The ABCs of Waldorf Homeschooling
Waldorf education is so abundant and full it is impossible to sufficiently describe it in a 300-page book, much less in a blog post; however, these ABCs of Waldorf Homeschooling will provide newcomers with a good starting point from which to dive in deeper, and will provide inspiration to Waldorf homeschool veterans.
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A picture is worth a thousand words. Through main lesson books, Waldorf students learn to present his/her learning in beautiful and compelling ways to engage an audience thereby practicing effective presentation skills from a very young age. Textbooks and worksheets are rare.
Beeswax, block & stick crayons, wooden toys, & play silks. Waldorf materials are made of natural materials to awaken the imagination and to surround the child with warmth and beauty.
Careful consideration of screen time is important to Waldorf families because screen time that is passive and one-sided is cognitively harmful. Waldorf virtual classes must be live and collaborative, and the screen time limited, to foster meaningful connection between the teacher and students, real time interaction, and good use of technology. Making Waldorf available to every family with internet access is a wonderful thing!
Diversity is necessary for a complete education. Maya Angelou stated, “…in diversity, there is beauty and there is strength.” Twenty-first century Waldorf families are committed to diversifying the original Euro-centric and patriarchal stories in our main lessons. We consider racism and any form of discrimination to be unacceptable. We fundamentally reject any view which questions the equal value of every individual. We explicitly reject any racial doctrine attributed to or inferred from the ideas of Rudolf Steiner or any other person.
Experience the seasons and festivals with reverence. Waldorf schools incorporate special festivals, or holidays, which are integral to the rhythm of life and passing of the seasons. In celebrating seasonal holidays, the goal is to develop in the child (and adult) a sense of the rhythm of the seasons and the passage of time, and a sense that there is something bigger than herself. Our lives are seasonal as we go through ups and downs and it’s important for us to remember that seasons change, and time passes so we are never in a “down season” forever. Celebrating the rhythm of the year helps us to remember, and live out, this truth.
Follow a rhythm at home and in your school lessons. The Waldorf idea of rhythm refers to a repeated routine, whether it be daily, weekly, or yearly that mimics the natural rhythms of the body, like breathing in and breathing out. “Breathing in” activities include things that draw us inward, like rest and listening to a story or lesson. “Breathing out” activities include outward activities like playing, exercising, and helping with chores. The rhythm in and of itself enables children to participate successfully. Arranging the day so that it is a sequence of in-breaths and out-breaths is comforting to human beings, and when children know what to expect, they can relax, and you can see the peacefulness it brings to their body. We all know how it feels when a day is a-rhythmic, right?!? No one can learn in a stressful environment.
Geometry and math are brought to the students in a threefold approach.
1. Through rhythmic and mental math during the morning warm-up or circle time
2. Through daily practice similar to what we are used to in traditional schooling
3. And through math main lessons once, twice, or three times a year.
In Waldorf math, blind procedures are never given, rather students are led to discover math concepts for themselves. Arts and hands-on activities are consistently infused into the lessons.
Head, Heart, and Hands – the three components to every Waldorf lesson. When students have engaged their heads through cognitive stimulation, their heart through feelings, and their hands through artistic or creative expression, the learning is complete, meaningful, engaging, and it sticks!
Inner work is the consistent practice of the teacher or homeschool parent toward personal growth and well-being. Rudolf Steiner said, ”You will not be good teachers if you focus only on what you do and not upon who you are.” Lotus & Ivy teacher, Karen Smith, says, “The care with which an item is placed on a shelf, a door closed, or a chair moved is noticed and replicated by our young students.” Every action and reaction we make is teaching our children, even into adulthood.
Join a Facebook community like Waldorf-Inspired Virtual Classes: Lotus & Ivy for support.
Knitting is an artistic and mathematical medium. In the early years, knitting reinforces counting and pattern recognition. The counting and patterns grow in complexity as the child becomes more proficient. As an engineer, I noticed my daughter’s knitting instructions in 6th and 7th grade looked very much like the computer code I learned in engineering school! If you need more convincing as to why you should include knitting as a critical piece of your child’s homeschool curriculum, here is a wonderful article describing in more detail the brain work required during knitting.
Lotus & Ivy provides key elements of Waldorf education to English-speaking homeschoolers worldwide. We provide Main Lessons for K-8 and Complete Year Math, Spanish, German, Handwork, and Music in a live, interactive format for grades 1-8. For families who do not have access to a brick and mortar Waldorf school and desire instruction by a trained Waldorf teacher, Lotus & Ivy brings the teachers to your home.
Many hands make light work. This phrase refers to the meaningful work Waldorf students learn, as early as Kindergarten with Lotus & Ivy, so they can contribute to the family in helpful ways. For example, students learn to garden, cook, knit, make gifts like candles, gloves, and birdhouses — all of which help at home and give students lifelong skills and a feeling of pride, shared responsibility, and belonging.
Nature is the best classroom. On a recent trip out West, my family and I made stops at Yellowstone National Park, Carlsbad Caverns, Arches National Park, Grand Teton National Park, White Sands National Park, and The Grand Canyon. My head is spinning as I am writing this because I want to share so much incredible information here, but I’ll only share one cool fact and then let you explore these amazing places on your own. Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico is located in the middle of the desert. When it does rain there, it takes 8 months for the water to seep through the rock down 700 feet to reach the cave. Think about that for a minute… One of the best ways to enjoy nature is with loved ones or friends. Learning can occur in your backyard, at the neighborhood park, or at one of the 423 national park sites. Enjoy nature. Love nature. Respect nature. It is wonderous.
Optimal brain development occurs when both sides of the brain are working simultaneously. 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)
Practice, not perfection. One of the main tenets of Waldorf education is to educate the whole child, head, heart, and hands. The focus in on inspiring the child, not teaching them how to pass tests or make A’s. One of our Lotus & Ivy teachers said, “The stories throughout the curriculum are so rich and inspiring that the grammar, spelling lessons are just side effects.” Your children will be given many experiences to “practice” creating, learning, and discovering, and should never be pressured into fitting some synthetic standard of perfection.
Questions need not be answered before they are asked. “Experience before explanation” refers to the idea of performing a science experiment with the student, or letting them experience a phenomenon, without giving any facts or explanations for at least 24 hours. This gives the student an invaluable opportunity to absorb and ponder the phenomena and start to formulate ideas and questions independently. This philosophy is often called the phenomenological approach. So often in conventional science lessons, we give the explanation without giving the student time to fully process what they have observed and form questions for themselves. Sometimes students do not even get to experience the phenomena – it is solely presented lecture-style or as words on paper. Allowing the questions to form and live in the student is the root of critical and creative thinking, and is instrumental in developing deep thinkers.
Rudolf Steiner is credited with saying this quote, but it was actually Caroline von Heydebrand who said it. She was one of the first teachers whom Steiner trained in 1919 and she deserves the credit for this quote that gives Waldorf teachers a beautiful vision of education, “Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility — these three forces are the very nerve of education.”
“Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.” (CS Lewis) Storytelling is one of the most beloved facets of the Waldorf approach. Telling children a story in your own words is a warm, earnest, and engaging experience for the teacher/parent and child. In addition, storytelling has many cognitive benefits. Storytelling strengthens the students’ visualization capacity and their emotional engagement with the story, both of which contribute to greater retention and understanding. Their ability to create a picture in their “mind’s eye,” is an essential skill for creative thinking later in life.
Stories are an effective teaching method. Think back on stories from your childhood. Some of the greatest truths and lasting impacts came from stories we heard as children. Remember Dorothy? It turned out she always had the power within herself – she didn’t need a wizard.
There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. No matter what, go outdoors every day. (See Letter N above.) Let your kids get messy, Mama! It’s okay! Little ones making mud pies from fresh rainwater, while it’s still drizzling…there’s just nothing like it. The smell right before and after a rain. Yes! The feeling of cool red clay between your toes, oh, there’s just something organically wonderful about the minerally, naturalness of red clay. Allowing students to experience nature no matter the weater gives them more opportunities to experience the wonder and beauty of their world, a perspective they will carry into adulthood and throughout their lives.
Understanding of math and science is enhanced by the arts. After a decade of studying the human brain, scientists at the 2015 Learning and Brain conference in San Francisco were able to confirm that the arts:
· encourage joyful, active learning.
· help students make and express personal connections to content.
· help students understand and express abstract concepts.
· stimulate higher level thinking.
· connect students to authentic learning that matters to them.
· provide opportunities for all learners—even struggling learners—to be successful.
· develop feelings of self-efficacy.
· increase intrinsic motivation to learn.
· develop students’ abilities to apply learning to new situations and experiences.
· motivate students to engage more fully with the related subject area.
· extend how learners process and retain information because it combines several learning modalities (visual, aural, and kinesthetic) and thus reach a wider range of students.
· (focused on drama and storytelling) “strengthen students’ visualization of the text and their emotional engagement with it, both of which contribute to greater retention and understanding.”
· naturally involve several ways of processing information that may have positive effects on long-term memory.
Wow! That is some list of benefits!
Verses in Waldorf education help contribute to the rhythm of the day by marking the beginning and end of moments or tasks. They also consist of beautiful verbiage and are often poems. Research has shown that introducing poetry to children at earlier ages, and encouraging them to memorize it, has significant benefits. Not only will it help instill an intrinsic appreciation for rhythm and melody, but it will challenge the brain and train the brain to improve memory. Research has shown that memorization makes the brain stronger, more capable of critical thinking, and better able to focus. Poetry memorization helps with articulation and provides students with a more eloquent vocabulary. All these benefits will give the student an advantage as they progress through schooling and beyond.
Waldorf education is a developmentally appropriate, academically rigorous approach to education in which the arts and creative thinking play a major role in all subjects. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, that would be it.
Exams, tests, assessments, oh my! How do Waldorf students perform? Stanford study
You are Waldorf enough! What are you waiting for? We hear parents say they aren’t sure if they can homeschool using Waldorf methods because it’s just too perfect, too beautiful, too complicated, or because their children watch TV, play video games, or play with plastic toys. It is not about who you are as a parent or what your family does. It is about what you want for your children.
From Zeus to Zarathustra, ziggurat to zenith, zygote to zinc, zoology to zodiac, the zygomatic process, zigzag forms, and atmospheric zones, Waldorf education brings learning with imagination, stories, art and experience like no other educational approach.