Main Lesson

Each day begins with the Main Lesson, a two-hour period of concentrated activity focused around a particular subject of the curriculum. Movement, rhythmic activities, speech, singing, and recorder playing precede academic work. New material is presented and received in a personal exchange between teacher and student rather than from a textbook. Students work with the content of the lesson, creating their own books which contain written texts, original compositions, and artwork. Each main lesson subject is taught in a three or four week block of time.

The Main Lesson is followed by an outdoor recess, after which there are two 50-minute classes in subjects such as Spanish, English or math skills, which require regular repetition. After lunch the children devote themselves to fine and practical arts, gardening, handwork, movement, and sports. What is being studied in the main lesson is integrated into the curriculum of special subjects. Thus, the rhythm of the day starts with the work that requires intellectual focus, and ends with the more physical activities that engage the body and hands. In structuring the year, class teachers will order the main lessons so that the subjects unfold in a varied and orderly sequence.

The Teacher

The Waldorf philosophy recognizes a basic need in elementary-aged children for genuine authority rooted in love and respect. This need of authority leads to one of the most distinctive features of Waldorf education, the class teacher, who ideally advances with the students from first through eighth grade. The class teacher presents the main academic subjects, coordinates with the special subject teachers, and provides the link between home and school, thereby carefully nurturing each child's potential. Rather than merely receiving grades, the children are given written evaluations from their class teacher as well as from special subject teachers annually.

History

Unique to Waldorf, the history curriculum mirrors the developmental stages of the child. Sixth graders, for instance, who are beginning to experience the inner turmoil of puberty and are looking for a sense of justice, lawfulness, and order, spend several months studying the rise and fall of the Roman civilization and the reemergence of order in the Middle Ages.

In the early grades, children experience history through myths, legend, verse, and imagery. The adolescent revisits that history, but with a deeper understanding and a new capacity for discussion and reflection. In fact, an integrated historical perspective informs much of the curriculum. Science classes study the biographies of great scientific thinkers; a math class may examine Greek assumptions about geometry. The goal is to get students to fully experience the changes in thought and consciousness that have occurred over time so that they will have greater perspective of their own time.

Language Arts

Letters are learned in the same way they originated in the course of human history. Humans perceived, then pictured, and out of the pictures they abstracted signs and symbols. First graders hear stories, draw pictures, and discover the letter in the gesture of the picture. Throughout the grade school, children do much written and oral language development work in the form of songs, poems, and games in addition to the more traditional speech and drama. This multi-faceted approach helps establish a joyful and living experience of language. Additionally, texts from world literature provide material for reading as well as a foundation for the study and acquisition of grammar skills.

The Language Arts curriculum moves from the mechanics of learning to read, to honing comprehension skills, to creative writing. Students' ability to pay meticulous attention to rich, sequential detail serves them well as they venture off into their own creative writing in the upper grades.

The Natural Sciences

Science begins with nature study, including observation and field experience in the early grades. First, Second, and Third graders develop an intuitive and reverential respect for the Earth as they spend time outside throughout the seasons playing, gardening, composting, and simply being in nature. Classes then move to more challenging subjects such as zoology, botany, geology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, ecological literacy, and physiology in grades four through eight.

In the upper grades the sciences are taught experientially - that is, the teacher sets up an experiment, calls upon the students to observe carefully, ponder, discuss, and then allows them to discover the underlying conclusion, law, or formula. Through this process, independent critical thinking, sound disciplined judgment, and a respect for the natural world arises.

Math

Though the subject matter is similar to what is taught in other schools, in Waldorf Schools the approach is different. In grade 1 - 5 textbooks are not used in preference to the Math lessons being developed by the class teacher. From grades 6 - 8, the necessary preparation for transition to High School Mathematics requires the introduction and use of individual Math textbooks. However, the Middle Grades students are still challenged through such assignments as the precise practice of geometric drawings, leading to the construction of the Platonic solids.

Writing

All Waldorf teachers are trained storytellers and, over time, their students become storytellers too. Instruction in the elementary grades is primarily oral and often is accompanied with plentiful visual images on the chalkboard. The children recite and retell the stories and curriculum instruction they hear in class. The first real composition work begins in second grade with "talking on paper". Often the students and teacher together write what is known as a class composition. The teacher writes a topic sentence on the chalkboard, and the class adds sentences and edits as a group. Up through sixth grade, students practice their writing skills individually by rewriting what they hear in class. They may also compose simple letters and family histories. In the middle grades, they begin learning how to write a traditional research paper with a bibliography. By seventh and eight grade, students are perfecting their individual writing skills in preparation for High School.

Language

The Waldorf approach to language instruction is based on the common-sense idea that children should learn a foreign language the same way they learn their own. In the early grades they hear it, sing it, and play games with it the way children at home would. Gradually they come to understand the new language, to perform plays in it, and to converse in it. Finally, they learn to read and write it. Here, Spanish is the chosen second language, with the goal of understanding human nature from the perspective of another culture.

Arts

In a Waldorf school the arts are an integral part of the curriculum. Each art follows a sequence of development from year to year and all of them supplement and reinforce the main lesson curriculum. More importantly, exposure to the arts supports the inner development of the growing emotional core of each child by engaging the feeling life.

All students learn to paint and draw, sculpt, sing, play the recorder and a stringed instrument, and read music. Each year, every grade presents a play that relates to its academic program.

Handwork

The practical arts, handcrafts and woodwork, balance and complement the student's academic and artistic work. By learning to knit, crochet, sew and work with wood and clay, students develop manual dexterity, patience, coordination, skill, appreciation for natural materials, a feeling for color, form and design, and a personal sense of achievement.

Movement, Games and Sports

In Waldorf education, the body receives as much attention as the mind. From the earliest grades, where children may learn to recite their times tables while jumping rope, movement informs every aspect of the curriculum. In the early years, kindergarten teachers introduce movement through imitation of daily activities, circle games, singing and imaginative play. In grades one through five, various games help develop an enhanced awareness of personal space, with clearly defined boundaries. For instance, students learn to play with each other before playing competitively.

Through our understanding of child development, we see sixth grade as the appropriate age for children to work together as teammates, experiencing the joys and disappointments inherent in team sports in a cooperative spirit.