This blog is written by Meredith, who is a Waldorf teacher and also on a Waldorf homeschool list I am on, and she is gathering reviews of curricula and books along with posting her own notes about things.
See here: http://www.waldorfreviews.com/
A lovely blog, with lovely photographs by this kind-hearted teacher. Thanks for sharing with all of us Meredith!
Many blessings,
Carrie
I found this lovely post on the Syrendell blog here regarding teaching foreign language in their homeschool: http://syrendell.blogspot.com/search/label/foreign%20language
What a beautiful blog! Such gorgeous handwork!
At any rate, I wrote a post awhile back regarding foreign language within the Waldorf homeschool here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/17/teaching-a-foreign-language-in-waldorf-homeschool/
Part of that post mentions the typical way foreign languages are approached within a Waldorf school:
“In most Waldorf schools, two languages are started in Kindergarten. Many times the two languages taught are languages that are in linguistic opposition so to speak, for example, a Romance Language and a Germanic language other than English, or a Romance Language and a Slavic Language.”
In our homeschool, we do Spanish and German. I admit I am fortunate in several ways in this regard: we have many neighbors and friends that speak in these two languages that my daughter gets to spend time with, I speak Spanish in a moderately fluent way and can read and write in Spanish, and we live in a major metropolitan area so my oldest daughter now attends a Saturday morning German school and also has a Spanish tutor and a German tutor. We are also fortunate that our extended family considers languages to be important and are willing to help us with some of the expenses for this. My youngest daughter (age 5) just recently gave signs she is interested in Spanish and is trying to speak, so I am reading to her in Spanish and she will start German school as well next fall.
These are the few tips I can offer for teaching a foreign language the Waldorf way in your homeschool:
1. If you know the basics of any language, that is enough to get started. Waldorf teaches through an immersion method, but even if you know a little, you may be able to bring in songs, verses, colors, numbers, weather, names of articles of clothing in the target language via puppetry, drawings on your blackboard and other props. One source I like for a few rhymes in Spanish are these:
A Waldorf resource is Cante, Cante, Elefante: http://www.naturallyyoucansing.com/books/cante.htm
I don’t have sources like these for German (other than music); many of the verses and songs I am getting are through our school or tutor who are all native speakers. When the children are old enough to write,( my daughter is in Second Grade), they still play a lot of games and do a lot of singing, but they also have a workbook to follow up with at home. Her second grade is using a festival and song book from Hueber and the workbook is from Hueber as well. This is the website listed on the back cover: www.hueber.de
2. Think about what you can offer that affect all the senses in your foreign language teaching. Can you offer props that involve the whole body, how many of the twelve senses can you include?
3. Work seasonally. Many of us are coming up to a cold month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Can you work in songs or verses regarding snow, snowmen, tea time, animals in Winter, the color white for snow? Can you use a puppet that would be cold in the snow? Bbrrrr.
4. Realize that Waldorf schools work orally for quite some time before introducing writing and reading in the target language. Look for the nursery rhymes of that culture, the festivals where you can bake and craft and involve that holiday and culture and language.
5. Realize that true fluency takes repetition and time. It can take a good five to six years or more for a child to build up true fluency if they are not speaking the language every day. I expect my children will be fluent in German eventually, but I also know it will take longer than her classmates who are speaking German at home. Our oldest is doing an excellent job!
Hope this stimulates some ideas for you.
In the post I wrote earlier this year, I mention the benefits of having any foreign language. Many people want to do Spanish because it is so functional here in the US, but any language will provide benefits for the brain and compassion for the heart to learn about another culture. Consider seeing if there is a church in your town that offers services in another language; that might give you a place to start finding native speakers (even if it is not Spanish!)
Hope these ideas are helpful,
Carrie
Why is this one of my favorite Waldorf resources?
1. Did I mention I am a pediatric physical therapist?
2. Despite the perception that the Waldorf Early Years is one gnome and fairy fest (and I mean that in a loving way, not a snarky way because don’t we all love the gnomes and fairies?), the Waldorf Early Years are truly about working with a child through his or her body.
3. The Early Years are about protecting all of the 12 senses and for developing the lower four of Steiner’s 12 senses and we do this through the way we act upon the body.
4. Most parents have little understanding of how to bring developmentally appropriate movement to their children. (HINT: It is not through organized sports as early as possible, as much as we all love a good baseball or hockey game!)
5. Uh, did I mention I am a pediatric physical therapist? LOL.
That is why this book is so wonderful and one of my favorites. There is nothing else out on the market like it for the Waldorf homeschooling family, and actually ANY parent would be enriched by reading it and implementing the things in this book!
Chapter 1: Waldorf As Therapeutic Education (with a word about that most famous of topics, Waldorf Guilt!)
Chapter 2: Creating a Nurturing Environment (Birth- about 18 months; Toddlers-3 Years Old; Ages 3-7; Ages 7-9)
Chapter 3: Ideas and Advice :Bilateral Coordination/Body and Spatial Awareness (broken up into under age 5 and over age5); Fine Motor Skills for Hands and Feet’; Balance and Coordination (broken up into under age 7 and over age 7); Listening/Silence; Touch; Visual; Warmth; Memory; For Dreamy, Sluggish Children; Calming Down/Centering; Getting Into the Body/Gross Motor Skills; Smell, Taste and Touch At Home; Dominancy of Hand, Foot and Eye; Horseback Riding; Gardening; Being in Nature; Active Math; A Waldorf-Inspired Backyard Assault Course (ages 6 and up)/ A Backyard Obstacle Course; A Summary of Things to Be Aware Of
Chapter 4: Songs, Fingerplays, Movement, Verses
Including Opening Verses, Closing Verses, Waking Up and Going to Sleep, Giving Thanks, In the Kitchen, Counting and Numbers for Kindergarten/First Grade, Autumn (any age), Winter (any age), Spring, Summer, Nature (any age), Fantasy and Fun, Tongue Twisters, Using the Hands: Finger Plays and Clapping Games, Movement Verses, Clapping Verses for Older Children and other Ideas,
Chapter 6: Groups (and yes, it does say Chapter 6 and I can’t find what page Chapter 5 is on as a heading)
This book is 101 pages long, so each section is only a page or a few pages. And like other Christopherus books, it is spiral bound with paper covers. (I personally always wish the covers were something sturdier).
As you can see by the outline of the chapter headings, this book is one that will see heavy use through multiple ages and children, so I feel it is a worthwhile investment to have a book of your own.
Here is a link to this wonderful book: http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/bookstore-for-waldorf-homeschooling/publications-for-grades-1-through-5/joyful-movement.html
Happy budget planning,
Carrie
This post is for my dear friend Andrea, and also for Molly, who asked in the comment section of this post (https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/12/03/this-week-in-our-december-waldorf-homeschool/#comments) when and how I got housecleaning, baby care, dog care done with homeschooling.
Great question! Many of you know I have an eight-week-old, so the answer is this:
One person cannot do everything.
There has to be priorities. I have been involved with La Leche League for years, and one of the things I have heard repeatedly is “people before things.”
You cannot homeschool and do beautiful main lessons and extra lessons, tend to a nursing baby, cook everything from scratch, make all your children’s clothes, tend to yourself and your husband – and do it all and not be crazy!
Forging close and intimate connections with your children, rediscovering the creativity from a child’s perspective, having the time to play a board game with that eight-year-old, being outside with a preschooler learning to ride a bike, all takes time. Children are only small once. Yes, things still have to “get done”, but we also need to realize this period of time is a SEASON. It will not be this way forever. I love gardening, cooking, baking, needle felting and I love my house to be clean – but warm connection with my children is more important right now than those things. This can be very difficult for those of us who are used to doing everything by hand and having everything a certain way! Do not treat your children as if they are an intrusion in your work; treat them as the precious gifts they are!
I detailed my housecleaning routine here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/11/housecleaning-and-homeschooling/
and will be happy to tell you where I am now:
My morning routine is essentially to grab a fast shower if I didn’t take one the night before, cook a warm breakfast for everyone, throw laundry in and then either run the vacuum cleaner or clean the bathrooms (and if the baby is in the sling it may not be me getting down on my hands and knees to scrub the bathroom floor!)
We typically go outside and go for a walk or a bike ride and jump rope and then come in and start school. We then come in and prepare a snack. School begins and we work in increments of about 20 to 30 minutes and take breaks where the children play and I either make food for lunch or dinner ahead of time or switch laundry or do diaper changes. After school is finished, before lunch and quiet time, we pick up any toys that are on the floor and clean up the school room. After lunch and quiet time is when we do any other focused chores (see original housecleaning/homeschooling post). I plan in preparation time before dinner where we clean up the house again and also prepare food. We have been home a lot, so we are here and can work slowly and stop with these breaks and be okay with that. I am also lucky in that my husband is generally home at night and can help with dinner dishes and anything else I really need. In fact, I am really lucky this month as he has a whole four weeks of paid paternity leave right now!
Baby care happens all the time – the baby usually falls asleep in the sling during our morning movement, and then sometimes he stays in the sling or I can put him down in the co-sleeper for a nap. He usually takes another nap late morning in my lap whilst I am homeschooling. After lunch, we lay down together for another nap and then he takes his fourth nap somewhere in the later afternoon (many times the children are playing outside in the yard by then). Some days he is awake a lot of the day, some days he is growing and sleeping a lot. He nurses on demand, and tends to fall asleep fairly early at night. We co-sleep, and I try to go to bed by nine so I can be refreshed the next day. Nursing at night does not usually wake me up, and we may get up once or twice to change diapers but usually he goes right back to sleep after that. This season will pass, and we will soon be into a more mobile, teeth-getting stage that I am sure will be more challenging. But, having a basic rhythm really does help at this point. Temperament also plays into it as he is a fairly laid-back little guy. He is held most of the time 🙂 because he will only be this little once and I so love him!
The dog gets walked every night by my husband (she used to get walked by the kids and I in the morning as well, and we will go back to that once the baby is bigger). I have the kids clicker train her during some of the breaks, and she plays in all the kids’ games (which sometimes involves her getting dressed up in tutus, poor dog!)
The main thing is to not get too excited about it all, it will all get done eventually. One has to be patient and realize that again, this is a season, it won’t be like this forever and it is okay that things take longer than before.
The other things that have helped me include the following:
Just a few thoughts,
Carrie
Here are some back posts to assist you:
Why Waldorf?: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/06/wonderful-waldorf/
Rhythm: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/03/13/baby-steps-to-waldorf-rhythm/
Rhythm and Sleep: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/13/a-waldorf-inspired-view-of-sleep/ and here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/14/part-two-of-a-waldorf-inspired-view-of-sleep/
🙂 General Waldorf Guilt: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/03/12/hopeless-with-waldorf/
Grades One Through Three: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/04/the-wonder-years-waldorf-homeschooling-grades-one-through-three/
Suggestions for if you are worried it is too late to come to Waldorf: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/14/is-it-too-late/
Multiple Children and Waldorf: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/05/homeschooling-multiple-children-with-waldorf/
General Waldorf, sadly Lovey has taken down her blog so the link in this post doesn’t work, but still a good post I think: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/04/the-heart-of-waldorf-homeschooling/
At least that is a start; you can also try the tags section for specific grades, rhythm, festivals and more.
Thanks for reading,
Carrie
This is the quick snapshot peek into our recent days with our Second Grader, Kindergartner and seven-week-old:
On Monday, we got up and went for a walk. My almost five year old can now ride a two-wheeled bike all by herself and is excited about trying this out each and every day! We came home to jump rope to jumping rhymes and snack. Then I took out my flute and we did a little circle for Advent tailored to my Kindergartner and I told the story, “The White Bird”. Then we launched into my second grader’s Main Lesson, which really was a combination of Math from November that we are a bit behind on with a new baby in the house and Language Arts for December. The Math Lesson we did was review of some times tables through movement, and then we did the story and freehand drawing for the sixes times table from Dorothy Harrer’s math lessons book. This lesson is about a King and his six sons living in a six-sided kingdom and the drawing progresses from a hexagon to a six-pointed star to finding the triangles within the hexagon-star. Each of the colors used in this drawing relates back to certain soul qualities and was exceptionally lovely (This lesson is copyrighted or I would share more, but it was beautiful!). Then my second grader copied a poem about Winter into her Poetry Main Lesson Book after we stood up and recited it together. After that, we started our Saints block with a story about Saint Nicholas. Then our German tutor arrived for some much-needed help and we made plans for Advent crafts and baking as part of our German lessons. During my oldest child’s Main Lesson, my younger one was eating more snacks, playing with a wooden dollhouse and then I gave her butcher block paper and markers to draw roads for her wooden mini- rollie car. After our German tutor left, we ate lunch, had some quiet time and did some Advent crafting!
On Tuesday, we jumped rope to begin and we have also been drawing with our feet once a week for my oldest (although my Kindergartner likes to watch this!) We did our Kindergarten things and then we pursued more math by reviewing all times tables we have covered so far (with special emphasis of those 6’s from yesterday and the relationship between the products of the 3’s times table and the products of the 6’s times table) with jumping and stomping, snapping and clapping, bean bag tossing. We also went back and reviewed time and copied a poem in our Main Lesson Book for remembering seconds, minutes, hours, days. My oldest then had another poem to copy in her Poetry Main Lesson Book about Winter and we re-visited the story of Saint Nicholas with some vocabulary/spelling words that I wrote on the board. Then we made cookie dough and put it in the refrigerator and played indoors and outdoors the rest of the day! We also made a no-cook salt dough recipe, but it was not nearly as nice as the cooked kind. I had a little story to go with the making of the salt dough.
On Wednesday, we started with Kindergarten things again and making a peace dove for our Christmas tree with a star on the forehead just like White Bird in the story. We went into math, reviewing place value that we already covered with the help of Donna Simmons’ squirrels and moving into adding two and three digit numbers with carrying (my daughter’s request to practice, so we did several blackboards full of problems I made up of the top pf my head) and ended by introducing the 11 times table. Then my oldest copied the 6’s times table into her Main Lesson Book (Not the best three day rhythm for math at this point, but playing catch-up has kind of thrown me off!). We re-visited the story of Saint Nicholas and drew a picture with a summary in the Main Lesson Book and reviewed all the spelling/vocabulary words from the previous day. Then our Spanish tutor arrived for some reading. After lunch I read a chapter from the new Gnome book by Sieglinde de Francesca called “A Donsy of Gnomes”. (http://www.teachwonderment.wahmweb.com/store/ – I promise I will do a review of this book at some point on this blog!) The first story is about Pebble, who gathers bits of fallen stars and grows them into crystals as a crystal gardener. It was pouring down rain, and I happened to have one of those “grow your own crystal” kits in my closet so we pulled that out so we could be crystal gardeners too! After that we cut out cookies from the cookie dough we made yesterday in star shapes and I told the story of “The Smallest Star” from Seasons of Joy’s Advent Ebook. The rest of the day was for playing and building forts and giant train tracks all over!
And somewhere in all this was not only the sweetest little baby 🙂 but also two needy dogs and the household chores.
Just a quick peek at part of our week,
Carrie
I hear from many mothers of small children who are concerned about their ability to homeschool because their lives are “chaotic” without much rhythm. They wonder, can I homeschool if I am hopelessly disorganized and lacking in rhythm?
My first answer to this is to be easy with yourself. If you have three or four small children under the age of 5, know that your life will look so much different than when those same children are much older. Be easy, forgive yourself. Sometimes it really does deserve a medal just to get through the day with everyone fed!
However, my second answer to this is yes, think how one can cultivate order and rhythm out of chaos. Please don’t just throw up your hands and give up and not try. Children by their nature are often irregular and need your help to obtain some kind of rhythm to their days and weeks. And yes, Waldorf homeschooling in the grades will certainly be much more successful if you have basic rhythms for rest, food, outside time in place!
In Waldorf, rhythm is extremely important. Steiner recognized 12 senses (if you need a remedial on this, please hit the “12 senses” tag in the tag box). We look for development for the lower four of these senses during the first seven year cycle in particular and rhythm is important in developing three out of these four senses – The Sense of Life, The Sense of Movement, and The Sense of Balance. The Sense of Life is the Sense of Well-Being, of feeling “all is well with the world”, a sense of wonder and awe, an inner flexibility. On The Association for A Healing Education website, Nettie Fabrie, who I believe is a Waldorf Remedial teacher on the West Coast, was quoted as saying that children who do not have this Sense of Life/Sense of Well-Being often have feelings of being unsafe, of fear and of guilt, sometimes with heightened addictive tendencies. The Sense of Life/Well-Being has direct correlation and development to the Sense of Thought later on. The Sense of Movement provides qualities of industry, purpose, healthy purposeful movements, connectedness to the body and knowing where one’s space is and ends. I am a physical therapist, and in one sense we would call this the proprioceptive system, but it also is so much more! The lack of Sense of Movement can manifest itself in children as failure to pick up nonverbal or societal subtleties, depression and inwardness, inattentiveness and fidgety movements. The Sense of Movement is intimately connected to language later on. The Sense of Balance provides a feeling of inner balance, an ability to move between tension and rest, a sense of appropriateness, the ability to calm oneself, the ability to give focused attention. An obvious lack of development of this sense would include impulsivity, inability to slow down, inner agitation. The sense is connected to the Sense of Hearing later on. Obviously, this is a glance at this topic, but something to consider and think about. A sense of rhythm is one thing that is very important to developing all three of the four of these lower senses!
In practical terms, the foundations we lay are the foundations that our children may keep later on and come back to, even if they are rejected at points as the child grows. I liken this to this small example: I had one child who dealt with sleeping in a sling a lot with no set nap schedule, and one child who had a consistent nap schedule. Guess which child took naps longest? The one where it was part of the routine. I am not saying rhythm is the only reason why this was so, but rhythm certainly can be your helpmate.
Rhythm can provide you with a balance. If you never take time to care for yourself, always going from one thing to the next until you fall over at night, how will your children learn balance? They are watching and imitating you! Remember, rhythm is not about a Schedule with Checkboxes. But it is about a general order, a general flow and that balance of rest and energy, tension and ease.
Here are some open-ended questions regarding rhythm:
Perhaps as part of your work during this Advent, you can meditate on the concept of rhythm and what that means to you, what it means to your children, and how what rhythm means to you and your children may change as your children age.
Many blessings and peace on this wonderful Advent night,
Carrie
This comes up quite a bit. Honestly, I think the best place to start is Steiner himself and then delve into other people’s works. Here are my suggestions:
Introductory Works To Waldorf Education:
For Children Under The Age of 7: one of the Following:
For the Big Overall Picture Of Waldorf Education – Otherwise Known As “The Kindergarten Years Are Very Short”:
I hope that is helpful to some of you.
Many blessings,
Carrie
Some mothers have been asking me how I personally use www.mainlesson.com
I use it to find seasonal stories to tell on baking and gardening day, and I have also found several Saint stories on there I have used as well for my Second Grader.
Here is an example of what I used off of this site during November for my Second Grader and Kindergartener:
In December, I will be using:
Hope that helps some of you see the potential use of this site,
Carrie
This actually goes with this post: “Are You Moving Forward Or Just Treading Water?’”( https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/11/16/are-you-moving-forward-or-just-treading-water/). I think this is one thing that holds people back from Waldorf homeschooling, this notion that they are not “pure” Waldorf. I find it rather odd we preface conversations about Waldorf in this manner, when we don’t seem to about any other form of homeschooling. Are you Montessori pure? Classically pure?
Roberto Trostli points out in his book “Rhythms of Learning” that there are “three salient features” of Waldorf Education:
“1. Waldorf education is based on a developmental approach that addresses the changing needs of the growing child and maturing adolescent.
2. Waldorf teachers strive to transform education into an art that educates the whole child- the heart and the hands as well as the head.
3. Waldorf schools are committed to developing capacities as well as skills so that their students will become self-aware, compassionate individuals with a sense of responsibility for the Earth.”
Doesn’t sound that crazy, does it? So where do we get so hung up? Maybe we put much of the dogma on ourselves. Steiner was all about the individual, and creating one’s own path within Waldorf Education. He was all about teachers evolving and creating their own things out of Waldorf Education and their own inner work, arising to meet each individual child.
Many people “mix” Waldorf with different things….Donna Simmons writes somewhat of this here in her post entitled, “But Is It Waldorf?” http://christopherushomeschool.typepad.com/blog/2005/10/but_is_it_waldo.html
Her point is if one understands the Waldorf curriculum then one can choose to work from that and make that work for your family even if you deviate here and there from what a Waldorf school would do in accordance to what works best at home. Let’s face it, there are some things that work well in the home environment that don’t work well in the school environment and vice versus. But let’s celebrate that and stop perceiving it as some kind of inferior being to do Waldorf Education at home instead of at school.
Can you mix Waldorf with other methods? Sure, many people do. Donna Simmons has an audio download here specifically about Unschooling and Waldorf: http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/bookstore-for-waldorf-homeschooling/audio-downloads.html
However, I will say this: Waldorf is a philosophy of education, not just a mish-mash of this reading program, this math program, this writing program. While many homeschoolers are out searching for the “best program”, Waldorf homeschoolers continue to work within a distinctive approach for each seven year cycle and what subjects really speak into the soul of a child who is seven, eight, nine, ten, etc. It is a fundamental difference.
And I do think “mixing” can be harder in the very Early Years. To me, either you work within that first seven year cycle and accept that the right time for more pure academic work is toward that six and half or seven years of age or you just don’t. And it is not that the Waldorf Kindergarten is anti-academic! But it is anti “shove it into their heads” at that stage. We use the body at that stage for such academic concepts of acquiring language and writing (oral, through the ears and the voice as we listen and re-tell stories and verses in three different languages), math (orally and through the body as we play, skip, count in verses and being outside), science and nature education (through bodily movement outside using all 12 senses), artistic sense (by doing and creating, not by looking at pictures in a book of masterpieces and analyzing the book). To me, though, this makes sense for a small child – does it to you? Some people are concerned about a “slow start” – I personally am more concerned about bringing in the information at the time when my child is going to understand it and want to learn it best. Are you?
Many people are afraid if they stick just with Waldorf their children will miss something. Aren’t you more afraid they are missing something by skipping around and changing programs all the time? In Waldorf every single thing builds upon itself and it is all covered in its due course. Trust in that!
Every teacher has to pick and choose the best way to illuminate a subject for a particular grade, this is true in public school, private school and Waldorf school. It is also true in homeschooling. There is no way to “cover everything”. Part of homeschooling is teaching your child how to find information, synthesize information and problem-solve, not just regurgitate facts. Waldorf homeschooling really does excel in this area.
What you want is to have time to ENJOY your family – you should be able to have time to hike, bake bread, paint, pick berries, cook and love and enjoy each other.
Simplify your life, and yes, pick what works best for you and your family. I really do think Waldorf is enough, but if you understand what Waldorf is then you can decide where you are comfortable to insert a different approach to help your child. However, my plea is for you to give Waldorf a chance alone instead of automatically assuming it is not enough 🙂 or that it is too “dogmatic” for you to make it work.
I am sure this will generate a lot of discussion! Looking forward to it!
Blessings,
Carrie
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