Episode 191
Hello my friend! On the podcast today, I want to share with you my process for planning your own homeschool main lesson blocks.
I’m currently planning workshops for the upcoming in-person Taproot Teacher Training where participants get to experience lessons as if they were the students. So I woke up this morning thinking that I should share my process for planning a main lesson block with you all here on the podcast!
In this episode, you’ll hear about how to choose your theme or topic for a block, how to choose stories or literature, and then how to begin to map out your lessons.
Planning Your Own Homeschool Main Lesson Blocks
“How do plan your own homeschool main lesson blocks?” is a question I hear again and again this time of year.
Purchasing a curriculum may seem easier…
But it often happens that we purchase a grade-level curriculum package, open it up to begin, and soon realize there are parts that don’t really suit our child and there’s really no way we’re going to get it all in.
But to plan lessons on our own seems daunting. So where do we even begin?
Friends, it’s not as hard as you think!
Thoughts About Planning for Block Learning
Block learning is really the simplest way to plan your homeschooling year. It allows for such an immersive experience for both the child and parent.
So what is a main lesson block and what the benefits to planning and learning this way?
WHAT IS BLOCK LEARNING?
Put simply, a main lesson block is a set period of time where you’re focusing on a particular subject. And each day during lesson time, you expand on that topic.
You can actually build a main lesson block around any topic, a wonderful book, a project, or a series of activities or field trips.
If you want to see a list of typical block topics, grade by grade, for the Waldorf approach, you can find that here: Waldorf Block Rotation for Grades 1-8.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BLOCK LEARNING?
As for benefits, there are so many!
Teaching one topic or theme over a month or more gives you time, space, and flexibility to build up the topic, find what’s most interesting to you and your children, and gather materials as you go.
This kind of learning is more organic and satisfying in my experience. Teaching and learning with main lesson blocks inspires you to dive deep into a topic and gives your child time to bring the topic into his or her imagination and develop a depth of understanding.
Teaching with blocks also allows you, as the home educator, to find some aspect of the topic that sparks your own imagination and interest. Modeling this curiosity for your children is so valuable.
There can be blocks with a geography focus, math or science, as well as blocks that focus on literature or stories such as fairy tales or fables and later mythology and history. Teaching with stories in a block of several weeks gives you a chance to live deeply into these imaginative realms as a starting point for learning.
Lastly, teaching in blocks gives your child milestones to remember. When we’re homeschooling, the lessons and life often blend together into one beautiful journey. And your child can look back as he or she grows up and remember certain blocks or stories, topics or experiences that marked events or achievements for them.
Now that we have an overview of what a main lesson block is and its many benefits, let’s jump into a simple process for planning your own main lesson blocks.
Three Simple Steps to Get Started
Here are three simple steps to consider before beginning:
- What topic, book, or project/activities will be your focus, and for how long?
- What resources will you use?
- How will you record the learning?
I’m going to walk you through my thought process for planning a Language Arts & History block for grades 1-4.
WHAT WILL BE YOUR BLOCK FOCUS?
For Taproot this August, I am planning a mixed ages and grades block and I’ll use it as my example for this creative process. You could take these ideas and hone them for whatever age and grade your child or children are right now.
For these early grades, Sarah, my workshop co-leader for this block, and I wanted to find some overlap in story content between grades 1 or 2 and grade 4 for a block called Tales from the North Land, weaving together Swedish folk and fairy tales with Norse myths.
For this block, we have some overlap in theme but we would plan to read one story to the younger child and a different story to the older child during story time or “couch time.” The older could enjoy listening to the folk tales. And the younger might play while still listening to some of the myths.
Their main lesson books would be different but could be done simultaneously side by side. The lively arts could be combined like painting together, drawing or modeling, even singing and poetry could overlap.
So choosing your block topic is the first simple step to planning your own homeschool main lesson blocks.
WHAT RESOURCES WILL YOU USE?
Next, we consider resources for our block topic and make decisions about which book, books, or story collections to use for planning our own main lesson block.
So for this Tales from the North Land, we found two books with collections of stories: D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths and An Illustrated Treasury of Swedish Folk and Fairy Tales.
Your local library or state-wide interlibrary loan system is a wonderful resource for choosing stories and books on your block topic. Also, having a copy of Waldorf Block Topics & Resources for Grades 1 – 8 (that you can purchase separately at that link OR as part of my Homeschool Simplicity 101) in your planning library is a great place to start looking for resources. It’s a collection of suggested block topics along with favorite resources for every main lesson block and every grade of the elementary years.
From here, we choose which stories from each book to share over a 3 or 4-week block. This is closely related to how you’ll record the stories, especially if you’re following a 2-day Waldorf-inspired rhythm.
Perhaps you’ll read two stories each week. For the younger child, you could read each of the two stories twice to plan for a four-day school week. For an older child, you could divide the content you’d like to cover each week into four installments.
HOW WILL YOU RECORD THE LEARNING?
Finally, decide on how to record the learning in a main lesson book, notebook, or on loose paper that you bind together at the end of the block. In our Tales from the North Land block, these stories lend themselves well to drawings and paintings of mountains, caves, farms, gnomes, and trolls. And colorful scenes from Norse mythology.
A 2-day Waldorf-inspired lesson rhythm allows time to live into the story content by working artistically with it on the first day and then recording a caption, sentence, or summary paragraph on the second day.
Also, you can choose what literacy skills to focus on like composing sentences, paragraphs, or working with word families or parts of speech.
Then you can flesh out your blocks by finding go-along books, perhaps a read-aloud chapter book, bringing in some songs and poetry, and even setting up a little scene or tableau to depict or act out some of the stories.
Such a creative process really starts with the question of what topic we might want to bring and then what resources we have or can find. The most important lesson I can share is to keep it simple.
Start small and add from there.
Explore More to Inspire Your Homeschooling
Now that you know getting started can be as simple as taking these three simple steps to plan your own homeschool main lesson blocks, let’s talk about what other support you might need to make this magic process unfold.
- Come to the Taproot Teacher Training for Waldorf-Inspired Homeschoolers! This is an amazing weekend training and retreat for homeschoolers that happens every August where you’ll get hands-on experience and be in community with like-minded, heart-centered homeschoolers.
- Get the Holistic Planning Pack lesson planning templates to create your own main lesson block planning binder.
- Join the Inspired at Home community where you’ll get the ongoing training and support you need to sustain your homeschooling journey. Inside the membership, you’ll find over 35+ masterclasses, group coaching calls, and a loving community for sharing ideas and helping each other grow.
- To hear more about lesson planning, have a listen to Episode 127: Homeschool Lesson Planning.
I hope this episode of the podcast leaves you feeling like, “I can do this!” Because you can!
Planning your own main lesson blocks is a fun and creative process that brings you lots of wonderful learning, memories, and connections with your kiddos. Enjoy!
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