lower school
As children begin their Waldorf journey, they explore basic academic concepts like addition and reading through storytelling, painting and music. Their days are filled with reenactments of history, creation of music and other hands-on activities that help them understand each concept – not memorize it.
First Grade
These children enter the grades surrounded by beauty and immersed in wonder, music, and movement. Each learns letters as forms and sounds drawn from story. Writing evolves from painting and drawing, and reading grows out of the words the students write. Through imaginative and tactile means, students are introduced to the four processes of math. Fairy tales and nature stories awaken the child's interest in the world. Choral recitation and flute-playing are essential to the first-grade experience; students begin handwork and foreign language.
Second Grade
The Waldorf teacher stays with the class from first to second grade, and continues with them through all eight years whenever possible. This continuity of class and teacher allows for a learning community with a strong foundation. The second-grader meets a language arts curriculum rich with the contrasts between the lives of the saints and the foibles of the animals in Aesop's fables. Basic arithmetic operations are expanded and multiplication facts are learned through rhythm and movement. The children's artistic work includes painting, drawing, and modeling. Students learn to play the pentatonic lyre.
Third Grade
Physical growth accelerates during the transition period of the nine- to ten-year-old child, who is growing into a new awareness of self. The child's relation to the world changes; study now has a more realistic, practical character. Lessons include learning how different parts of life mutually support one another, as on a farm where students concretely experience working with animals and cultivated plants. Third-graders study shelter and house-building. All teaching is done through the teacher's spoken word and the child’s direct experience. Math becomes practical: measuring, cooking, telling time, and using money. Stories, which may parallel the children's own inner journeys, are heard, written, and illustrated. Students learn to play the diatonic flute or recorder.
Fourth Grade
Constantly in motion and seeking boundaries, the fourth-grader is met with a rich curriculum including a study of one's physical place on the earth, through local history and geography; the human relationship to the animal world, through zoology; and the work of good and evil, through Norse mythology. A critical step is introduced in math--the breaking of the whole--fractions--laying a foundation for higher math and abstract thinking skills. In music, the child's strengthening individuality allows each to hold his or her own in part-singing canons and rounds. Brain hemisphere integration is enhanced and listening skills honed when the entire class comes together as a string orchestra.
Fifth Grade
Students continue their rich experience with language and visual arts as they move from myth into history through study of ancient civilizations, from India through Greece. This study, brought through story, poetry, and song, stirs the child to a more intense experience of their own human-ness. Inquiry into U.S. geography and botany bring the child into a recognition of change and metamorphosis. Geometry is explored through free-hand rhythmic drawings. Decimal fractions continues their exploration of part and whole. Students begin woodworking which grows from their study of trees in botany.
