Create a poster of the gods. Watercolor a huge Yggdrasil tree and then I drew and scanned in a male figure and female figure on the computer to print out many copies of each. He could have probably drawn the figures individually, but he was struggling with perfection at the time and this way he only needed to add the individual features for each god or goddess (hair color, clothes, what they were holding.) As we went through the stories, he colored and cut out the god or goddess we had read about, then pasted them onto the poster with their name. He then drew lines connecting them (i.e. man/wife, parent/child, etc.) but now that I look at it, that part is real confusing since they connect in so many ways. btw, my younger one was also a first grader at the time and he ended up doing his own poster as well.

Also there are a lot of great books for Norse Mythology – I think they are listed in Path of Discovery – and rather than picking just one, we borrowed them all and enjoyed comparing the variations each story (and even the god’s names) would take. Since I didn’t have the time to read each story with him (and since Corey is a voracious reader) I would only read one version with him, then he would narrate others to me, building story telling and memory skills. I just checked his main lesson book and I suppose the other reason I had him narrate so much is he

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Q.  How do I know my child is ready for first grade?

A.  For those of you who may have children from 5 on upwards who believe that “My child is ready for the First grade material”, I suggest that you first look at this checklist, the recommendations and give it much thought before rushing in. If  you need support in your decision in waiting, or if you’re thinking your job at home isn’t really important and critical to your child’s future – then what I am about to share here will really open your eyes. There are statistics, a checklist, suggested reading and finally some verses for you to use…

“Changes in the structure of society in the last thirty-five to fifty years have brought about conditions that pose many problems in early childhood, such as reading failure, learning disability, delinquency, and breakdown of family ties.

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Today when we returned we then unloaded the wood onto the porch wanted to take turns and we raked the treasures that recently showed up due to the snow melting.

It wasn’t too long before the children were playing around me. We have a small sleigh that a horse would pull that the children use to play on and they were all going on trips. When I finished the raking and had the wheelbarrow full we all pulled, pushed and ran ahead to the burning pile. There I dumped the raking. Noticing that the snow had melted from the nearby hillside where the orchard was they asked to go up there so we went to see the two huge ant nests. Then they asked if it was all right that we played house for awhile. So sitting next to a Juniper Berry bush where they made their house in, I began to pick the purple Juniper Berries. They soon came by and tasted them. The boys loved them, and wanted to find more. The girls didn’t, however, upon seeing the relish of the boys they tried again. As we ran down the hill the mullein stalks were too interesting and they broke off each a very tall mullein stalk to carry. We returned to ride again in the wheelbarrow and park it into the woodshed.

Once back into the yard, we heard the familiar song, snow boots and place them in a neat way on hooks, hanging by the fire to dry. Those who wish not to undress may ask me or another child to help them. I usually encourage that they pull the “zipper train” . . etc.. I “Chick-a-dee-dee.. Sitting in the tree…Singing snack time, snack time. And we all went in to learn how to take off our mud suits, snow suits, have little stories and songs to get everything thing off or on and put away. After with a special hand washing song we wash up, for some they are still learning how to stand in a line, wash with soap and water, dry and put the paper towel in the waste-basket. Then we sit waiting for all to come, getting our snacks, which were prepared at home with their parents. (Yes, I no longer make grains for each day!)

One reason is that I teach all day, one class in the morning and one in the afternoon, another reason is that we have many parents who need help in feeding their children and this gives me an opportunity to involve myself in nutrition for young children. I have those parents who pack wonderful snacks with a hot thermos full of grain, soup, pasta, crackers, fruit, water, and so on and I have parents who send their very hungry child with half a slice of white bread with nothing on it!

Some of the younger children will eat for up to 3/4 of an hour, sitting at the snack table slowly chewing while the others play, and they just watch them. To me this is perfect, just like at home. Why should that three year old boy have to follow the “school” schedule and not a home schedule? I must mention here that I have also cut down on the class sizes. I now have anywhere from four to twelve, instead of the the twelve to twenty size. This has made it much more “homier” in the classroom. Our room is also quite small and we share the kitchen with the farm which is not always available to us during the morning or afternoon.

When I set up painting and begin to paint, those children who wish to join do the others continue to play. It is very, very unusual if the whole group does not join in painting. They love it as most things and I do not have to call them into the activities all I have to do is start doing it myself. Today as we prepare for the Easter Festival, I placed on the table a dozen eggs, and not too long after that the five olds were asking about them, what were we going to do today? This anticipation and excitement runs through the morning, as they had to wait until it was time. Because I had other chores to do first: carry and stack the firewood, clean the fish tank and refill it, water all the watermelon, cantaloupe, flower starts, as well as the horse chestnut trees that we started in February. These all line our many windows in every room, bathroom, hall way, cloak room, classroom.

Each morning I have many chores to attend to, from the usual household cleaning, gardening, harvesting, maintenance, to preparing for a birthday etc. Then I call the children to clean-up which they happily do. As they are finishing cleaning I prepare the chairs for our “silver story boat” and before the chairs are all there some will be asking if they can blow out the candle, others will be helping me set up the chairs and before I am ready they are all sitting in the boat. I then sing a few songs, some the same to light the candle and greet the morning, others seasonal. After I may do a few finger plays, this usually helps the younger ones focus and sit for the longer stories. Then I tell the story, sometimes with puppets, other times with just a few props to act it out with the children after they have heard it a few weeks, and on very special occasions I may read them a book. Or it may seem to them that I read them a book and I tell it with the book in my lap. On other occasions I still will pick up a nursery rhyme, riddle or children’s story book and read a story to them.

After story we may color, play inside or out as I do mending, ironing, craft etc. Today I began to blow eggs, and the children came from their play and all joined in to blow the eggs, wash them with vinegar and water, and dye them. By the time we finished it was time to go home. The afternoon group is of the older children and they play much less and do much more work. Today we blew, washed, dyed the eggs. We colored baskets and learned how to fold them and then they were available for us to put the sweet biscuits we baked from the eggs into and take home. They help to carry kitchen cookware, go to the mill room to get the flour, and in the day while we are outside we may check the chicken coop for eggs in their nests. The children learn how to stir the batter, beat the eggs with an egg beater, knead the dough. We have songs that we sing with the baking activities as others. By the end of the year the children know all these songs. They like to repeat them over and over. At snack we have three blessing songs and some days they ask that we sing them all!

Before we go home we have a time clean up and then games. In the good weather we play games outside, or do a movement circle outside. If the weather is nice and warm in fall, and late spring we also do our story outside, usually on our farm or forest walk in that first hour from 9 am until 10 when we have our snack. We have special places in the woods where I tell the children stories. When I started the stories outside I used puppets at first to draw their attention after that they would sit quite still and listen very very well.

I work on a farm where the children see the workers everyday doing the jobs of the farm. We visit the animals, the greenhouses, the hay barns. The children learn the difference between a toy and a tool. We have tools to sew with, cut with, hammer with. They have a home and we learn how to care for them, carry them, clean them, etc. I have very very few toys in the classroom. Most of them I try to make either myself with the children watching, or with parents at workshops. There are some special toys that we purchased from non-profit societies, or a Waldorf Woodworker. We do field trips to see community members who are crafts persons, such as the drum maker, candle maker, pizza maker, jeweler, as well as orchardists, sheep herders, horse loggers. The children and their parents join us on these field trips.

As for breathing in and out. I find that the seasons, festivals, are one kind of breathing in and out in the classroom. The cold weather needs are different for us here in snow mountains and we need to chop wood, light fire, shovel snow, every morning. In the warmer weather we prepare garden beds, flower beds, seed, water, harvest but we have enough time to do a daily forest or farm walk. On those walks we visit the animals, learn how to mix the feed for the cows and let them give us “cow kisses” we visit the horses with treats and sing songs for the sheep. The turkeys love to go on walks with us. We go to the pond and watch the fishes, frogs, dragon fly’s and feed the ducks. We taste the herbs, vegetables, and right now we are tapping the birch trees for birch water. We smell the earth, feel the earth, taste the earth, lay amongst the many varied flora and faunas. We play hide and seek in the forest, sail leaves in the brooks and learn how to climb steep hills to see the valley on the other side.

In the horse barn a father and son built a hay bale castle and we go to visit it and play on rainy days. I find that I spend more time outside in the spring and fall then inside. We may not even go in. The children are not called to learn long movement circles instead the circles become part of our play, and if you were watching you may not even now that it was a circle. That was how I was trained in my Waldorf Kindergarten training to make the circle.

~A very special thank you to Waldorf Teacher, Elyena Lundh, for writing and sharing her wonderful day!

Rudolf Steiner was very specific in teachers going into a class prepared spiritually. The following quotes are from the book Balance in Teaching

“When we think of the education of the young today, we must bear in mind that we are concerned with the feelings, ideas and will impulses of the next generation; we must be clear that our present task is to prepare this next generation for definite tasks which have to be accomplished some time in the future of mankind.”

“A specific kind of inward humility, the sense that we ourselves are still only becoming, is something which will give the teacher strength, for out of this feeling more arises than out of abstract principles. If we stand in our classroom, conscious of the fact that it is a good thing we do everything imperfectly – for in that way there is life in it – then we will teach well. If on the other hand we are always patting ourselves on the back over the perfection of our teaching, then it is quite certain we are doing badly.”

“One thing of special importance is that we must quickly strip off our narrow, personal self like a snake skin when we enter the classroom.” “As teachers, we must train ourselves to lay aside these moods and to give ourselves up entirely to the content of the subject we are going to teach. We should be able to describe a subject tragically, taking our mood from the subject, and then pass over to a humorous mood as we proceed with our lesson, surrendering ourselves completely to the subject.”

“As we teach, our object is not simple to teach with and for the intellect, but rather to be able to take these various moods really into consideration. For what is tragedy, what is romance, what is a ‘melancholic’ mood? It is exactly the same as an in-breathing for the organism, the same as filling the organism with air…”

“When a child comes into this world, he is exposed to things from which we must protect him through our teaching. Otherwise he would flow too actively into the world. A person always has the tendency to become weak and stunted in soul, to make his limbs rachitic, to become a gnome. And in teaching and educating him, we work at forming him.”

“Reverence, enthusiasm and a sense of guardianship, there three are actually the panacea, the magic remedy, in the soul of the educator and teacher. And if one wished to represent, externally, artistically, something like an embodiment of art and education in a harmonious group, one would have to create like this:

REVERENCE for what precedes the child’s existence before birth;

ENTHUSIASTIC looking forward to what follows it, after death;

PROTECTING gesture for what the child experiences during life.

(Rudolf Steiner accompanied each of these sentences with a gesture. An indication for the first is missing; for the second, a guiding pointing hand; for the third, both hands raised with fingertips inclined toward each other.)

Audio Lecture by Eugene Schwartz: The Inner Path of the Teacher

In laying down the principles for Waldorf education, Rudolf Steiner stressed the inner development that every Waldorf teacher would have to undertake in order to serve as a model of “life-long learning” for his or her students. Eugene Schwartz outlines the path of self-development that Steiner made available to teachers, and examines the capacities that are awakened by some of the exercises found in Anthroposophical literature. This lecture is essential for anyone concerned about the relationship of spiritual growth and Waldorf education. To learn more about Eugene, click here. To order this amazing lecture on Audio/CD, Click here.

Do Your Best

“While I feel it is beneficial to recognize the importance of our role with young children, I am the first to admit shortcomings in my attitudes and actions in bringing up my own children and in being with young children in many given moments. However, we not only try to do the best we can, but we also strive to do better, for the most important work of the parent with young children is inner work on oneself. The young child accepts us as perfect and good; once he becomes older and sees our imperfections, the most important thing is that the child sees that we are striving to do better. Our desire for inner growth is perceived by the child and has a very deep effect on him.” ~Rahima Baldwin Dancy

Parent/Teacher Meditation

I thank you, silent stone.
And bow myself before you:
I owe to you my plant nature.

I thank you, earth and plants,
And stood deep before you:
You help me rise to the animals.

I thank you stone, plant and animal,
And bend myself before you;
All three of you help me to become myself.

We thank you, O human child,
And lower ourselves devotedly before you;
For, because you exist, we exist.

In reply, there is thanks
From the all encompassing Godhead
In its simplicity and multiplicity;
In thanks, all that is, is intertwined.

If we, as parents as well as parent/educators, take care to instill such an attitude throughout our view of nature and godliness by permeating artistic imagination and scientific thought one with the other, then the right love and attention for animals, plants and the elements of the earth will pass over to the children.

Indigo Children

Do you think your child has the qualities of an Indigo Child? Click here to learn more…

Quotes To Ponder

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. – Bertie C. Forbes

The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win. – Roger Bannister

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. – Dale Carnegie

Articles

• Case Study Research: The Waldorf Teacher
• Reflections on Kindergarten Training
• The Effects of Hidden Anger in the Classroom
• Honing Our Observations
• Main Lesson Block: Teaching In The Waldorf School

Book Suggestion

• Supersensible Physiology & Balance in Teaching

The innovative Waldorf methods could provide an enriching education experience for any child, but for most families, a private Waldorf education is unaffordable. Private K-12 Waldorf schools cost an average of $8,000 to $11,000 per year. While some schools offer sliding scale tuition, the education still may be out of reach. Yet “Waldorf methods are so exciting and enlivening for all children that they shouldn’t be reserved just for those who can afford it,” says George Hoffiker, principal of the Yuba River Charter School, a Waldorf method school in Nevada City, California.

Mary Goral, a professor at Mt. Mary College in Milwaukee and director of the early childhood education program, teaches graduate students and teacher enrichment classes on Waldorf-inspired pedagogy for public schools. “I truly believe what is needed in public schools is something much more like Waldorf, something that engages the whole child — body, spirit, and soul,” says Goral.

Other administrators must agree. As of this fall, there will be about ten Waldorf-method charter schools in California and three in

Arizona. Illinois currently has seventeen charter schools, but none are Waldorf schools. Charter schools are state-funded public schools with permission to use alternative curricula.

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History, Facts and the Basics

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Why Waldorf Works
• Waldorf Education
• History, Humanity & Handwork
• Overview of Steiner Education
• Literacy, Not Just Reading
• The Waldorf Method
• What Is a Waldorf School?
• Educating the Whole Child
• The Waldorf Way
• Waldorf Education Method
• Waldorf & Schooling
• New Directions in Waldorf Early Childhood Education, An Introduction
• Waldorf’s Approach to Teaching Math, Reading, and More – An Interview with Tracey Buchanan
• The Future of Waldorf Homeschooling
• Waldorf Education on Wikipedia

Waldorf vs. Montessori

• A Look at Waldorf vs. Montessori
• Montessori & Steiner: A Path of Reverse Symmetries
• Montessori and Waldorf: A Comparison
• Does Method Matter? Montessori vs. Waldorf
• Waldorf vs. Montessori: A Discussion
• How Does Montessori Compare With Waldorf?

Look Inside a Waldorf School

• Pre School Series: The Waldorf Method
• Two Years at a Rudolf Steiner Waldorf School
• Waldorf Saudi
• A Day at a Waldorf High School
• A Peek into a Waldorf Preschool

Why Home School?

• Socialization: Reason to Keep Your Child OUT of School
• Common Objections (myths) to Home Schooling
• Acceleration by Dr. David Elkind
• Can Waldorf Education Be Practiced in Public Schools

Why Waldorf?

• The Waldorf Approach and the Four Elements of Education
• Steiner Schools “Could Help All”
• Moral Education a la Steiner
• The Philosophy of Waldorf Education
• Good Sides To Waldorf Education
• Waldorf Education: A Growing School Movement
• Waldorf Answers
• Head, Heart, Hands: A Waldorf Family Newsletter
• Anthroposophy & Waldorf Education
• Phases and Transitions in Waldorf Education
• Educational Wonderland
• Schooling the Imagination
• Childhood in a Cocoon
• Ninety Nine and 44/100% Pure
• Educating the Whole Person For the Whole Of Life
• Multi-Culturalism in Waldorf Education
• Impact of Evil in Our Time
• Right to Childhood
• Education As An Art
• A New Educational Paradigm
• Schooling the Postmodern Child
• Whole Child Education
• Developing a Culture of Leadership Learning and Service in Waldorf Schools
• Famous Waldorf Ulumni

Standardized Testing

• Alliance for Childhood – Anti-testing
• The High Stakes of Standardized Testing
• Standardized Testing
• Critical Issues Affecting Childhood