Want a lively, interactive and unique curriculum option for your 6th grader? The Live-Education 6th grade curriculum may be what you're looking for. This year, the curriculum continues to be both responsive to the needs and development of the student as well as progresses with the lessons that were covered the previous year.

Over the years, I've put together several math main lesson blocks and a number of geometry blocks. What sets these blocks apart from other math blocks is the level of engagement the teacher and student experience with each lesson. There are no dry lessons. The upside is obvious: full engagement means maximum learning and high possibility of retention.

Want to know about the Middle Ages? You’ve come to the right place! I’ve collected a wide assortment of resources for this unit study on Medieval Times with a focus on Europe. While our Live Education Waldorf homeschool curriculum for grade 6 includes several lessons on this time period from other areas in the world, I’ve decided to split up this time period and focus this unit primarily on Europe followed by a unit I’m calling “The Silk Road” which will focus on other areas of the world.

Projects books and kits are a great way to include a hands-on approach to a main lesson block or unit study. The Middle Ages history block is rich with resources from books to kits. While some of the kits are no longer available, others may be. I find the materials in a kit to be top notch, but making your own projects from scratch is deeply satisfying.

What was happening in the rest of the world during the Middle Ages? While Europe was experiencing its Dark Ages, Africa, Arabia, Asia and the Asian subcontinent were thriving. However, in depth study of the history in the rest of the world during the Middle Ages can be found in our other main lesson blocks of the Silk Road, the Khans Mongolia, Mansa Musa and West Africa, the Golden Age of Islam, the Travels of Ibn Battuta, and Zheng He and China.

The Waldorf approach to mineralogy in Grade 6 is through a blend of scientific observation, artistic expression, and imaginative storytelling. Rather than beginning with abstract facts, students are guided to observe the forms, colors, and structures of minerals and rocks with deep attention to detail. The goal is to awaken wonder and a sense of connection to the natural world, allowing scientific understanding to arise from a lived experience.

Grade 6 is science centered with multiple science blocks including Astronomy. Astronomy is taught through a poetic and experiential lens that nurtures awe and reverence for the cosmos. Lessons begin with careful observation of the night sky—tracking the movement of stars, planets, and the phases of the moon—before introducing scientific explanations. Mythology, cultural stories, and artistic renderings of constellations are woven into the curriculum to foster a personal and imaginative relationship with the heavens.

Physics is introduced gradually, beginning in Grade 6 and deepening through Grades 7 and 8, always grounded in direct, sensory experiences before abstract theory. In Grade 6, students explore acoustics, optics, heat, and magnetism through hands-on demonstrations. The focus is on careful observation and describing phenomena in precise, vivid language. In Grade 7, the curriculum introduces mechanics and electricity. Students examine simple machines, levers, and pulleys, observing how force, work, and motion interact. By Grade 8, physics becomes more analytical and quantitative. Topics such as hydraulics, aerodynamics, and electromagnetism are explored.

When putting together a unit study or main lesson block, the first thing I do is collect resources. For our earth science units, the resources maybe for Young elementary, middle elementary or middle school, depending on whether it’s a unit study, a meteorology main lesson block, or geology. And since we have done this unit multiple times, I have multiple posts on the different resources we’ve used each time. In a Waldorf setting, mineralogy is introduced in grade 6, and geology is introduced in high school. There is a subtle yet significant difference between the two.

In our years of sharing our homeschool journey, we’ve done our mineralogy block several times. Sometimes the content I share is ‘lesson’ heavy, and other times it’s ‘project’ or ‘activity’ heavy. When sharing the lessons, I share the main lesson book, the illustration and the narration, not the actually process of me delivering a lesson. On occasion, I share a ‘Real Time’ lesson, but what you’ll find here are main lesson book entries.

We Love our hands-on projects and activities. I truly believe that some of the best learning is hands-on learning. When my children were younger (elementary school) and especially for my boys (my daughter had less interest in our projects overall), we utilized kits, projects and activity books extensively in our education. Check out some of our projects! Sadly, many kits may no longer be available, but similar ones are sure to be.

One of my favorite subjects in the Waldorf curriculum is Geometry. The way it is presented according the Waldorf pedagogy is perfection, just like geometry itself. Geometry is presented in Grade 5 and again in Grade 6 and both main lesson blocks are artistic, informative and observable. Proofs are discovered through working with the geometric form. Geometry is presented in connection with Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Botany, Mineralogy and Astronomy. Geometry is beautifully integrated into the the Grade 5 and Grade 6 main lesson blocks.

We have worked through our Geometry main lesson blocks at least 4 times in the years we have homeschooled and each time it feels new, beautiful and just as wonderful. Some of these lessons are tutorials, others are lessons with my children and yet others are based on the Live Education Waldorf curriculum. In all lessons, you’ll find an artistic representation of the lesson using colored pencils, watercolors or other art mediums. Geometry is meant to be experienced with this beauty and perfection, so have some high quality art materials available so you may enjoy the process and results fully.

Explore the Algebra resources we have used in our homeschool. We reserve the study of Algebra until Grade 9 and occasionally Grade 8. But as algebra calls on a student’s capacity for critical and abstract thinking, it’s best to present it after puberty when the student may fully engage in the learning. Attempting to introduce a simplified and intuitive form of algebra starting in Grade 1 with questions like “what plus 6 equals 10” does a student a deep disservice as a student that age is not using “X” to qualify an unknown nor is she learning to balance an equation. So this line of teaching needs to be undone before actual algebra may be taught.

When I first started sharing our homeschooling journey online, I had already been homeschooling for over 10 years. In that time, I had already done our Geometry block once with my oldest son. Now I was introducing the subject area to my second child but it’s my third child who was only 8 at the time who really loved these geometry lessons as well. I found that because of the artistic nature of these lessons and the slow build of concepts that this presentation of Geometry worked well as a family lesson rather than just for my Grade 5 student. In this way, everyone participated in the Geometry lessons. And everyone enjoyed them!

Circle symmetry is one of the most beautiful geometric projects you can easily do with your students. While some symmetries are more complicated, 3-, 4-, 6-, 8- and 12-fold are fairly straightforward and can be achieved with moderate effort and skill, in my opinion and experience. Today's project is a tutorial for threefold symmetry. While you can explore this design and come up with creative ways to paint or color in the shapes, it's not my favorite. I like the symmetry starting at 6-fold symmetry. But, I'd love to see what you come up with. Maybe your creative way of painting this design will change my mind. Honestly, the possibilities are endless and that's exciting.

In Grade 5 students are introduced to the beauty and function of geometry with the exploration of shape and how shapes come about in the world around us. Shapes are dynamic even though we see a still shot of quadrilaterals and triangles. In Grade 6 we explore the circle in depth looking at not just 6-division of a circle and its representations in nature and mineralogy, but now we explore 5-division of a circle and the pentagon and the golden ratio. A connection to astronomy and music as well as botany previously illuminates the deep sacredness that geometry of the heavens is astronomy, the geometry of sound is music, the geometry of the mineral kingdom are crystals and the geometry of the plant kingdom is botany.

As we advance in Geometry, we explore the book A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science by Michael S. Schneider. This book details the quality of numbers 1-10. Instead of making the Platonic solids with templates, we learn to make them through the construction of the regular shapes through their the division of the circle. We also do the same with the Golden Rectangle.