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December 2nd, 2024 | January 6th, 2025 | February 3rd, 2025 | March 3rd, 2025 | April 14th, 2025 | May 12th, 2025

2024- 2025 Class 7 Main Lesson

in order to begin Class 7 in the fall, the student must have turned 12 by May 1st of that year.

Our Class 7 size is 14 students, allowing the teacher to get to know each student and creating a school-family environment during class.

Development of the 13-year-old

The Seventh-Grade curriculum deeply and intentionally supports the 13-year-old’s development. Rudolf Steiner referred to the 13th year as the most important! It could be that he referred to this year as most important because this is the year when we see a little flame of individuality. It is perhaps a tiny flame, and we must protect it, not squash it.

The Seventh Grader is intensely curious. They enjoy intellectual banter, and they have the capacities to form judgements and imagine possibilities. They study perspective drawing and optics this year to help awaken in them a sense for seeing things from other “perspectives”.

Soul food for the Seventh Grader is stories of people who pushed away the old to get to the new. Traditional main lessons include The Renaissance, Reformation, and Age of Exploration, but these can be, and should be, broadened to include every culture. Science at the time of the Renaissance brings the same themes of pushing away the old to get to the new. Copernicus, while on a ship, asked himself, “What if the earth is the ship and the sun is the shore?” The Seventh Grader is capable of amazing discussions and a favorite topic for class discussions is Galileo being forced to recant when he says, “I’m not going to die for your stupidity.” Yet, sometimes in history, folks have found things worth dying for. Lotus & Ivy classes are live and interactive to provide our students with many opportunities for discussion with their peers.

Like explorers of old, the Seventh Grader is indeed sailing to waters of uncharted seas, and it important that we provide opportunities for adventure and bravery, celebrations akin to rites of passage, and community service opportunities to help them experience goodness, joy, and strength within themselves.

History & Geography

Class 7 continues to develop the student’s logical and deeper thinking. Class 7 students tend to like thinking “outside of the box”, and dealing with mysteries, complexities and possibilities. In history, students study the Renaissance, The Age of Exploration, and the Reformation. These times in human history mirror the student’s development and the beginnings of their healthy desire to explore new adventures further out into the world. Emphasis is put on the great contributions and influential thinkers of this era.

Geography covers Europe and Africa with a focus on geographical terminology, major landmarks, and culture.

Math

The Class 7 math main lesson is Introduction to Algebra where the student is challenged to deal with “unknowns”, which before now, might have been an intimidating task. During this main lesson, equations are simplified and evaluated, and formulas such as temperature conversion formulas, Gauss’s formula, Euclid’s perfect number formula, and Galileo’s Law of Falling Bodies make the word problems meaningful and rich in background story. We also introduce positive and negative numbers using all four operations. Formulas are never given blindly, rather, students are given time to explore and discover during math work. This allows the Class 7 students to get out of “the box” and explore their desire to think “out of the box”.

For a complete math curriculum, Lotus & Ivy recommends Class 7 Math Class, which meets two or three times a week (2 class options), in addition to the Main Lesson Classes, and provides a complete year math curriculum covering topics including ratios and proportions, irrational numbers, measurement, percentage increase and decrease, geometry, positive and negative numbers, and more.

Science

Science continues the study of Physics from Class 6. Chemistry I and Astronomy II are also studied this year. Students are immersed in hands-on phenomenological science demonstrations and experiments. They are allowed to experience the phenomena before an explanation is given so concepts are felt on a deeper level and do not remain abstract. Experiencing the phenomena before the teacher offers an explanation also forms the basis for critical thinking, allowing students to form questions themselves which is so powerful and makes the learning much more memorable. In Chemistry, we study topics such as combustion, acids & bases, the limestone cycle, and the nitrogen cycle. In Physics, we study mechanics, pressure, and simple machines, and we make working models of these machines. Physics and Chemistry lessons include weekly lab work and hands-on experimentation. Astronomy II explores the biographies of astronomers such as Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion are studied and students are led to discover planetary retrograde motion through precise scientific diagramming.

Language Arts

The Wish, Wonder, and Surprise Creative Writing block in Class 7 exposes the students to classic English Literature and poetry including limerick, diamante, haiku, sonnet and free verse. Arthur Conan Doyle and O’Henry are some of the authors studied. Grammar and spelling practice are incorporated into every main lesson as part of the morning warm-up, and composition is part of every main lesson block whether it be through essay-writing, research paper, paragraph writing, creative writing, journaling, or lab reports.

EXPECTATIONS

Our teachers send home assignments for the week for students to work on outside of class time. Class 7 students can expect to spend 3-5 hours outside of class time on assignments each week.

Our classes are recorded and can be watched later for students who miss a class. The recordings are not sold or shared with anyone outside of the class.

Complete Curriculum

Lotus & Ivy’s Main Lessons and homework, when completed, fulfill a complete year homeschool requirement for language arts, science, and social studies. For a complete math curriculum, we recommend Lotus & Ivy’s Math Classes. For more information about our Class 7 Math Classes, click here.

If you are looking for a comprehensive wholistic program, Lotus & Ivy offers Complement Classes in addition to our Main Lesson and Math Classes.

Students may enroll in Lotus & Ivy Main Lesson Classes, Math Classes, Language Arts Class, or Complement Classes or any combination of the three. Students may enroll in Lotus & Ivy Main Lesson Classes, Expanded Curriculum Classes, or Complement Classes or any combination of the three. Lotus & Ivy recommends that students take all three offerings for the most comprehensive experience, providing hands-on and experiential learning at its best.

SCREEN TIME: HARMFUL OR HEALTHY?

We have carefully considered screen time for all of our classes to ensure the screen time is interactive, not passive or one-sided. Our teachers, along with other health & education experts, have for many years encouraged parents to avoid screens for children because, when the screen time is one-sided, like with television and video games, it is harmful to the child’s brain. Live and interactive online classes make good use of technology and allow us to bring this whole-child education to a much larger audience by ensuring that screen time is two-sided and teachers may respond in real-time to the child.

COGNITIVE FOUNDATION

True to our curriculum, our classes provide plenty of opportunities for artistic and creative work.

According to an article published by the Waldorf Research Institute entitled Waldorf Education is Developmentally Appropriate – What Exactly Does this Mean?, “recent MRI equipment has illuminated the fact that in young children, artistic work, full body playing, and sensory stimulation all light up the whole brain. Focused academic work, on the other hand, only lights up small parts of the brain. That ‘lighting’ up points to the development of neurons, making the child’s brain replete with neurons which end up looking, at their best, like a gorgeous, mature tree crown. Once myelinated, these neurons communicate for clear thinking, flexible problem solving, executive function, and creativity.”  (https://www.waldorflibrary.org/articles/1249-waldorf-education-is-developmentally-appropriate-what-exactly-does-this-mean)