Category Archives: First Grade

Planning First Grade For Your Oldest Or Only Child

Posted on by
6

I have been thinking a lot about planning first grade as I am finishing up first grade for the second time, this time with my middle child. Going through this grade again made me think especially about the differences in doing this grade with a first (or only) child, and doing it again within a larger family dynamic.  So, if you are planning for first grade for your oldest or only child, I want to encourage you that you have quite a bit of leeway, to keep it simple, to not overplan and to make sure you are including some very fundamental things that may not have much to do with those letter stories or the math gnomes!

Oh yes, please be sure to include form drawing, knitting, crafts for the season, harvesting.

Yes, you want to go through the math blocks.  Yes, you want to introduce the letters – but many parents I speak with have oldest or only LITTLE GIRLS who are already reading.  So I say, concentrate on the artistic end of drawing the letters.  Let them write a sentence for each letter and practice really good handwriting, if your little girl is bent that way.  You can start word families in the last block or so of first grade; sight words generally are better left until second and third grade unless your child has a prodigious memory and is already doing it.  Let your child read for pleasure, but you continue to read aloud to this child too.  Make music and sing!  Do chores and work around your home.

But please schedule time for the most fundamental skills of first grade:  movement and getting the child in his or her body, time out in nature, and social interaction with other children.  Does your child do well with only one other child?  What does your child do in a small group?  Are they good with children older or younger or not?  Do you have a community you do things with?  Continue reading →

Rhythm: Part Four

Posted on by
6

I talk to so many mothers who have children of multiple ages and who are very concerned as to  how to fit in multiple main lessons, or what to do with their children when their ages are spread out between the Early Years and the grades.  It can be daunting, and many veteran Waldorf homeschoolers say that you cannot schedule that many main lessons without going insane….but then how to do it?

Let’s start at the beginning.  If you have a first or second grader, and the rest of your children are under the age of 7, then life should be relatively easy.  You can often think in terms of outside time together, a circle for all, a story geared to the kindergartener, perhaps the main lesson for the first or second grader, nap and quiet time (and perhaps do something else for fifteen to twenty minutes with the first or second grader during quiet time),  the work of the day geared toward the kindergartener but including all, and finish with playing outside.   My friend Sheila has a lovely post about her rhythm with her fourth grader and her Early Years child here:  http://sureastheworld.com/2012/03/18/brass-tacks-my-homeschooling-day/

With two children involved in  main lesson work, I think it is still possible to either put them “together” if they are close in age…ie, a first grader and a second grader could both hear folk tales, but work on slightly different academic levels.  If the two children needing main lessons are further apart in age, then you may want to have separate main lesson times.  Then for other lessons, such as foreign language or handwork, you could combine the children but have them work at their own levels.    I think all of that is possible with only two children needing main lessons, even with younger children in tow.  I think this is the sort of thing you must jump in and try and switch around as needed.  It is daunting when I go to the homes of my homeschooling friends who are not using Waldorf methods and their homeschooling is a lot of workbooks, worksheets, independent reading textbooks, and videos.  Waldorf homeschooling is different, and sometimes only by doing it can we wrap our heads around how it will work for our family and what that will look like!

I will have a fifth grader, a second grader, and a two year old turning three in the fall.  I am planning my essential rhythm to look like this:  Continue reading →

Late To Waldorf? Overwhelmed?

Posted on by
3

If you are coming in late to Waldorf homeschooling or feel overwhelmed and overrun by dogma, I have a solution for you!  Please read the lectures given by Rudolf Steiner compiled in “The Renewal of Education.”  This set of lectures, given to a group of Swiss public educators only eight months after the first Waldorf school formed, is so accessible. The foreword is written by a favorite Waldorf educator of mine, Eugene Schwartz, in which he compares and contrasts Waldorf Education to John Dewey and Maria Montessori’s work and sheds light on the hallmarks of Waldorf Education:  the self –renewal and self-development of the teacher, the balance that feeling provides in education, and the approach of Waldorf education to the holistic child.

Waldorf education approaches the child from four different avenues. Continue reading →

Lesson Planning: A Sample Form

Posted on by
9

In one post I shared my personal form for the rhythm of one of our days of the week, but I was recently thinking about a sample form or list that could help mothers plan their Grades One through Eight  homeschooling according to the eight pillars of artistic work of Waldorf Education that we have talked about in the past on this blog.  Academic subjects are taught through artistic work in Waldorf Education; this is an enlivening form of education for the child.

Please take this as a “I thought of this in quickly and you might be able to tweak it or use parts of  it or come up with something even better” kind of way, not as a definitive end product.  Smile

Anyway, this is what I was thinking: Continue reading →

Children Who Dislike Everything

Posted on by
17

I was going through some papers this weekend and came across an article by Michael Howard that I had printed out called, “Educating the Feeling-will in the Kindergarten” and this quote just popped out at me:

“The defining characteristic of feeling will is the capacity to live deeply into the inner quality of something outside us, knowing and feeling it as if we are within it or it is within us. In the early childhood years a healthy child is naturally inclined to drink in the inner mood and qualities of places and persons.  It is one of the tragedies of our times that the ways of the world, including the life of the family and school, can dull rather than foster this natural soul attachment.  Tragically, many young children come to kindergarten with a sense-nerve disposition already strongly developed.  Their thinking has become prematurely intellectual and abstract, and their feeling life inclines toward strong personal like or dislike.”

I have been seeing so many tiny children yet with so many big opinions.  Have you been seeing this as well?  Continue reading →

Relaxed Waldorf Homeschooling

Posted on by
2

I wanted to thank all of you who participated and left comments in regards to the post Donna Simmons of Christopherus Homeschool Resources on Catherine’s blog.  You can see the original post here (and do be sure to read the comments, because that is where the discussion really is, including an interesting side thread on forming the space between two siblings who are very close in age): Continue reading →

First Grade Fairy Tales For Teaching

Posted on by
17

 

 

I am gathering my list of fairy tales for first grade – you can see the tales I choose the first time through first grade here: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/25/great-fairy-tales-for-waldorf-first-grade/   (and here were a few more thoughts for those of you who are wondering what Dr. Steiner himself said about introducing the alphabet:  http://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/05/20/infusing-waldorf-elements-into-your-christian-homeschool/)

 

This year, I am planning the following: (# in the Pantheon Edition Grimm’s Fairy Tales) Continue reading →

Guest Post On First Grade Readiness: A Comprehensive Look Through High School

Posted on by

 

(7/16/2011 – Comments on this post are now closed!  Thank you for all your comments and questions!)

Our guest post today comes from Donna Simmons of Christopherus Homeschool Resources (http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/home.html).  This is a very comprehensive look at the topic of first grade readiness.  This article includes her perspective as a Waldorf educator, but also as a parent and homeschooler, and includes a deep understanding of the foundation of Waldorf Education, but also includes more mainstream resources for those of you seeking those.

This article is long, but I encourage you to read all of it.   Donna will be answering your questions left in the comment box in regards to this post, and we both look forward to hearing your thoughts. 

Here is Donna….. Continue reading →

Working With “Brambly Hedge” for First Grade Form Drawing

Posted on by
8

 

I have gotten a few emails asking me about how “form drawing with Brambly Hedge” is going.  I first wrote about this idea here:  http://theparentingpassageway.com/2011/01/22/two-ideas-for-firstsecond-grade-blocks/

 

When we start school, it will still be very summertime weather here in the Deep South.  So, my first thought was to incorporate the summer and autumn Brambly Hedge books into this two-week form drawing block.  I picked a two-week block as opposed to a three or four week block because I think this particular child will be fatigued by a longer block of form drawing at this point in time.

 

My fourth grader will be doing local geography and as such will be creating a map of her room, our home, the yard in the first part of this block, so I thought it might be fun for my first grader to have something “map-ish” as well…. So: Continue reading →