Category Archives: Resources

Waldorf Resources For Homeschooling High School

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I am thinking about high school again as I ordered some things for ninth grade (next fall; we are halfway through eighth grade) in with the Christmas orders! LOL.  You can see my post about Homeschooling High School: Should You? about some of the factors in deciding to homeschool high school, but today I want to talk a little bit about some of the Waldorf resources specific to homeschooling high school!

The tiny amount of resources available for those of us Waldorf homeschooling high school is growing!

Here is what I know of at this writing:

First of all, I think everyone considering homeschooling high school should read “Education For Adolescents” (free PDF) and “Kinesthetic Learning For Adolescents” (free)

For all subjects, there are some free resources available through The Online Waldorf Library.  These include compendiums on high school subjects throughout all the grades.  I have found great articles, ebooks and more regarding high school math; high school history and literature; high school science.

For math especially, there are publications available for purchase through Waldorf Publications and through Whole Spirit Press for Making Math Meaningful’s High School work.

For more complete curriculum:

Pieces of Live Education!can be used for early high school

Earthschooling has a high school curriculum written by Waldorf teachers for grades 9-12 – digital/video format.

Waldorf Essentials– Melisa Nielsen offer coaching for the high school grades, which is also free for members of her Thinking, Feeling, Willing program.  Waldorf Essentials has a ninth grade guide, and is working on other guides for grades 10-12.

There is a resource several people have alerted me too, Melisa Nielsen of Waldorf Essentials included, which is the course about the high school Main Lesson by Waldorf teacher Charisse Louw from Cape Town, South Africa.  Here is a link to a course, with a special price that extends until Black Friday (the day after American Thanksgiving): Waldorf High School Main Lesson: The Word

Jean Miller also does wonderful consulting; here is a post about what Waldorf homeschooling in high school looked like for her and her three children.

Christopherus is working on their high school curriculum and working with students directly.  This is an abbreviated version of a note from Donna Simmons (full text on The Parenting Passageway Facebook page):

Dear friends,

 

As many of you know, Christopherus is now expanding into high school. We are completing our middle grades curriculum (6th gr available in June 2019) and have already made a start with high school.

 

I am currently teaching language arts with an emphasis on writing and also history,via small group phone calls and individualized assignments, to a group of 9th graders. Our first semester is drawing to a close and there is the possibility of a few new students joining us in the new year. We do not use computer-bases learning in any way and indeed, half the class do not have their own emails.

 

I am also starting to compile a list of present 8th graders interested in joining the Fall program for 9th graders. This list is getting long! Do get on it if you are interested!

 

I am about to create an audio download about preparing for 9th grade for  all parents of homeschooled 8th graders, whether they wish to work with me or not. Our present group has had a steep learning curve in terms of deadlines and other expectations! I will help parents prepare in advance for some of this in the course of their 8th grade. Watch our newsletter, another special announcement email and homepage for further details.

 

If you are interested in any of this, please email me as soon as possible. Again, if you are interested n the winter/spring 9th gr classes,please get in touch immediately as it takes a bit of time for us to explore this possibility.

I would be very, very grateful if friends of Christopherus would kindly spread the word about these programs to anyone who might be interested. I am currently developing a 6 week residential program on an off-grid site for students 16-19 which will be very exciting!  Keep in touch if this interests you!

 

donna@christopherushomeschool.org

These are the resources I am aware of, hopefully with more to come as the Waldorf homeschooling high school market increases and there is more demand!

Many blessings,

Carrie

 

Two Resources for Gardening In The Classroom

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I recently obtained two resources from my local library that I thought might be of interest to some of my readers.  The first resource book I picked up was “The Garden Classroom: Hands-On Activities in Math, Science, Literacy & Art” by Cathy James.  This book is aimed at children ages 4-8.  This is a fairly substantial book at 221 pages. It has acid-free, recycled paper for the publishing and includes many photographs.  The sections include:

  • Welcome to the Garden Classroom
  • Introduction:  Nurturing Young Gardeners which points out that the environment is the third teacher (Reggio Emilia philosophy), that the garden provides an ever-changing and varied curriculum as it evolves through the season,  and that connection to nature is a gift.  It also includes a section about organizing a garden classroom that I think would be helpful to classroom and homeschool teachers alike. A glossary of key gardening vocabulary is included in this section.
  • Section One:  Let’s Grow! Garden Basics includes five favorite plants to grow, a word about bees, planting seeds with suggestions for all kinds of seed pots, a project of “egg heads & tin can hair salon” , ideas for quirky ecoplanters, painted plant pots, grow your own meadow, cultivating a snipping garden, making plant labels, making a DIY watering can, making garden potions to help feed your crops, harvesting your own seeds, and a word about strawberries.
  • Section Two:  Play & Imagination.  This section includes ideas about loose parts play and materials for your play space, how to build a fort,  making a pretend-play pottery shed, having a mud-pie tea party, making a fairy garden, making a dinosaur world, making miniature gardens, creating garden sensory tubs, having a sensory treasure hunt, playdough in the garden, and snail races.
  • Section Three:  Reading & Writing  brings ideas for the alphabet and words outside, using story tents and other literacy methods, writing a garden observation journal, creating a chalkboard observation station, creating a sensory word hunt, creating a nature treasure bag,  telling stories (example given is Jack and the Beanstalk, but there are many tales that would fit the bill), using story stones, creating a gnome or fairy mail box.
  • Section Four:  Science & Math.  Science in the garden can include soil testing, composting, use of magnifying glass or microscope, use of reference books (Note:  In Waldorf Education, some of these things would be held until much later grades. We always start with naked eye observation and nature observations.)  Ideas are given for math manipulatives from the garden, math games for the garden, a counting treasure hunt, addition and subtraction, and graphing.  There is a section on creating an  “investigation table”,  a growing seed experiment,  a minibeast bingo game,  creating a bird cafe, looking a small garden creatures close up, creating a bug hotel, making a ladybug number line, the use of measurement through a one-yard leaf race, hosting a plant olympics (counting, measuring, weighing), making a sunflower height chart, making a symmetry butterfly, making a tree-trunk geoboard.
  • Section Five:  Arts & Crafts.  This section includes making paint and paintbrushes from the garden, making natural plant dyes, making handprint sunflowers and cement-tile art, making garden buntings,  finger knitting flowers, making leaf collages, making a daffodil bunting, (which I am so going to tie into our Feast of St. David  of Wales in March!), making daffodil pinwheels, making large scale landscape art, making a spring flower bouquet. Other projects include making:  sticky pictures, caterpillars, clothespin butterflies, clay leaf impressions, clay faces and creatures, land-art wreaths, land-art mandalas, and scarecrows.
  • Section Six: Garden Recipes. This section includes notes on edible flowers, customized soup, basil pesto, and zucchini relish.  Other ending notes include a form to create a garden journal,  a list of blogs and websites, great books for children and adults.

I am happy to say that this book runs about eight to thirteen dollars, depending upon if you buy it used or new.  I am happy to recommend this book to you all.  Although this book is not aimed at Waldorf Education, I think it could be used for the Early Years, and grades one through three easily.

The next resource I had to order through inter-library loan and it came from another state.  This book I cannot find anywhere under  about  thirty-five dollars.  This book is “Math In The Garden”, but Jennifer White and published by the National Gardening Association.   This book is more of an oversized paperback, with pencil drawings throughout.  It is about 160 pages long.

This book includes an Introduction that explains how to look at each page of activities (for example, each activity denotes an age range, group size, what you need, getting ready .  A lightning bug “illuminates” math concepts and skills featured, a hummingbird icon to point out notes for success in conducting the activities, a section for a databoard and what to put on it, and ideas for more math in the garden).  Pages 9 and 10 denote activites by age (and for my Waldorf homeschoolers, these may or may not match what we do in Waldorf Education).  The activities span age ranges 5-13, so essentially grades K-8 in a public school system.   A section regarding making  a garden journal is also included.

  • Chapter One: Numbers, Operations, & Algebra.  The activities include estimation and counting and comparing in “How Many Seeds in A Tomato?”, number sense/tally and number sequence in “Everything Counts In The Garden” (which also includes movement ideas for walking a numberline), coordinate grids and using a x and y axis in “Locating Garden Treasures” and “Inside the Coordinate Grid”, number sense and estimation with nonstandard measuring tools in “Comparing the Area of Leaves”,   area and perimeter in “Area & Perimeter of Leaves”,  measurement/dividing by increments of one-half in “Half of a Half of My Garden Plot”,  ratios in “Ratios of Shoots and Roots”, fractional equivalents in “Soil Plus Water Profile”.
  • Chapter Two:   Measurement.  This includes using hand spans, metric unit measuring,  converting nonstandard units into standard units, measuring growth in the garden,  measuring with steps (nonstandard measurment), using consistent nonstandard units of measurement,  estimating and measuring volume,  weighing garden harvest (consistent nonstandard units), and making a balance scale.
  • Chapter Three: Geometry  & Pattern includes exploring attributes of geometric shapes, using craft stick caliphers to record and compare angles, using radius, diameter and circumference of circles, exploring patterns,  exploring symmetry and asymmetry,  exploring bilateral symmetry, rotational symmetry, and asymmetry, drawing trees to look at proportions and identification of shapes and patterns.
  • Chapter Four: Data Analysis.  This includes collection and interpretation of data, including the meaning of range, sorting and classifying data,  recording, organizing, and evaluating data, use of pattern recognition and proportional reasoning, using mathematical models to represent quantitative relationships (this one is found in the exercise “Self-Similarity”), linear measurements and graphing to compare changes over time.

I like this book as well. I think for Waldorf homeschoolers, we most likely would use this book most in third grade (measurement) and then onward.

Blessings,
Carrie

 

A Guest Post: Main Lesson Structure

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Main Lesson Structure – A Guest Post by Meredith Floyd-Preston from A Waldorf Journey

(Thanks so much to Meredith Floyd-Preston from A Waldorf Journey for sharing with us her thoughts about the structure of main lesson. Meredith is a long-time Waldorf teacher and the host of a brand new Waldorf podcast that you can find on her blog or on iTunes. Please make sure you check out the link at the bottom of the post for a free offer for Parenting Passageway readers. Thank you, dear Meredith, for being in this space today. – Carrie)

Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf Education, is often said to have indicated that all of the learning a child needs to experience in a day can happen in the first two hours of the morning. Anything outside of that precious, sacred two hour main lesson is bonus, enrichment content.

Now, I’m not sure how my subject teacher colleagues would feel about this statement, but for those of us who teach main lesson, it could bring a little anxiety and some big questions.

  • How can I make sure that I am making the most of those two hours every day?
  • What are all of the things that need to fit into that time block?
  • What activities and experiences will ensure that my students are primed and ready to receive and engage with my lessons?

I’ve spent my 10 years as a class teacher trying to answer these questions and I’ve come to a few conclusions about how to structure main lesson to make the most of it. Thanks to some great mentoring and a lot of trial and error experience, I feel like I’ve settled in on a rhythm that works really well for me and my students.

Here’s what it comes down to …

  • Warm Up and Wake Up
  • Review and Deepen
  • The New and Exciting Content
  • Write, Draw and Beautify Bookwork

Warm-Up

During the warm up, your task is to get your students ready to engage with the lesson that is to come. When they first begin the day, your students are facing many barriers to engaging with the lesson. If you teach at a school, your students are coming from different parts of town, houses, family dynamics and morning commute situations. One goal of the warm-up is get all of these different students coming from their varied circumstances all onboard the same ship, ready to set sail into the morning’s lesson.

There are many different ways to think about this warm-up, but it helps me to think about the 3-fold nature of the human being and the activities that will wake up my students’ heads, hearts and hands. Here are some examples.

  • Hands – rhythmic movement activities, relay races, jumprope, a morning walk, obstacle courses, outdoor play
  • Heart – social interaction time, singing, recorder-playing, poetry
  • Head – quick thinking work, mental math, memorization quizzes, times table work, beanbag parts of speech game

Review

Often the review comes in the form of a discussion about the previous day’s material. The idea of the review is to refresh the material from the day before to see how it has grown and changed in the students’ sleep life. You know those little epiphanies you have when you wake up in the morning after sleeping on something that happened the day before? That happens for your students, too. Coming back to the material from the day before is how you can make use of and solidify the ideas that came in the new content from the day before.

Most teachers look for ways to spice up this daily review so students don’t become tired of the idea of reliving content from the day before. Reviewing the content with dramatic reenactments, specific questions, pop quizzes, creative drawings, or poetry-writing are all ways you can make the review a little more interesting than just orally rehashing the story from the day before.

One other suggestion – I have found it useful to save a little nugget of new information to share during the review. I’ve noticed that when I casually mention some additional detail from the story that I didn’t share the day before, a little spark of interest lights up in my students and they’re much more engaged than they were before.

Though the traditional model positions the review right after the warm-up, many teachers are now experimenting with doing the review after the new content when possible. The idea here is that the new content is the part of the lesson that the students are most engaged and interested in. It is the reason they come to school and it is the part of the lesson that they most look forward to. If we can bring that to them earlier in our lesson we’ll have more engaged and interested students.

New Content

As mentioned above, from a certain perspective, the new content is what the lesson is all about. This is the curriculum material that you put your heart and soul into preparing and it is what your students most look forward to. In the lower grades it is often the story content that inspires the imagination of your students. In the upper grades it is the new thinking content that your students’ intellectual minds grapple with.

Whatever the age of your student, this content is a gift that is given directly from teacher to student, without the interference of a textbook or other reference material. Take the time to learn the content and make it your own, so you can deliver it to your students in a living way.

Traditionally, the new content is delivered at the end of main lesson, and I can imagine this model working well in 1st or 2nd grade. But any older than that, I recommend bringing the new content as soon as it realistically makes sense. If the new material doesn’t need the lead-in of the review, you can even bring it right after the warm-up. There have certainly been times when my excitement about the new content has inspired me to bring it to my students right away

Bookwork

During the bookwork portion of the main lesson, the students take the material they have learned and put it into crystallized form. They bring the rich imaginative experience of the content into final physical form. In the upper grades, it can be a very satisfying experience to live into the content one more time in this very will-oriented way. Younger students appreciate the opportunity to engage with the content in a more tangible, active way.

I encourage you to think creatively about these four parts of the main lesson. With an understanding of the purpose behind each component, you can freely craft lessons that guide your students through the process best. You can imagine each component making up one half hour of your morning lesson, but use your powers of observation to determine if that structure makes sense for your students. Generally, younger students need a longer warm-up, older students need more new content time. Observe your students and plan accordingly.

I’m all about encouraging and empowering teachers and homeschooling parents to craft lessons that speak specifically to their own students. There is no secret sauce when it comes to Waldorf Education. As long as you understand child development and observe your students, you have everything you need to create your own lessons.

To help teachers and parents feel confident about planning their own curriculum, I have created a free 3-part video series about planning curriculum. To receive a link to the first free video, head over to my blog and subscribe using the form in sidebar. You’ll receive a link to the first video, as well as my Ultimate Guide to Chalkboard Drawing.

I hope these little videos, along with Carrie’s fantastic posts here at Parenting Passageway, can inspire you to create a Waldorf curriculum that is uniquely suited to your individual students.

About Meredith

Meredith Floyd-Preston is a mother of 3 teenagers and a trained and experienced Waldorf class teacher who blogs about her experience at A Waldorf Journey. Her new podcast A Waldorf Journey Podcast is a resource for supporting teachers and homeschooling parents with their teaching.

Which Waldorf Curriculum Do I Buy?

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I have posted on this in the past, but feel the need to bring it up again since it has been a little while since I last wrote on it and it is that time of year when people are looking for resources and asking about which Waldorf curriculum they should buy.  Some people have asked what I use personally.  I have box (es) of materials for each grade  ( grades 1-9 so far plus Early Years) because I make up my own curriculum for each grade for each child.  If you came to my house and looked through my boxes, you would see I own pieces of most major Waldorf curriculum providers for each grade ( at least for grade 5 and under; the pickings get more and more slim for grades 6 and up and for high school there is not much at all) and many of the resources from Rudolf Steiner College bookstore that Waldorf teachers use.  I am reluctant to “recommend” anything because I find it to be such a completely subjective experience – what I love and what works for me and my family absolutely may not work for you.  So I really refrain from giving recommendations, but I have in the past mentioned pieces that were helpful to me in particular blocks for a particular grade for a particular child.  It changes year to year as I go through each grade three times because each child – and our family dynamics at each stage –  is quite different.

So, this is what I recommend when thinking about Waldorf curriculum in general:

Look at the curriculum writer’s experience – do they have background in anthroposophy, the educational lectures of Steiner AND do they have background in homeschooling and teaching?  Have they gone through Foundation Studies or Teacher Training or both?  (This is a plus, I think, even in the homeschool environment).  Have they attended workshops to further their own understanding and also to be tied into the larger Waldorf educational community?  Have they worked with other children besides their own? (this is a huge plus!  Their child is not the same as your child!)   Have they homeschooled through all the grades, or just a few?  Do they have a big picture of where the curriculum is headed  or not (ie, high school!)?

Look at what  YOU need – do you need something to riff off of, so to speak, just to get started?  Do you need a full curriculum with lots and lots of ideas?  Do you need help implementing things practically in your home?  Do you need help with the artistic pieces?    Everyone asks for a completely comprehensive, organized by the minute Waldorf curriculum, and I understand the “want” for that in getting started due to fear or inexperience.  However, most of the curriculums written by experienced Waldorf homeschoolers/teachers will give suggestions that you  have to flesh out as Waldorf Education is an art.    And quite frankly,  at some point if you are going to stick with Waldorf homeschooling, you will be piecing things together. Commit to try and do something original for each grade, even if it is to just write a few poems and stories for first grade or some riddles for second grade or make up some stories, etc.  For sixth grade and up, I think you will be writing and piecing together an awful lot of your own things. Which leads to…

What are you willing to invest?  It takes time to develop your own skills in drawing, painting , and modeling.  It takes time to learn about things and the more complex subjects of the upper grades take time to flesh out and understand before you try to present it to your child.  So, what are you willing to invest in time and will the curriculum help guide you?

What are the goals for your family?  What are the dynamics for your children and family?  How will this curriculum assist in that?  Remember, homeschooling is about family and relationships first and foremost. And, when you talk to other people, they may or may not know what you need and what your family dynamics and rhythms are.  Know yourself and your family first!

Can you see the curriculum in real life?  It really helps to see what you are feeling drawn to if that is possible!  It helps you find what voice as an author reaches you and makes you feel empowered to homeschool.

Much love,
Carrie

 

 

 

 

Waldorf Homeschool Planning: Hands, Heart and Head

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It is that time of year in the Northern Hemisphere!  School here in the Deep South is ending this week for most of the public schools, and we are coming to a close fairly soon as well.  This year our oldest will be heading into homeschool high school in the fall, and we will also have sixth and first graders starting anew!  These  important transitions are all the more reason to get organized over the summer.  I find myself following essentially the same sorts of rhythms ever year and  it really seems to fall into a hands, heart, and head pattern:

Hands – I start packing up the books for each year into bins and start getting out the books for the upcoming grades ( I have so many books by grade that I essentially only keep the grades we are doing out and the seasonal books and the rest go into the garage).  I organize the bookshelves and the school room supplies and see what we need to purchase in terms of art supplies and science supplies.  I also see what might need to be made for the first grade stories for our littlest member.

Heart – I sit down with my planner and figure out approximate start and end times for the school year and vacations; how many weeks of school I think we will do (which is usually 34-36 to fit things in); and I remember  and remind myself “what” our family’s goals for education are; I go through my Pinterest boards for homeschooling planning and make note of things that stir my soul for this year; I observe where the children really are in all spheres of development.  Over the years, I have made so many of those “divide a piece of paper into 12 blocks” – where you  write down your festival days, in our case Feast Days of Saints, seasonal qualities for where we live – that I don’t really have to do that anymore, but I do go through my seasonal Pinterest boards and see what we might like to make or do or use to celebrate by month and write it down.

Head – This is the most time-consuming part.  This is where the rubber meets the road and I start to lay out blocks – what blocks will I teach, in what order, how long will the blocks be, what resources will I use (which could be a post in and of itself!), what will each block contain and I write it all up day by day.  This part will take me most of the summer, even having been through first grade twice before and sixth grade once before. I include not only the block work itself, but opening verses, poetry and movement and other notes.

I also think hard about the daily rhythm at this point.  How many teaching periods each day or per week can I reasonably handle and not feel crazy?  Where can I combine?  What do I need to let go of and what do we really, really need as a family to be happy together?   I am finding the older my first child becomes, things are shifting in my family.  All the family in the children have very different needs right now, and I have different needs than before as I approach the last half of my fortieth decade of life.

Lastly, I make a schedule for myself for summer planning.  When will I plan exactly?  That part is really important because the follow-through has to be there.

Would love to hear what you are planning for fall!

Blessings,

Carrie

Neurobiologic Differences in Children With AD/HD

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ADD/ADHD occurs in approximately 11 percent of all children, according to the CDC.  If  you are someone who is blessed to have a child or teenager who has challenges with attention and executive function, there are few things you might want to keep in mind.  Children with ADD/ADHD are NOT alike, and ADD/ADHD is considered, at this point, a complex neurobiological disorder by the medical community .  We say this because of these main medical findings:

Children with ADD/ADHD seem to have reduced cerebral blood flow to some parts in the front of the brain.  These areas typically control attention, impulsivity, sensitivity to rewards and punishments, emotions, and memory.

There is underactivity of specific neurotransmitters in the brain, specifically dopamine and norephinephrine.    This has been shown on PET scans.  There have been several genes linked to ADD/ADHD – two were dopamine receptor genes, along with a dopamine transporter gene.  Remember, dopamine plays a major role in regulating attention, concentration, movement, behavior, response to punishment and reward, learning, working memory, analysis of a task, problem solving, and long-term memory.

Some sections of the brain are smaller in children and teenagers with ADD/ADHD.  This review looks at the specific areas of the brain with volume reduction.

There is a lag in structural brain maturation of children with ADD/ADHD.  ADHD children may more match children 1-3 years younger, with the largest lags in structural maturation seen in older children in one study.

So, if you are parenting or teaching children who have attentional and executive function challenges, understanding these neurobiologic differences many assist you in developing a more cohesive strategy for helping your child.

The other thing to remember is that ADD/ADHD often occurs with other things,  including learning disabilities, Tourette’s Syndrome, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, substance abuse, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and executive functioning difficulties.  Sleep disturbances are also extremely common, along with challenges in transitions and changes in routine.  There are often multiple challenges to be addressed together in order to lead to success for the child or teen in school and in life.

Many blessings,
Carrie

Planning, Planning, Get Your Planning Here! Part Two

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Hello!  We are back today with Part Two regarding planning.  In our last post, we talked about planning the year out (and if you are in the early years, your work stops here after you plan a weekly and daily rhythm).  If you are in the grades, the seasonal changes of the year where you live is and your family culture are the foundation for your homeschooling, but now you add blocks of subjects in another layer.  As you are thinking about blocks, think about if you have multiple children of different ages in the grades.  My argument is that as a homeschooling family, the blocks from first through third grade (nine year change) could be done together, the blocks from ages 9 to 12 (sixth grade) could also be fluid, and then blocks for children after age 12 to age 16 could be combined in ways.

After laying out blocks in a flow for the year, including knowing how many blocks for each subject, estimate how long you think each block will take.  Then you can  start gathering resources for each subject.  There are some tried and true Waldorf resources available through Waldorf booksellers.  Be on the lookout for other resources, and ideas for music, art, movement, gardening and cooking.    Many mothers keep lists on Amazon, in a notebook, and on Pinterest for these types of resources.    There are many places, including Abe Books and Book Depository, to order resources from.  You may choose to order a curriculum, which you will need to sit down and read from start to finish.  Once you have read your resources, start compiling a general flow to your block.  How long is it working out to be? Is it like your original estimate?  You can go back and adjust your calendar.

When laying out blocks, I used to always hand write everything. Now I  usually hand write notes from a particular book or resource, and then use a computer  because what I need to present regarding history or science, for example, can be long and I can type faster than I can write.  I also need to compile not just a general flow but more of a presentation on a particular subject for middle school grades and that is often a separate file.  However,   for grades five and under I think you can plan things just by writing things on paper or index cards just fine.   Some mothers devise manila folders for each block or just a binder with plans in it.  If you plan on your computer, at some point, you need to print it out and memorize it, especially for the early grades!

When you are planning a block, it is important to remember that  parts of a block are review from the day before, but also PRACTICE.  How will you practice?  Do you have games, movement, songs, kinesthetic experiences?  The other piece is ARTISTIC.  You can gather  ideas and resources for art – drawing, painting, modeling – and try it yourself.  Try to create something yourself as well – don’t let everything be a canned image from Pinterest!  Leave  your samples in a folder.  You may have to sit down and draw or paint step by step with your child, but you will thank yourself that you tried it first!  Depending upon your grade, you may also think about things such as what read-aloud goes with a block, or songs, or handwork.  Will you put handwork, music, foreign language in with your block or before you start main lesson (Gasp!  Some homeschoolers don’t follow the head-heart- hands that the schools follow.  Some homeschoolers do not bring a foreign language at all either.  This is up to you.  Do NOT kill yourself trying to do it all.  Better to have the main lesson and a few essential areas  and a happy home life rather than trying to re-create a Waldorf School at home!)

 

Blessings on your homeschooling,

Carrie

Planning, Planning, Get Your Planning Here! Part One

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This is a post for my homeschooling mothers today…

Welcome to Planning!  Now is a great time to start thinking about your planning for fall if you are in the Northern Hemisphere.

Here are the steps:

Know your laws of your state and your country – at what age do you need to start reporting?  I see a lot of mothers of small children completely stressed out about “homeschooling” their five year old and their state reporting laws says they don’t have to report until the child is 8 years of age.  Know your laws!  How many days do you have to homeschool, how many hours a day, what subjects, is there testing or a portfolio?  If you are Waldorf homeschooling, you still need to have the sense of the bigger picture of homeschooling in your area.  You are a HOMESCHOOLER.

Take out a calendar.  What are your start and end dates?  Your vacation times?  How many days a week will you be homeschooling and how many weeks of the year?  Most homeschooling mothers plan anywhere from 32 to 36 weeks total.

While you are looking at that calendar, get out a big piece of paper and divide it so you have six squares on one side and six squares on the other.  Write one month of the year in each square.  What does each month bring up for you?  What is going on seasonally? If you are religious, what is going on in your religion each month?  Write it all down. Any favorite traditions, songs, verses, crafts, activities by month?  If you are looking for resources for some of these things, I recommend A Child’s Seasonal Treasury, Earthways, the Wynstones books by season, and any number of the seasonal books such as All Year Round, Celebrating Irish Festivals, etc.

When thinking about the year, also think about yourself.  What will you do to learn this year and further your knowledge?  When will this happen?  When will you take care of yourself – when are the dentist and doctor appointments, time to exercise, time to plan without the children – start thinking about these areas and use this little planted seed as you look at the year, the week and the day.  Self-care is not selfish! 

LOOK at the child in front of you.  Where are they developmentally?  Are they at a transition point?  Are they in their body?  What sort of life skills are they able to do and assist you with in the home?  Have they had prior school experience that they need to come off of?  How and what in the curriculum and in Steiner’s indications would BEST meet your child?  During the first few early grades this may actually be difficult to discern, but it gets easier the more experience you have in teaching.

If you are teaching the grades, what blocks are you teaching?  If you are teaching upper grades, how far and where did you leave off in history (grades 6-8)?  If you are teaching the early grades, do you know what blocks you are teaching?  You can try sources such as the AWNSA chart or curriculums, but know that you need to adapt things for your seasons, your geographic area and YOUR CHILD.   Jot down what blocks you think you will do and how many of that block.  For example, in first grade how many language arts blocks, how many math blocks, how many form drawing and math blocks? In the upper grades, how many blocks of history or physics?  Do the blocks “make sense’’” for you, what you can do, your home environment?  This is especially important in the upper grades to think about.  This step may really take some time and thought and you may have several (or more) revisions.  I think I have switched around what blocks I am going to do in eighth grade and their order about twenty-five times right now, but I think I finally have it!

And a quick paradoxical note on the Waldorf World – it is always said to look at your child, your geographic location and adjust the curriculum for your circumstances. However, if you go too far off course, people will argue it is “not Waldorf”.  Conversely, if  you just follow along the pages of a curriculum, then some will deem that “not Waldorf”.  I have seen homeschoolers do really weird things and deem it “Waldorf” when it absolutely is not related to Waldorf education at all!.  I have seen homeschoolers really need to adapt things for their child or family and are afraid to do so.  Again, I think this is an area you get much more comfortable with over time and with experience.   Not everyone has the opportunity to do a Foundation Studies course or teacher training or even workshops, but those can help.  Reading Steiner is a must.  You have to understand why, developmentally,  why you are doing what you are doing and then you can choose to tweak it with that understanding! If you are inexperienced and need direction, you can talk to a Waldorf consultant.  Please just make sure it is a someone who has experience in Waldorf education!  Hopefully that someone has also had teacher training or at least Foundation Studies and subsequent workshops, and has had experience in actually not only homeschooling but also in  teaching groups of children that are not their own children for a length of time!

Tomorrow we will talk about what to do once you have decided what blocks you are teaching.

Many blessings,
Carrie

Which Waldorf Curriculum Should I Buy?

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(Up to date as of 2/4/2017)

This topic comes up over and over again on Facebook groups, Yahoo Groups and in real life.  There is even a Facebook group devoted to sharing information about the different curriculums called “Waldorf Homeschool Curriculum Discussion”.

If you as a homeschooling mother have investigated Waldorf at all, then you probably realize that for the Early Years, under the age of 7, life and being home is the curriculum.  Play, meaningful work, rest, stories and songs and verses and being outside, along with seasonal activities IS the curriculum.   It is living and changing.  You don’t need to buy a curriculum for this, but if you feel you need verses, songs, or seasonal ideas, there are plenty of books, Pinterest boards and the like to demonstrate ideas.  You could also attend an open house if you have a Waldorf School near you and see a puppet show.  This is the time to develop your own skills, learn to be able to set a rhythm in your own home, and be a gentle leader in your own home if you plan to homeschool in the grades.  There is no “homeschooling” a four year or five year old in Waldorf!  You are living a beautiful life!  Life is the curriculum!

If you have investigated the Waldorf curriculum for the grades, you probably have seen there are certain subjects that Rudolf Steiner indicated as part of the development of the holistic human being by age, and there are some things built up in secondary pedagogy over these years as being done in certain grades.  You have to know enough to see how this curriculum can be adapted to your own unique geographical environment  (look at the manuals from the East African Waldorf teacher training curriculum and see how they adapt the curriculum for their country and continent) and most of all, to the unique child standing in front of you.  LOOK at the child right in front of you.  This is homeschooling, and homeschooling with Waldorf means you are a TEACHER.    It is not “child-led” but it is sensitive to the child based upon Rudolf Steiner’s view of development and how you, the teacher, brings it!

So this type of homeschooling takes work.    And that seems to scare many.   I  also feel many parents are interested in Waldorf Education because they perceive it as gentle (it is), child-led (it is not), nature-oriented (it is), easing into life in a more gentle way that is unhurried (it does, but then the other grades become VERY rigorous indeed).  The early years of play silks and wooden toys don’t last forever and wooden toys do not an early Waldorf childhood experience make.  Waldorf Education is about protection of the child, but it is also about bringing things at the right time developmentally and that does mean the world opens up, especially after the age of twelve.

The curriculums currently on the market (and this is just a list; I am not endorsing any particular curriculum since different things work for different families)  include Celebrate the Rhythm of Life Living Curriculum Program,  Live Education, Waldorf Essentials, Earthschooling, individual offerings from Rick and Jennifer Tan at Syrendell and Marsha Johnson at her Yahoo Group waldorfhomeeducators@yahoogroups.com and her on-line store The Magic of Waldorf, and  Christopherus Homeschool Resources, Inc.   I am not really including  Enki and Oak Meadow as they were written by former Waldorf teachers; Enki is closest to Waldorf pedagogy out of the two, but each are there own distinct programs with their own scope and sequence.  So these are more “Waldorf-inspired”. Little Acorn Learning is aligned with Lifeways of North America, and is nature-based.  There are several websites with free information, including Waldorf Inspirations.  Jean Miller’s website Waldorf-Inspired Learning and  Meredith over at A Waldorf Journey have some products available depending upon block/topic. Also, please do not forget the myriad of resources available to Waldorf teachers that are also available to you through booksellers such as Rudolf Steiner College Bookstore or Waldorf Books.  There may be other resources I missed or didn’t include, but I think these represent the majority of the curriculums that are out there that cover grades 1-8 in some capacity.

If you are not piecing together your own curriculum, (which I recommend you try to do, especially in the early grades when it is easier and you can get the hang of it), then you will have to sort through all of these options.  Most mothers I talk to say they would love to have enough money to purchase more than one curriculum because each one has its gems, its loveliness, and they like to combine pieces and resources.  In the upper grades, where there is much less in the way of curriculum to pick from, you will have to do this anyway.

If you want to see my criteria regarding choosing curriculum, I suggest you look at this back post.  You can also look at this post about how to learn more about Waldorf Education and the suggestions there.    Look carefully at the credentials of the people writing the curriculum and how much they have extensively worked with children in real life . If you are writing a “Waldorf” curriculum and using that word – where is your training, Foundation Studies, workshops that helped train you in this method?  I think all of these things combined make a “curriculum” worth looking at.

Blessings,
Carrie

“I Have a Four Year Old and A 20 Month Old and I Just Found Waldorf….Now What Do I Do?”

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This question, or a variation of this, comes up on all the Waldorf Facebook groups frequently. It is a not a bad question, of course,  but also a challenging one for a “sound byte” medium such as Facebook because it deserves a full answer as to what the essence of Waldorf homeschooling is really about.  Waldorf homeschooling is really about much more than the outer aspects of Waldorf that are touted on some of these groups, because it is the “inner” Waldorf life that really creates Waldorf homeschooling.

So, I am writing today to give some direction to those with small children who have just discovered Waldorf Education and are not sure where to go beyond the outer trappings of “stuff”.

I think the first aspect is to realize that Waldorf Education in the home first and foremost deals with a basis of attachment between parent and child.  This is the basis of homeschooling in general, and Waldorf homeschooling is no exception.  Therefore, you will need to be able to sort through literature about Waldorf Education and look at it through the lens of the home and family.  I suggest beginning by reading some of the articles from the Gateways Journal through the Waldorf Library.  The Gateways Journal deals with the Early Years child, mainly within a school setting, but much of it is also about development of the Early Years child in general and is therefore very valuable to the homeschooling parent.

Secondly, Waldorf Education is about developmental and holistic education based upon Rudolf Steiner’s pedagogical view of the child.  It would serve one well to delve deeper into this area so one knows whether Waldorf Education matches up to what one really believes. The first seven years are about a Continue reading →