June | 2018 | The Parenting Passageway

People have asked for a minimalist sort of guide to Waldorf homeschooling. What is really essential and what is not? How can I really break this down and begin? So I have pondered this quite a bit, and this is what is essential, at least to me from my knowledge of anthroposophy and my years of Waldorf homeschooling.

The General Ideas:

Know yourself, understand the developing spiritual human being, do your inner work, and teach to the child in front of you.
Work from whole to parts; experience things first.
Work simply and build up over time – high school is for the real analytical thinking. Youngers should be doing, middles should be doing and feeling deeply, high schoolers should be doing, feeling, and thinking. The whole curriculum is a spiral that culminates in high school.
Connect to your local place – the local flora and fauna, culture, topography.
Teach through the arts – drama, music, handwork, movement and games, modeling, painting, drawing, speech
Use sleep as your teaching aid

What’s Essential? I am talking about the super, really bare bones and the really iconic blocks. You can add lots of things, and there are great examples out there from varying Waldorf Schools and homeschoolers. Of course you need math and geography and science if those things aren’t mentioned (see the expanded lists); I am just talking about what I think really cuts to the essence for certain ages, especially for American homeschoolers.

When the children are younger, it is easier to plan more blocks. However, I think around fourth grade there is a shift and depth is always better than more blocks. In sixth and up, there are MANY blocks to choose from and I talk to mothers all day long who are trying to do All The Things. You cannot do All The Things. Pick and choose the essential for the child in front of you. So, this is my list that hopefully points toward some essentials but ultimately you choose what is essential.

First and Second Grade:

Fairy Tales and folk tales of animals
Nature Studies/animal tales/ First Peoples tales
Math with concrete objects.
Festival Life; Curriculum of the family and what family life values/boundaries

Third and Fourth Grade:

Old Testament/Hebrew Stories of dealing with separation and authority and the authority that comes from LOVE for those in the nine year change
Studies of First Peoples for the child’s locality – how do we live on the land and in our bodies? – to encompass fibers, shelters, food, perhaps measurement Local Geography. Birchbark Tales and the Children of the Longhouse as literature. First Peoples Tales.
Norse Mythology for those past the nine year change; Hero Tales that are legendary. Possibly the Popul Vuh.
Human Being for those past the nine year change as the role changes from “I am one with the world” to “I am steward of the world around me.”
Fractions and musical notation for those past the nine year change!
Curriculum of the Family – values and boundaries; growth mindset

(Expanded Ideas depending upon your family culture: Measurement; African Tales; continue with fairy and folk tales from different cultures).

Fifth and Sixth Grade: It starts to get tricky as there are so many blocks!

Tracing human consciousness through those Ancient Civilizations; Greek myths and history; I would argue for Ancient and Medieval Africa and the Maya civiliation for the development of American consciousness – specifically Sundiata and the Popul Vuh.
Rome and Julius Caesar; possibly the Han empire studies for the sixth grader; the lives of Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad (and the Golden Age of Islam). Writing.
Geometry and physics for the twelve year old.
Mineralogy for the twelve year old
Black and white drawing
I have been thinking about the way American Waldorf schools place a North American Geography block here as the extension after local geography. I think it might be more natural to study the geography of Central America in conjunction with the Maya and then branch into First Peoples of the Americans and geography in Seventh Grade as the precursor to Exploration and more modern ways of looking at North American Geography in seventh and eighth grade with history studies.
Curriculum of the Family; dealing with friends; boundaries; positivity; growth mindset

(Expanded ideas: Medieval studies; botany and continued zoology studies; ecology; decimals; business math with percents and ratios; astronomy with the naked eye)

Seventh and Eighth Grade:

Renaissance and Explorers (see note above about First Peoples and Geography – dont forget the First Peoples of Canada and South America if you are from the United States)
Epic tales of people’s bravery into new frontiers of not just physically conquering land but medicine and inventions
Literature and writing
Revolutions (American, French, Simon Bolivar, Industrial) and Modern History for American homeschoolers through contrasts) for the eighth graders right up through the War on Terror and digitality
The ideas of sea and sky through meteorology and oceanography and geography
Pre- Algebra for stretching thinking
Healthy living; boundaries; dealing with friends; what do good friendships look like

(Expanded ideas: More World Geography through contrasts; Writing traditionally done through wish, wonder, surprise block in seventh grade in Waldorf Schools and short stories in eighth grade; geography; continued zoology studies; continued botany studies, continued astronomy studies; modern history of varying parts of the world, peacemakers; physiology; chemistry; more physics; more geometry and nature; platonic solids of eighth grade)

Ninth and Tenth Grade:

Art History including American art for Americans as a way of tracing the consicousness of the world and specifically of our country; (Steiner’s indications covered mainly Greek through Renaissance in Western Art)
Comedy and Tragedy for the ninth graders
Black and white drawing for the ninth graders
The biological sciences for both grades; tenth grade embryology; ecology
Tenth grade back to the geography and history of those Ancient River civilizations
Epics for the tenth grader but the inclusion of modern epics in addition to ancient ones; the Greeks and modern civics for tenth graders.
Outdoor and service experiences.
Algebra and Trigonometry for the development of thinking.
Tools for healthy communication, self-care, and healthy intimate relationships

(Expanded ideas: earth science throughout both grades, physics throughout both grades, chemistry throughout both grades; computer science; Inventions; Shakespeare; )

Eleventh and Twelfth Grade:

Parsifal and Hamlet for the eleventh graders
World religions; I like the ideas of social justice and topics regarding minority rights for Americans for the twelfth graders – modern history from a modern perspective
Faust for the twelfth graders.
Logic
Self portraits.
Outdoor and service experiences, social activism.
Possibly calculus and atomic theory for really stretching thinking depending upon the child
Child development. Development through the lifespan.
Ecology.
In place of transcendentalist writers in twelfth grade, I might actually choose Faulkner and Thomas Pynchon. I need to think on that more.
Tools for healthy communication, self-care, and intimate relationships
Tools of good leading and being part of a team

(Expanded ideas: Roman and Medieval History; Chaucer and Dante: Modern European Literature; Transcendentalist writers; Chemistry; Biochemistry; physics; zoology; botany usually brought in eleventh grade; earth science; world geography; computer science)

I think this list could be a good start for American homeschoolers anyway. What’s on your list of essentials?

Love,
carrie

May was kind of an end of the year whirlwind for us, and so I am so happy to have June arrive. The world is bursting with green, the lakes and streams are overflowing, the days are humid and hot, there is sunshine and rain. The days are long and full of sunshine, and everyone is happy to be out in the hot sun and in the water.

Our goals this lazy month include being outside and in the lake and pool as much as possible; to have picnic dinners; to finish up some medical appointments for the children, and to generally have as much fun as a family as possible. The adults are hoping for some wonderful child-free time this month and some dates; we are all hoping to move and exercise a lot this month and just enjoy that feeling of being alive and the sense of growth and throwing off the stagnation of winter. In other words, celebrating the slow summer.

This month we are celebrating:

Major feasts/holidays:

9- St. Columba – there is a little story here and we will make a little moving watercolor picture with a boat and dove

11 – Feast of St. Barnabas – St. Barnabas was an encourager, so I am thinking along the lines of having a family night with games and fun and encouraging each other and really celebrating us as a family. I have a number of photographs of our family we never framed and hung, so that could be another project!

14- Flag Day

17- Father’s Day

21 – Summer Solstice

24 – The Nativity of St. John the Baptist/ St. John’s Tide (see this back post for festival help!)

29- The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul

Minor feasts we will celebrate mainly through stories:

12- St. Enmegahbowh – first Native American priest in the Episcopal Church of The United States

19- Sahu Sundar Singh of India- I found a book here

22- St. Alban – an interesting You Tube video filled with giant puppets to celebrate St. Albans Day in England!

(here is the aside note about these feast days: – I have had a few folks ask me about the Calendar of Saints in the Episcopal Church…The Episcopal Church USA is part of the Anglican Communion, which is an international association of churches composed of the Church of England and national (such as Canada, Japan, Uganda, for example) and regional (collections of nations) Anglican churches. Each province, as it is called, is autonomous and independent with its own primate and governing structure. So, different feast calendars within the Anglican Communion share the Feast Days and Fast Days listed in the Book of Common Prayer, but there may be “lesser feasts and fasts” as well. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York are our “primus inter parus” (first among equals) but hold no direct authority outside of the England, but is instead a force of unity, vision, persuasion, for the entire Communion. We don’t really govern off of creeds, for example such as the Westminster Catechism in Presbyterianism, but find “the law of praying is the law of believing” and therefore The Book of Common Prayer is our way. The Anglican Communion has in it elements of the Reformation and Anglo-Catholicism, depending upon the individual parish, but it is not “Catholic Lite”. It has a distinctive Celtic way to it as that was what was established long before alignment with the West. We pray for the unity of the Church (the whole of Christendom) and therefore “Anglicans have preferred to look for guidance to the undivided church, the church before it was divided by the Reformation and especially to the first centuries of the church’s life….to “tradition”, the worship, teaching and life of the church in its early days.” (page 65, Welcome to the Episcopal Church by Christopher Webber. Hope that helps!! ))

Ideas for Celebrating June:

Here we are going to the lake and pool, gardening, camping, going to water and splash parks, kayaking, and mini golf!
Blueberry Picking – Strawberries are about done where we are, but blueberries are coming soon
Try out different popsicle and cold drink recipes
Gardening – especially with an eye to our friend the bee
Hunt fireflies at night
Stay up and gaze at the stars
Have bonfires and camp fires and make s’mores
Go camping or camp in your backyard
Summer puppet theater outside! Shadow puppets!
Lavender! We are making soap with lavender!
Celebrating nature!