Botany

Botany, the block I thought Dallin would dislike the most, turned out to be one of his favorites. This is a child who wants to grow up and be a wildlife biologist or a naturalist. He wants to live by himself off the land, preferably in a land far far away from here. Maybe even a remote island in the middle of the ocean. Adventure is his name, but I love that he can slow down and be grounded in nature. I think this is one of the best things that I--through Waldorf education--have been able to do for him... to let him enjoy nature.

If you are going to be learning about plants, of course you have to get some real, live plants to look at. And then since you aren't going to let those plants go to waste, you have to plant them, even though your house is already sold.

A few of the main lesson book pages Dallin did:

When this child wants to draw, boy can he draw!

Leaf rubbings categorized into monocot and dicot plants.

Photosynthesis explained.

Gluing seeds on cards to put in his book. We had a great discussion about seed dispersal, how seeds travel. I was pretty proud of him for coming up, all on his own, with the idea that some seeds are dispersed by being eaten by animals (inside of berries or fruits) and then being pooped out in a different location.

A mid-block field trip up Settlement Canyon became the perfect opportunity to witness pollination in progress. The hundreds of bees and wasps that we saw in all these wildflowers were way too busy to worry about us being there.

We lucked out and had a neighbor who recently got some beehives. He was happy to let us come and see his bees. The kids even got to see some bees being born and were able to easily see the difference between the worker bees and the drones.

We ended the block--and the school year--with a field trip to Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City.

I created a scavenger hunt for Dallin to complete while at the gardens. He had to find certain things that we had discussed during our botany lessons throughout the year.