simple backpack, and in the main compartment I usually pack water, snacks, and a few tools like a compass, shovel, binoculars, and a magnifying glass. I also bring Kleenex, lavender essential oil for cuts or stings, and a small activity booklet with nature questions to start conversations.

Join us as we explore the beautiful Santa Ana mountains in search of the seasonal vernal pools. Being in our fourth year of drought, the vernal pools haven't had water in them for years, but don't worry the shrimp (eggs) that are unique to this area can survive decades in this area without water.

I'm using my Arnold Grummer's Paper Mill kit which is one of the better kits I've used. While it comes with high quality materials, it does not include the large water tray which we had separately. However, I found that you could easily make paper without that tray, and simply use a baking tray instead. You will also need a towel to dry your paper and a blender to turn your scraps into paper pulp.

Making Pompoms is a simple handwork project that’s ideal for Kindergarten or Grade 1 prior to formal instruction in knitting. Often setting the students to simple, repetitive tasks they can do independently, frees up time and attention for teaching knitting to each student individually.

Did you know that making your own knitting needles isn't that hard or complicated? With a few materials and a little time, you can create one of a kind needles that you will no doubt cherish and love using.

This introductory handwork project is intended for grade 1 students, but if you are working with older students who didn’t get a chance to make their own needles, I think they would appreciate the task.

Did you know that making your own knitting needles isn't that hard or complicated? With a few materials and a little time, you can create one of a kind needles that you will no doubt cherish and love using.

This bunny project is a great first project because it's easy, fast, and forgiving. It's just right for a brand new knitter because you can take the practice piece of knitting and turn it into an adorable little animal for the child to cherish.

Every fall, we seem to add a new autumn inspired project to our repertoire, and this year we are knitting pumpkins! This tutorial is for beginners, but children and adults of all ages may enjoy this project.

This pocket dolly is easy and makes a great first project. The original pocket dolly project can be found in Elizabeth Seward’s book. However, I found that unless a child could sew the head, it required a lot of extra effort from the teacher.

How adorable is this little octopus?! What's great about it, it that it's super easy, easy enough for a brand new knitter. In fact, if you don't know how knit, I walk you through the basics, from one novice knitter to another ;)

Are you looking for a small unit study on owls? I've got you covered! I know my unit studies tend to be long, involved and contain a lot of books, but this one is small, with a few beautiful books, a couple projects and a game to start off the lessons.

Art inspiration for chalk drawings usually comes from material we plan to use in our unit study or main lesson block. The Chalk Drawing for our Owl Unit is one we plan to keep up for the whole duration of the unit.

WoolPets are the best kits for beginners looking to try wool felting. The kits are also an amazing value, you can get at least 4 owls from this kit (the package says 2), and if they are a bit smaller, you can get 6 adorable owls :)

If you've never done an owl pellet dissection before, fair warning, it can be hard to stomach this activity. We took this project to the next level by assembling a complete rodent skeleton out of the remains we found in the owl pellet. While that wasn't our initial intentions, I'm really glad we did so, and I found it to be the most educational part of this project.

Finding hands-on projects for our unit studies and main lesson blocks brings me so much joy, especially when we can make adorable owl peg dolls like these. They were pretty simple to do, but had their challenges.

We love our Professor Noggin's Trivia Cards, so making our own was not just a fun way to make a game we know we'll love but it was also a great way to add essential skills to our lessons: research, synthesis of information, handwriting and drawing.

For years now I've noticed that our science units lack substantial written narrations. While some of our science units may include a fair amount of writing, most don't and we end up with unit after unit with the same blank main lesson book.

Whenever possible, I incorporate art into our lessons. It's not a art lesson, rather it's a science lesson that's artistically depicted. Sometimes art is the perfect medium for a lesson and when it comes to nature science, I can't think of a better choice.

Whenever possible, I incorporate art into our lessons. It's not a art lesson, rather it's a science lesson that's artistically depicted. Sometimes art is the perfect medium for a lesson and when it comes to nature science, I can't think of a better choice. Each spring, we pull out our nature units, and I find that our main lesson books are either wholly empty or filled with magnificent watercolors.

At the end of most units, I like to share which resources we used, liked, and didn't like and share the projects we did.

If you watched my Nature Unit planning video, you know I scheduled a lot for this spring! It didn't work out though. It was too broad and too hard to plan, so I broke up that big unit into weekly units and it's been perfect!

So if you follow me regularly, and if you catch the date with our calendar peg dolls, you'll know this video is a tad late. For the fun of it, post the date you notice with our calendar peg doll. Our nature table got refreshed.

Ever since we started making suncatchers, we've been enjoying this beautiful craft. I think my friends and neighbors enjoy it too because they can see out decorated school room windows from the street.

I love it when I can mix art and science or art and math for that matter. Any lesson is an opportunity to pull out the watercolor paper and art supplies. For this lesson we are using our Tim Holtz Distress Inks as our watercolor medium for our Anatomy of a Monarch Butterfly.

Sculpey Ultra Light oven bake clay is my new favorite modeling medium! It's awesome!! Let me tell you why this is a must have item for your art supply stash or homeschool supplies. It comes in white and can easily be painted with various art mediums.

These monarch butterflies look so real, from a distance, you would think they were. We didn't intend to make so many. We just needed a few for a Life Cycle of a Butterfly project, but we (er, I mean I) got carried away and made about 20 of them! That's okay, I have lots of ideas on what to do with the extras.

I'm always surprised when my children want to felt. It's not the easiest craft and it takes a while to felt, but their projects turned out so cute! Especially my 7-year-old's caterpillar.True to her spirit and personality, she did her own thing, and it turned out better than both my son's and mine combined. Hers looks like a little puppy with ears and a nose and a super long skinny body. I love it!

I love adding watercoloring to our lessons when possible, and this monarch butterfly watercolor is a great beginner project. With just a couple of colors, you can make an extraordinary painting.

This started out as a simple project, but turned into a homeschool keepsake. I'm not even sure at what point it happened, but this project took on a life of its own! It pulls together three different projects we've done over the course of our Butterflies and Caterpillars unit.

Some peg dolls and fingers puppets end up looking super cute and charming while others look like a nice try. This peg doll is one such project in which all the extra time it took to make something I envisioned turned out pretty mediocre.

I think this Butterflies and Caterpillars unit was one of our favorite units this year. Well, at least I know it was mine. For my children, because there was little writing and a lot of hands-on activities, I think I can safely say they liked it too.

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Every fall, we seem to add a new autumn inspired project to our repertoire, and this year we are knitting pumpkins! This tutorial is for beginners, but children and adults of all ages may enjoy this project.

This pocket dolly is easy and makes a great first project. The original pocket dolly project can be found in Elizabeth Seward’s book. However, I found that unless a child could sew the head, it required a lot of extra effort from the teacher.

How adorable is this little octopus?! What's great about it, it that it's super easy, easy enough for a brand new knitter. In fact, if you don't know how knit, I walk you through the basics, from one novice knitter to another ;)

Every Spring we eagerly begin our science units. Sometimes we are doing Waldorf Main Lesson Blocks, other times we are doing unit studies. This Bee Unit Study is one we’ve done a couple times so there are plenty of resources and projects available. Curious on how to put together a Bee Unit Study? Start Here to get ideas and see the books and projects to support a Spring Science Unit.

We did a Bee Unit study twice! Once in 2017 (smaller unit) and again in 2019. Whenever we do an updated unit or block, we tend to use new and existing books, we may even do similar projects, but overall, I like to approach the new unit with new activities and projects.

Not every new unit or main lesson blocks gets a new chalk drawing and in some cases, one chalk drawing serves for several units as this one does. This chalk drawing has the image of an owl, the life cycle of a frog and a bee and beehive.

Needle felting is the process of taking wool and compressing it with a very sharp barbed needle. It’s a craft older children can do easily, but I found my younger students loved needle felting! Needle felting is a wonderful craft to add to a spring unit. Mind your fingers!

Bees, like other insects, go through a particular metamorphoses when growing into a mature adult. This hands-on activity engages the student to learn and understand the Life Cycle of a Bee.

Hands on projects dominate this unit! Learn how to make a bee stinger. This interactive activity was not only simple, it was probably the most educational and instructional project of this whole unit. Give it a try!

Artistic work is part of lesson whether it’s a main lesson or unit study. Learn how to draw a simple bee. Art is a wonderful way to bring a creative, hands on aspect to the lessons.

This folded paper game can be used for any subject from math to history. We've made them before for history and poetry. They are great to keep around your school room for fun review work when your unit study is complete.

This is one of our favorite projects this year and I'm sure we'll do this year after year from now on. Rolling honeycomb beeswax is so easy, young children can easily participate.

"I've never tasted a honey I don't like," I told the honey vendor at the farmer's market. Then he handed me buckwheat honey and I made a face. I guess there is a honey I really don't like! Get an assortment of honey or grab a kit and try a variety of honey. Bon Appetite!

We can’t do a bee unit study without also exploring flowers and nectar. For this lesson, we dissected a flower. This is a lesson I don’t recommend for younger children. Instead, go on a nature walk and observe bees in their natural habitat buzzing from from flower to flower.

This demonstration on how bees get pollen is one of the top educational demonstrations for this unit. It’s both simple and instructive and the materials are easy to source.

If you do a unit on bees, you’'ll quickly realize how important they are and how delicate their ecosystem is. This simple recipe for making pesticide-free bug spray is both educational and practical. I hope you try it!

Making Trivia Cards for a unit is an engaging way to help students understand the material they’ve learned. It’s a beautiful, creative and timely project; however, it’s time consuming!

Making a beehive is surprisingly easy and I can show you how with the help of an amazing project based book on Bees. Mason beehives are different than a hexagonal beehive. Learn more by clicking below!

The more you learn about bees, the more you want to support a bee friendly environment. Growing flowers that bees thrive on is surprisingly easy. Learn now by clicking below.

We had the pleasure of touring Janet's property, owner and founder of Backyard Bees back in December 2015. We learned about beekeeping, toured her garden and of course tasted honey! Learn more about the honey making process by visiting Backyard Bees.

A hexagonal beehive is a geometric wonder. Making one can be easy, but we made one that was more complicated than it needed to be. But, it turn out beautifully in the end, and it was helpful in understanding the inner workings of a beehive.

Each spring we do various science unit, and this review post is for a spring unit in which we studies Bees. We typically use Living Books for our curriculum and I share how we liked them and used them.

Once a unit is complete, I share the materials we used, the ones we didn’t get to and how we liked the resources. I Share the projects we did and the lessons we completed. Check out the must have resources, the surprise winners and the ones to skip all together.

Check out the Resource Guide with photos and links to the materials we used.

It's a quintessential rite of passage to grow plants from seeds, and now you can watch the growth of the roots with this Root Observation kit from Nature-Watch.

Here's a fun little project you can do so you can have fresh herbs at the ready when cooking. A big bonus is that these frosted blue mason jars look super cute on your kitchen counter. And once the herbs start growing, they add a splash of vibrant green that brightens your space and brings the outdoors in.

Welcome to my garden! Again, I'm trying to grow a little vegetable and herb garden and soon I want to add fruit trees, too. But my problem is that I don't have a green thumb! In fact, I'm pretty convinced I have the opposite.

I can't tell you how much we love the kits we got from Nature-Watch. The one I'm sharing to day is a classroom kit for 25 students called Forever Forests. In addition to providing content for a lesson, this kit comes with enough supplies to plant more than 25 pine trees from seed

There are two ways to compost: The right way and my way ;) I don't compost with the intention of balancing nutrients; I compost primarily to keep our kitchen waste from ending up in the landfill.

We made this Medieval herb garden for the first time back in 2010. I kept the materials and used it again in 2014 when we returned to this unit and again 2018 when we circled back to that unit for the third time (my children are about four years apart so we tend to circle through our units every four years).

Grow your own herb garden using supplies you probably already have around the house. This DIY indoor Mason Jar herb garden was easy to do and you can make one, too! All you need is a mason jar or similar jar. Wide neck is easier than a narrow neck. You also need sand, rocks, soil and seeds. We used basil for our herb garden, but you could use a variety of herbs.

I can't say enough about the Nature-Watch kits we've used so far. They are well designed and take all the hard work out of doing hands-on projects and replaces with simple projects that are easy to do with great results. The projects are meaningful, educational and long lasting. And because we've purchased the classroom kits for projects, we have left overs to use again and share.

Curious to see what kitchen scraps look like after three weeks in the dirt? It's probably what you'd expect, but each time I turn over soil that's been composted, I'm always surprised and thrilled at the same time. It's incredible how quickly the right materials will decompose and how unchanged materials that take eons to decompose look like after weeks, months or years. Another surprise is the temperature.

Growing mushrooms is watching nothing happen for weeks and then suddenly they emerge and grow overnight doubling in size in days. That's what happened with our Mushroom Adventure Grow Edible Mushrooms kit from Gardeners. We bought this kit for our spring nature study, but really had intended to buy when we did our Botany Main Lesson Block to accompany the lesson on fungi.

Growing a Bee Friendly garden is just about as easy as growing wildflowers in a pesticide free urban garden. We used the Nature-Watch classroom kit for this project. The kit comes with everything you need to grow wildflowers in easy-to-transport containers for 25 students. We love the kits from Nature Watch and have used them in our homeschool for years.

It's truly beautiful how the handwork in Waldorf education is specifically chosen to help the child on his emotional, educational and spiritual development. The third grade student is going through the nine year change and to help give the child a sense of purpose and comfort during this transition, the curriculum aims to teach the practical arts and skills to the child in the form of shelter building, farming and clothing.

Weaving on a loom is a beautiful way to connect to the artisans of the past. Weaving is a skill and an art that dates back as far as civilization. You may weave without a loom, but if you have one, it’s important to give it a try. Be sure to name the parts of a loom: frame, warp, weft, pegs, shuttle and comb.

Circle Weaving is another simple weaving project that supports the Grade 3 student in their endeavor to master the basic skills for the necessities of life without machines. Learning these skills by hand brings comfort to the child experiencing the 9-Year Change.

Weaving is a skill 3rd graders learn in conjunction with their Shelters Block. Learning the basic skills of shelter building, making clothes and farming ease the Grade 3 student as they go through the 9-Year Change.

With a little effort, you can turn your weaving project into a bag. While I recommend using a small template, you can do a larger one as we did. However, a larger weaved bag in this style is not as spacious or sturdy as you’d like and it takes hours and hours to weave.

Pulling together books for our American History Unit, I knew I wanted a substantial amount of material on the Lewis and Clark expedition. We did a the westward movement and Texas history back in 2012-2013 while living in Dallas for a year, and I really enjoyed learning about the Lewis and Clark expedition and wanted to expand on it this time around.

The Westward Movement spans over 100 years in American History, so within this unit, there are other subunits: American Civil War, Lewis & Clark Expedition and California History & Gold Rush. Even so, I still have a lot of material, and may choose to split this unit up further.

I debated whether I should have a separate unit for Native American because the stories and history of the Native Americans spans the whole history of the US. This is a small compilation of supplies that would stand alone as a unit, but what would be more authentic is to distribute these materials over all our other American History unit, as currently each unit only has a little bit of relevant Native American material.

How do you build a unit study out of books? How do you feel confident putting the curriculum aside and diving into living books and hands on projects without feeling the pressure to hit state standards or succumb to peer pressure when you try something different? How do you make books the curriculum?!

While preparing for our next main lesson block, I came across materials I had pulled for a project to use during our Lewis and Clark Expedition and Western Movement Unit Study.

Dig Discover and Display kits come in all varieties. I mistaken called this one Indian Relics, when in fact it's Archaeology USA. We have been using these kits for years in our homeschool and my children enjoy them immensely.

Weaving is one of those projects you need to dedicate yourself to. It takes time, perseverance and mindfulness. Weaving engages your mind and hands, and unlike knitting for instances, you can't easily take your eyes off your project.

his is a great activity for a nature unit study or for an Indigenous People. It's fairly simple, but does take some practice or skill. What I did was get the project started out for my 10-year-old son who continued making it until the end, when I finished it off.

Making a journal can be easy and simple or spectacular and somewhat difficult. This is the easy version. It's the version where you don't need to fold or stitch. What this means is you can find more affordable options to make a journal.

I'm guessing that by now, these kits by Krystal are hard to come by. Dig, Discover and Display Indian Relics is an excavation kit in which you excavate a frame of 'Native American Relics' that you paint once the frame is cleaned of dust and plaster.

One of my favorite stories about the Western Movement is the story of Lewis and Clark. But in all honesty I'm less interested in Lewis and Clark and completely fascinated by Sacagawea. On multiple occasions she not only saved the expedition but saved the lives of the men of the expedition and throughout it all she was just a teenager!

Our exploration of Alaska came about because my sister, Samiah and her family, moved up to Alaska in the fall of 2020. Once there, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and after surgery, it was discovered that it was an aggressive and fast growing brain cancer.

This unit started out book heavy, but we managed to squeeze in a couple projects for which I’m very happy. I scheduled this unit for a single week. Let’s see how much we can get through. So far we’ve done really well diving into the picture books and starting both the biography and the novel.

For this chalk drawing, I used the book In Search of the Northern Lights as inspiration. I used a few pages from this book which depict a brilliantly colored sky and landscape and I was eager to include it in our unit.

Here’s the chalk drawing we did for our Alaska and Arctic unit. You can see a longer tutorial on the blog post for this unit and on YouTube. First let me tell you about the chalkboard. It’s awesome!!

Join me for this live lesson in which my 9-year-old daughter and I draw illustrations inspired by the book Raven and the Tide Lady. This lesson lasted 45 minutes and only included drawing. We did no written work. We used Faber Castell pastels and then switched to Sargent Art Chalk Pastels.

For this project, I used handmade knitting needles I made during the Handwork Conference. You can find more information about the conference by visiting Waldorf Handwork Educators I used bulky weight yarn by Lamb's Pride in various neutrals. You can find Lamb's Pride at many online vendors, but I frequent A Child's Dream for most of our Waldorf needs.

This was one easy but lengthy project! It did get a bit tedious, but it worked well with all the reading we did with our Alaska and Arctic unit. While I read, my 14-year-old son knit and sometimes, we would switch. I did cast on and bind off for him, though he is capable of doing that one his own and actually retaught his older 22-year-old brother when he made a scarf recently. I also added fringe to the end.

In all my years of homeschooling this past year is the first time we made snowflakes. Living in southern California where it never snows (where we live), we've never done winter projects that involve cold weather and snow.

This is one simple yet beautiful project you can complete in no time, especially if you do the stitching like my 11-year-old son and not like me! We used gold and metallic DMC thread to stitch designs on the wool blend die cut snowflakes using two simple stitches: the running stitch and the back stitch.

I bought this kit when we did our American history units when I put together our unit on California history. We ended up not quite reaching that California history when those history units were over (they'll be revisited again), but I had all the kits.

Opening activities which include games are a family favorite in our homeschool and one of our favorite trivia games is the Professor Noggin's Trivia Cards. Over the years, we started making our own. First with Astronomy Trivia Cards, then Bird Trivia Cards and most recently Bee Trivia Cards.

This is the quickest I've ever decided to put together a unit. I sourced books, put together the unit and did it all within about a month. Part of doing it so quickly or rather being able to complete it in just one week was the fact that we didn't include any projects officially.

Our Bees Unit Study is perfect for Grades 1-4 as it complements the Nature Sciences of the early years. A Unit Study meets the needs of multiple grades in a single unit by using various resources and providing an assortment of projects that children may do at their own level.

While, we tend to follow the Waldorf pedagogy, there are times I put together a unit study rather than a Main Lesson Block. A unit study is a concentration on a single subject for a short period of time. This Unit Study on Birds includes hands-on activities and plenty of picture books.

Unit Studies on plants and animals (or insects) children see often is a great way to introduce a nature science to young elementary ‎students. The study of butterflies delights children and watching them go through their metamorphic process is thrilling.

A unit study can be as broad or as specific as you would like it to be. While doing our unit study, we departed to do a smaller owl unit study. In part I was inspired by resources I had seen other homeschoolers using and was excited to include that into our bird unit. Once we included those resources into our bird unit, I realize that we had created a mini Owl unit.

The Ocean Main Lesson block is an opportunity to dive into the ocean and explore above and below. This block centers around the California coast primarily, but takes on a broader historical aspect as well. Smaller blocks on Whales, Turtles and more are included within the larger block.

Our Whales unit is another mini unit inspired by a larger unit: Ocean. However, sometimes it’s a book or project that inspires a unit as well. Some of the resources for this unit were ones I’d see other homeschoolers use and found them inspiring and thus a mini unit on Whales emerged.

When doing our Ocean Main Lesson block, we were inspired by the several other topics that would be their own months long unit. Sea Turtles appealed to us as we have visited Hawaii and swam amongst sea turtles. This unit is a mini unit lasting about a week or two. The resources are easily covered in a couple days but the projects take longer.

This unit emerged and faded several times over the years before I finally collected our resources to put together a unit study. The projects are drawn from other units as very little was organized specifically for this unit which inspired a unit on Dinosaurs and evolution.

On occasion, a child of mine will have a specific interest that warrants a specific unit study. The study of horses is one just unit study. My daughter become enthralled with horses and horseback riding, so I put together a unit to serve her interests as well as serve an older student with a variety of resources including historical for my older son.

We've come to the end of the school year and with that, the last homeschool haul of the year. While I'll still have other hauls planned for the following year, they won't be as extensive as the ones you've seen in the past. Needless to say, we have more than enough resources for this year and the years to come, and for next year, we have something different planned with our funding.

There's always excitement when I put together a new unit. It's the same excitement you might feel at the start of the new homeschool year. I love looking for new resources and assembling a nice balance of books and activities. It's not always fun though. Sometimes I hit creative roadblocks or in other cases, I'm overwhelmed by too many choices.

Not every new unit or main lesson blocks gets a new chalk drawing and in some cases, one chalk drawing serves for several units as this one does. This chalk drawing has the image of an owl, the life cycle of a frog and a bee and beehive.

WoolPets are the best kits for beginners looking to try wool felting. The kits are also an amazing value, you can get at least 4 owls from this kit (the package says 2), and if they are a bit smaller, you can get 6 adorable owls :)

After making egg replicas using chicken eggs, I decided I wanted to make something that was a little more accurate. I wasn't sure how to go about doing this project, but my Instagram family really came through. You always do :)

If you’ve never done an owl pellet dissection before, fair warning, it can be hard to stomach this activity. We took this project to the next level by assembling a complete rodent skeleton out of the remains we found in the owl pellet. While that wasn’t our initial intentions, I’m really glad we did so, and I found it to be the most educational part of this project.

While reading the book Birds, Nests and Eggs by Mel Boring, I had a moment of inspiration and thought it would be a fabulous hands-on project to create egg replicas of the birds we learned about in the book using chicken eggs.

Any excuse to pull out our art supplies for a project is a good reason! I love adding art and color to our unit studies, and this is one project I'm sure you'll love to try. This project was inspired by the book An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston and Sylvia Long.

We love our Professor Noggin's Trivia Cards, so making our own was not just a fun way to make a game we know we'll love but it was also a great way to add essential skills to our lessons: research, synthesis of information, handwriting and drawing.

This project was inspired by the book An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston and Sylvia Long. It's a beautifully illustrated book with a two-page spread on various eggs in gorgeous watercolors varying in size for accuracy.

There's a difference between an art lesson and an artistic representation of a lesson. Some lessons include narrations or dictation and some lessons include some art or handwork or hands-on project. While these activities always take longer, they are often more impactful, and meaningful.

For years now I've noticed that our science units lack substantial written narrations. While some of our science units may include a fair amount of writing, most don't and we end up with unit after unit with the same blank main lesson book.

Finding hands-on projects for our unit studies and main lesson blocks brings me so much joy, especially when we can make adorable owl peg dolls like these. They were pretty simple to do, but had their challenges.

We're on a roll with these nature cards. But this project is different. This time, because we are at the tail end of our unit (pun intended), I'm the only one who did this project. It's for a couple reasons that I didn't encourage the children to partake in this project.

Sometimes we overlook the simplest projects because they don't seem obvious. Like this one: An egg dissection. Most of us have and eat eggs so the thought of dissecting one often passes right by us, but what a great, easy and affordable project this is!

Whenever possible, I incorporate art into our lessons. It's not a art lesson, rather it's a science lesson that's artistically depicted. Sometimes art is the perfect medium for a lesson and when it comes to nature science, I can't think of a better choice. Each spring, we pull out our nature units, and I find that our main lesson books are either wholly empty or filled with magnificent watercolors.

Needle felting a bird is probably one of the easier animal felting projects you can do. Especially when you felt it out of one large piece of wool batt and simply shape the head rather than needle felting a head separately and adding it on to the body of the bird.

Whenever possible, I incorporate art into our lessons. It's not a art lesson, rather it's a science lesson that's artistically depicted. Sometimes art is the perfect medium for a lesson and when it comes to nature science, I can't think of a better choice.

Although I'm not an artist, I still enjoy drawing, painting and other art expressions. But everyone has an inner artist we can all nurture. I wanted to share the tips that might help you enjoy the art process and help you be more satisfied with your artwork.

What if you could cozy up on the couch surrounded by a stunning library and be handed one book after another that is sure to delight you and your kids. Sounds too good to be true? That's exactly what you'll be getting each month with Build Your Library's family book subscription crate.

After many of you saw these Into The Forest game pieces, you asked about the game, where to find it, and if we liked it. The thing is that at the time, we weren't playing the game, we were only uses the beautiful cards for drawing inspiration for our nature studies.

There's always one more project I think of when a unit is over, but being able to stop at a high point during a unit is a skill in and of itself that I continually strive for! Now that our unit is officially over and the projects and hands on activities are all complete, it's time to access how everything went.

Welcome to our unit study on Whales! Or as we’ve learned, cetaceans. We are diving into this unit to study a select few marine mammals and to do so, we’ve sourced a variety of books that we are thrilled to share with you.

Working on a small chalkboard, gives you the beauty and the gesture of an illustration without the time commitment and grandeur of working on a larger job board.

For this unit, we chose the super easy iceberg demonstration. Not only was it very easy to do, it was also extremely educational.

These were the easiest so far. In part, I think because whales are easier to draw than some of the other nature images we’ve done before. Also, I made these with a white background which simplified the process.

Shorty units have their pros and cons. For one, we can get through a unit before anyone tires of it, but we rarely have enough time to dive deeply into a unit that's short.

Welcome to our mini unit on Sea Turtles. This was truly a mini unit lasting less than a week and specifically only 2 days.

Learn how to make nature journaling or nature study cards for any unit! As we continue our nature unit study on Sea Turtles, we decided that the quickest and most beautiful way to show learning for this unit is in the form of these nature trivia cards. Each card has been photographed and is on the blog post for this video.

For the past four billion years, the water on this planet has remained the same. It's been recycled: evaporating from the seas and oceans, forming clouds and finally precipitating out as rain or snow. We recreated a simple closed system to show the water cycle.

This was the fastest unit we ever did and for that, there are a few things that worked vastly different from our other units. In this review, I talk about the various books and resources we used and how our projects and activities progressed.

At the start of the school year, we start receiving a lot of our homeschool supplies that are going to be used for the year in our various unit studies and lessons. This haul contains many books that are going to be used for our Horse unit that I’m putting together for my now 9 year old daughter.

Oh my! New books are here as well as main lesson notebooks, fountain pens, hands-on kits and much more! Dive into these new materials with me! Many are from Amazon, but the Waldorf supplies are from my favorite Waldorf vendor: A Child's Dream. More details can be found on my website at the blog post that accompanies this video.

It's that time of year again...the time where my wishlist is bursting and finally books and resources are being moved from the wishlist to the shopping cart and what follows after that is pure happiness as all these inspiring supplies start trickling in. Since all our supplies didn't come in at once, you can click the links below for the other homeschool hauls for the start of this year.

Before the school year began, my daughter asked to study horses. So from that request came a thrilling unit that has me so thankful she asked! In addition to picture books, we have historical fiction, The Winter Horse and The Perfect Horse, both set in World War II time and Reckless also set in that time, but based on a true story about a horse and his championing heroism.

Design your own horses with this kit from Breyer. I was so impressed with the quality of the materials and so pleased with the outcome. We loved this kit so much we actually bought another one. Each was a bit different as the horses were posed differently and maybe they represent different breeds as well. We are using this kit for our horse unit study.

We love our hands-on project and this one fits perfectly for our Ancient Greece unit as well as our horse unit. This project was for my 13-year-old son who was able to assemble it on his own. Though it should take about 2 hours, with drying time and breaks, it took us a couple weeks to complete.

Handwork in Waldorf schools takes as much care in choosing the work that will be done as choosing the lessons. In some cases the lessons and the handwork coordinate beautifully. Cross Stitch and embroidery are the main projects for this grade. Felting a ball is the first step to an embroidered ball. This project may take weeks to months to complete. Cross stitch is a beautiful skill to develop at this age.

Wet felting is such a fun engaging craft. With a bowl of warm/hot water and another bowl of cold water. You also need dish soap and wool. Children love the process of compacting the wool into a ball and bouncing it around once it’s firm enough and ready for drying.

Some handwork projects span several weeks or months and others can be done in a day. Making a felted ball falls somewhere in between depending on how you make it and for what purpose. In grade 4 Waldorf schools, you may find students making and embroidering felted balls. These gorgeous masterpieces take months to do, but the end result is breathtaking.

Welcome autumn with this simple, yet beautiful handwork project that's great for children about eight years and up. All you need is felt and embroidery thread.

In Grade 4 Waldorf Handwork, the embroidered ball project introduces students to three-dimensional shaping and decorative stitching, blending form and function in a joyful, tactile way. As they stitch panels together and embellish them with colorful embroidery, students refine fine motor skills, practice symmetry, and express creativity through pattern and color.

Cross-stitch introduces students to precise, rhythmic handwork that supports focus, patience, and spatial awareness. Working with geometric patterns on even-weave fabric, children gain confidence in stitching while exploring symmetry, color harmony, and traditional folk designs.

Stitching a simple running stitch on season shapes like leaves and snowflakes is a great opportunity to practice skills students will need in the upcoming years with short achievable projects. Adding stitching detail to snowflakes is a beautiful seasonal craft.

The ancient civilizations blocks for the Waldorf curriculum for year 5 is fairly extensive having continued from the previous year's exploration of Norse mythology, the civilizations of Akkad and Sumer and the study of the Buddha and the Jataka Tales. For year 5, the student will cover the ancient civilizations of India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and finally Greece. Greek history and ancient Roman history will also be covered in year 6.

Curious about how to put together a unit study? Join me as I take you through my process for putting together a unit study for Ancient Egypt. Much of the process is the same for all my history units, and only varies slightly for other units. I use a Waldorf curriculum as a default curriculum but often stray from the curriculum and come up with my own lesson plans.

The Ancient Civilizations are taught in Waldorf schools in grade 5 when children are 10-12 years old. The ancient cultures are taught uniquely in a Waldorf setting as the main aspects of the lessons are concentrated on the beliefs of the people, their spiritual beliefs, their creation stories, and their divinely guides teachers on the earth plane. While I tend to add other books and resources to our main lesson blocks, these additional resources may take away from the approach or may add needed background information for the teacher or student to give context to the lessons.

We often do our History blocks in the winter as we tend to do a lot of reading and storytelling as part of our lessons. When doing our ancient civilizations, we tend to keep the history focused on traditions, culture, beliefs and biographies when possible. We also love our hands-on projects and activities so we tend to add as many as possible in the form of kits, crafts books and recipes.

Of all the ancient civilizations, Ancient Persia as been the tastiest. We often include cultural or historical recipes with our history blocks and this block began years ago when we started adding Persian cuisine to our recipes. In addition, for this unit, we added an assortment of living books and our Live Education Waldorf curriculum

Our Ancient China Main Lesson Block has been designed to appeal to multiple students of differing abilities, interests and grade levels. We love including our picture books in our main lesson blocks, but this is not typical in a Waldorf setting as lessons are delivered orally. If you wish, you may choose to use these resources to storytell or as resources to put together your lessons.

What child isn't captivated by dinosaurs?! I've known children who can tell me more about dinosaurs, or sharks, or trains than adults can or even some books. Capture that curiosity with a unit dedicated to this aspect of science.

The Dinosaur Excavation kit from Excavating Adventures is one of the most creative kits we used. Each month (if you are doing the monthly subscription kit), you get a different kit to excavate and explore. What's unique is that each excavation kit is in a different material.

Join us as we excavate real dinosaur bone, an aquatic lizard tooth and coprolite (dinosaur dung). This Dinosaur Dig Kit by Discover with Dr. Cool was fantastic! I highly recommend it. You get three high quality fossil specimens, two activity guides, a display case and excavation tools.

The kit is fantastic! It comes with everything you need to make a super adorable stuffed animal. You can squeeze two projects out of the kit with just one spare piece of green felt which I had on hand.

I'm sharing some resources for a Reptiles unit study. While some of these resources were previously used for a unit on sea turtles, I'm sharing them here even though I wouldn't necessarily use them as deeply as we used them before. Some books are still readily available while others are dated and hard to find.

Welcome to our mini unit on Sea Turtles. This was truly a mini unit lasting less than a week and specifically only 2 days. We used four picture books specifically on Sea Turtles and a few other resources that mentioned this topic on 1-2 pages of the book.

Learn how to make nature journaling or nature study cards for any unit! As we continue our nature unit study on Sea Turtles, we decided that the quickest and most beautiful way to show learning for this unit is in the form of these nature trivia cards. Each card has been photographed and is on the blog post for this video.

This was the fastest unit we ever did and for that, there are a few things that worked vastly different from our other units. In this review, I talk about the various books and resources we used and how our projects and activities progressed.

The mini unit study on evolution comprises of just three books at the moment. I've included this mini unit as part of a greater Dinosaurs, Reptiles and Evolution unit, but it could be added to a number of science units.

This is a very easy beginner's stitching project. You can free hand a sea star or download a pattern for this project. I used Holland felt in 100% wool in the color Tea Rose.

Try your hand at pattern making! For simple silhouettes, this project is great for beginners and as an intro to making your own projects. Watch as I work my way through this project while giving you tips.

The kit comes with a pattern you cut out, high quality embroidery thread, a needle, three pieces of wool felt and wool batting. It's all packaged in a beautiful box with color print of final project as well as detailed directions.

If you’d like to try and make your own animal from start to finish, begin with a silhouette drawing of your animal. The primary thing you’ll need for your pattern to make it 3-dimensional is a gusset. The gusset is what gives your animal ‘body’. The more simple, the better.

Did you know that you can draw and animal, make a pattern, cut your fabric and stitch your animal in less than 2 hours? Stitching animals based on patterns the students make on their own is a grade 6 handwork project you'll find in many Waldorf schools.

Doll making is found in several grades in a Waldorf school. Starting in kindergarten, simple dolls will be played with and often even made by the teacher for the students. With a simple square cloth and a bit of wool and string, you can make a rudimentary doll by stuffing a bit of wool into the center of the cloth. Pinch it closed with some string and there you have a very simple doll.

In Waldorf education, doll making is a soulful, hands-on process that nurtures the child’s creativity and deepens their connection to the human form. Students typically create soft, simple cloth dolls using natural fibers, often learning to stuff, sew, and shape the dolls by hand. This work fosters fine motor skills, patience, and imaginative play, while also offering a meaningful experience of nurturing care.

Shibori is a traditional Japanese dyeing technique that involves folding, twisting, or binding fabric before submerging it in indigo dye to create intricate patterns. In a Waldorf setting, students explore Shibori as a meditative and artistic process that connects them to cultural traditions and the natural world. The hands-on, rhythmic folding and binding work beautifully with Waldorf’s emphasis on form, rhythm, and natural materials.

Sashiko is a form of Japanese functional embroidery that uses running stitches to reinforce or decorate fabric, traditionally with white thread on indigo cloth. In Waldorf handwork, Sashiko is introduced as a mindful, repetitive stitching practice that enhances both beauty and utility. Students develop rhythm, precision, and an appreciation for craftsmanship while honoring textile traditions that value repair, sustainability, and beauty in the everyday.

In Grade 8 Waldorf handwork, students may explore the traditional log cabin quilt as a culminating textile project that incorporates geometry, symmetry, and careful craftsmanship. This quilt block pattern, built outward from a central square, encourages spatial awareness, color harmony, and rhythm in design—key aspects of adolescent developmental needs. Through piecing, stitching, and assembling the quilt, students experience a sense of purpose, patience, and pride in creating something both beautiful and functional.

Working with four knitting needles to make a hat is introduced in grade 5 but if there isn’t time or dexterity for this project at that time, you may revisit it in grade 6, 7 or 8. Knitting in the round with two needles that are attached with a plastic string is also used to make hats, but when I learned this craft to bring to my children, I was taught with four double pointed needles.

Using a sewing machine in Grade 8 is the first opportunity to use machinery in handwork. It is reserved for the grade 8 student as it coordinated with the history the student is reserving in their main lesson block. The industrial revolution is one of several revolutions the student will learn about in grade 8.

In Waldorf education, doll making is a soulful, hands-on process that nurtures the child’s creativity and deepens their connection to the human form. Students typically create soft, simple cloth dolls using natural fibers, often learning to stuff, sew, and shape the dolls by hand. This work fosters fine motor skills, patience, and imaginative play, while also offering a meaningful experience of nurturing care.

Students transform a flat sheet of copper into a rounded bowl through rhythmic hammering and careful annealing. This meditative, hands-on process nurtures focus, patience, and an appreciation for the transformation of raw materials into beautiful, functional objects.

Wood carving teaches students to shape living material into purposeful or symbolic forms using strength, sensitivity, and precision. The practice fosters willpower, spatial awareness, and reverence for nature.

Crafting a copper ladle challenges students to create a durable, functional tool through metal shaping, forming, and joining techniques. It integrates beauty and utility while developing craftsmanship and perseverance.

Students handcraft a book by folding, sewing, gluing, and binding pages with care and precision. This quiet, focused work supports attention to detail and gives students a lasting, personalized creation.

Block printing involves carving images into linoleum or wood and transferring them onto paper or fabric using ink. It enhances spatial thinking, design skills, and appreciation for traditional printing techniques.

Shaping a brass bowl requires strength and refined skill due to the hardness of the metal. This project develops discipline, rhythm, and an eye for symmetry and proportion.

In making a leather journal, students cut, stitch, and assemble natural materials into a functional and beautiful writing tool. This process supports fine motor skills, creativity, and meaningful self-expression.

Students design and construct a custom notebook, choosing materials and layout to suit a personal or academic purpose. This project merges artistic expression with utility, inviting pride in one’s work.

Once you master the assigned project of making a copper bowl to the specification of the teacher, you are free to try your own projects.