Waldorf Projects and Reports in the Middle Grades

Recently I was talking with a colleague (who is also a parent in my class) about writing reports in the middle grades. You know the ones —

• The 3rd grade shelter project
• The 4th grade animal project
• The 5th grade state report

We were talking about the best way to support students and parents with these big projects and recognizing that too often teachers assign the project (putting together a nice little document with assignment guidelines and due dates) but they don’t do much to support beyond that. Often students take the assignment home and parents and students are left to figure it out on their own. What ends up happening is that the results are all over the place.

(By the way, make sure you scroll down to get a free sample of my Grade 4 Animal Project Assignment.)

Some kids get a lot (too much?) parent support and their projects and written reports are impeccable examples of mastery.

Other kids don’t get enough support and their reports were written from their own imaginations, without any research.

I’m not sure which situation is worse because, when it comes down to it, students in either situation aren’t learning from the experience.

Just Right Support

So way back when (during my second time teaching fifth grade) I decided that the best way for students to receive the right amount of support was if I provided it. If I was the one providing the scaffolding, I could make sure that students got the help that they needed, without going overboard.

Physical Projects

Now, this is really difficult to do for those physical projects — and I confess that I haven’t yet found a way to support students with those projects myself. At my school, the 3rd grade shelter project and 4th grade animal project are physical projects that are still strongly supported by parents at home. But even with these projects, we can provide experiences that help students realize what they can do and how capable they are.

In 3rd grade, before handing out the shelter project assignment, we had a “shelter building project day” in class. We went out into the park, gathered supplies and worked to build miniature shelters with the materials we found. It was a great experience and really resonated with the message of the shelter block — that shelters are built for protection, using the materials that are on hand.

Though this was a great experience, when it came time for students to build their own shelter projects, the work happened at home, with support from parents, and we encountered some of the difficulties that this scenario creates (varying levels of parent support, varied abilities, etc.)

Years ago, one of my colleagues took on the challenge of having students build their 3rd grade shelters entirely in the classroom. It was an “at school” activity and though some parent volunteers came in, students were mostly on their own.

These days, the shelter project is such an institution at my school, I worried that some families would be sad to miss out on the experience of working on the shelter together.

Written Reports

So, though I feel like my hands are a bit tied with the physical projects, I know that I can structure the written report to create an optimal learning experience.

What I decided to do way back then (and have done for every middle grade report since) is break it down into manageable chunks and give structured assignments that combine to create the written report.

The fifth grade state report is the best example, so I’ll explain using that.

State Report Structure

The first thing I did (after students had chosen their states) was go to the library and check out a state book for every child from the same series. Choosing books from the same series meant that the structure of the resource was the same for every student and students could easily follow my structured assignment (it was right there in their book!).

I chose a state of my own. I picked one that I was pretty sure no one else was going to choose. I settled on North Dakota (no offense to all the North Dakotans out there — I’m sure it’s a lovely place.)

Then, I went through the resource and broke it down into sections. The series I chose broke down into the following:

• Introduction
• Geography and Climate
• History
• The People and Their Work
• A Tour of Your State
• Famous People
• State Facts

Then, for each section, I created an assignment with questions and clear instructions to answer the questions with complete sentences. When students did this, at the end, their sentences could be put together to create their report.

For this report, I gave the assignments in class and they turned them in at the end of the lesson (their resource books stayed in the classroom). I gave a new assignment every other day and on the in-between days they put their corrected assignments in their main lesson books. In 3rd and 4th grade, I gave the assignments as homework. Some students needed parent support to complete the assignments, but because it was chunked out so clearly, many of them could do it entirely independently.

With this clear structure, students were not left to determine their own structure or figure out what information to include. They just worked through the assignments and answered the questions.

This structured approach also helped break a multi-week project down into manageable chunks. This meant that students did not procrastinate and write the whole thing the night before it was due (a sure-fire way to prevent learning.) When I was talking with my colleague about it, she mentioned that she thought this was the most helpful thing about working in this way.

She said that her mind works so that she views projects and activities as either “now” or “not now.” The regular assignments bring a little more “now-ness” to the project.

Working Through a Sample

For the state report, as I mentioned, I did my own report on North Dakota and for each assignment, I read my responses aloud and showed the students how I found those answers. (It really was as simple as turning to the proper page in the state book resource!) I showed them that I read through the section and then put the book away before writing my answers. This helped address plagiarism, though learning how to translate the ideas of others into your own words is a complex process that takes time.

For this year’s animal project, I stumbled upon an even better way to work through an example. I gave students the animal project assignment for the week on Monday and on that same day, as part of our usual lesson, I presented an animal. The next day, for the review portion of our lesson, we worked through the animal project assignment for MY animal. This gave the students a chance to work through the assignment with support, about an animal that we learned about together, before doing it independently about their own animal. They realized how simple it was to answer the questions and almost all of them could do the work entirely independently.

Want to see an example of one of my 4th grade animal project assignments? Enter your email address below and I’ll send it to you.

Does this approach work for everyone?

I will say, this approach to report-writing works really well for students who need plenty of structure and guidance to get the work done. I have had some of my stronger students feel a little frustrated, longing to be more creative and have more freedom with their report.

In general, though, those students will ask for permission to do something differently, and, on a case-by-case basis, you can give them that permission. Still, I believe that even those students benefit from the clarity and structure of a more formal approach.

It’s that whole “between form and freedom” thing.

What are your secret strategies for supporting student project work? I’d love to read about them in the comments!