I never really wrote a separate post about our first time through astronomy – I think some things are mixed throughout the seventh grade posts.   Anyway, we ended up doing astronomy in seventh grade the first time around, and I remember feeling like I wished I had had more “naked eye observing” skills.  I remember I had Marsha Johnson’s block, I had looked at Live Education, I had some mainstream and Waldorf astronomy resources from Rudolf Steiner Bookstore..and it just didn’t really flow for me.  It was an “okay” block, but probably the least favorite block we had ever done, at least for me,  because it wasn’t really coming from my own knowledge and interest.  My student enjoyed it, but I felt like it was kind of flat.

So, I knew this second time around through the upper grades I wanted to put astronomy in sixth grade, not seventh, and treat the whole year with field trips and experiences that centered around this theme of polarity between heaven and earth with human beings as the intermediary.  We can reach for the stars, we can sink our roots into this time and place, and we can shine where we are.   It is about where we find our place and space in the world.  Such an incredible theme for sixth graders!

My first thought (gasp!) was to not do a block and just experience things, but one thing that I came up with in researching this idea of naked eye astronomy was not only how this ties in so well into Ancient Civilizations, which I knew, but into the First People of the Americas.  And you all know how much I love American stuff in the Waldorf homeschooling experience when I can fit it in.   This little video from rocket scientist  Dr. Maggie Aderin Pocock was helpful to me in seeing why I wanted to make this a block and present something from myself in addition to experiential learning and art.

I started researching.  There were some Native American Astronomy lesson plans that I found that helped me start to pinpoint resources and such.  The ones that were most helpful to me were:

• Sharing The Skies: Navajo Astronomy A Cross-Cultural View by Maryboy and Begay
• They Dance In The Sky:  Native American Star Myths by Monroe and Williamson
• The Stars We Know:  Crow Indian Astronomy and Lifeways by McCleary
• Her Seven Brothers by Goble (picture book)
• Star Boy by Goble  (picture book)
• Storm Maker’s Tipi by Goble (picture book)

Then I looked at Waldorf/Mainstream resources:

• The best book I have found is this free one at Waldorf Library On-Line called An Introduction To A Study of the Stars by Mirbt
• Sky Phenomena by Davidson (great source of poems too)
• Find the Constellations by H.A. Rey
• I see Meredith over at A Waldorf Journey has a brand NEW guide out –I will totally pick this up for future use and as we extend astronomy throughout this grade. Here is the link.
• Geology and Astronomy by Kovacs (mainly for the spiritual perspective of the sun; ideas for biographies) (information often not detailed enough and not up to date)
• I used Internet resources for various topics that I wanted to up-to date information, especially the NASA website and the NSTA website.
• I wanted to include the metric system, which we had done in fifth grade.  As an introduction, I  used an article that was a bit old -September 1999 from CNN – I don’t have the headline, but I used it as an example of why we care about the metric system in the US . It was about how NASA lost a 125 million dollar Mars orbiter because one  team used English units of measurement whilst the other team used the metric system and the measurement systems didn’t coincide!
• Astronomy Curriculum from Georgia Performance Standards (my state); the astronomy club in our metro area and their resources
• Poems:  I used poems by Walter de la Mare, a North American Indian song, a poem by William Carlos William.
• Books from the Library:  Seven Wonders of the Gas Giants and Their Moons by Miller; The Milky Way and Other Galaxies by Kopp; Our Solar System by Simon; The Sun and The Stars by Sparrow; Planet Earth: Continents, Oceans, Climate, Geography by Farndon; Jupiter and the Asteroids (World Book).

Biographies:

• Annie Jump Cannon, Astronomer by Gerber
• Look Up! Henrietta Leavitt, Pioneering Woman, Astronomer
• Three biographies about Benjamin Banneker
• Will introduce the biographies of Galileo and other traditional astronomers , etc   but will go over them again next year in Seventh Grade (my first time through I did the traditional astronomers from the Renaissance/Age of Exploration and tied it into navigation)

Main Lesson Book Pages/Projects/ Field Trips:

First Time Through Astronomy: (Seventh Grade)

• The Circumpolar Constellations (drawing and summary)
• Orion the Hunter (drawing) and “Choose Something Like A Star” poem
• Prince Henry the Navigator (charcoal drawing) and Summary
• Longitude and Latitude
• Latitude and The North Star (drawing and summary)
• The Planets drawing and summary
• Copernicus drawing and summary
• Brahe and Kepler
• Paintings of Terrestrial and Gaseous Planets
• Projects included model of the solar system, marking out distances of solar system with objects outside
• Field trips – several field trips to the planetarium
• Opportunities for eye gazing

Second Time Through Astronomy (Sixth Grade, slightly different focus)

• Oil Pastel based off Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” for cover
• The Native Americans and the Cosmos drawings and summary
• The Earth and the Sun  drawings and summary
• Equatorial Seasons  drawings and summary
• The Moon (drawings, watercolor paintings, summary)
• The Human Being and the Cosmos (drawing, summary)
• The Planets
• A five paragraph essay on planet of student’s choice (our student chose Jupiter)
• Our Solar System Address
• Projects- model of the solar system, marking out distances of the solar system with objects outside, and this awesome kit from Etsy to “Stitch the Stars” by Heather Lins Home – here is the Etsy link.
• Field Trips – we found a walk through the solar system that I had no idea even existed in my area the first time I went through astronomy (maybe there is one in your area?), planetarium, and I really would love to take a trip to one of those “night sky” parks.
• Opportunities for star gazing

Academic Skills we worked on:

• Metric System and an introduction to Scientific Notation
• Writing paragraphs: organizing information to write, combining shorter sentences to make longer and more complex sentences,  using -ly words in writing, using words that invoke five senses.  We also have been working on grammar.
• I assigned a five paragraph essay and that gave us a great opportunity to work on how to make great sentences and flowing paragraphs; using non-fiction sources.
• Longitude and latitude, reading an atlas.

When our block ended, we will be reading these throughout the rest of the year:

• Stories from the Stars:  Greek Myths of the Zodiac by Burke through the year
• 365 Starry Nights:  An Introduction to Astronomy For Every Night of the Year by Raymo
• Various Native American Star Myths

Our naked eye star gazing is really just beginning as October is the least cloudy month in the Southeast and one of  the best for stargazing.  We have moved into a mineralogy block, but will continue in any opportunities for astronomy as the year goes on.

Blessings,

Carrie