2024 - 2025 Class 1 Skills Practice
Form Drawing: September 4 - December 18, 2024; Mondays at 12pm ET / 9am PT
Math: January 6 - June 6, 2025; Mondays at 12pm ET / 9am PT
Language Arts: Tuesdays at 1:30pm ET / 10:30am PT
Our Class 1 Skills Practice classes are live and interactive. These Skills classes meet once per week with the teacher. During these lessons, the teacher will provide instruction and practice following a Waldorf-inspired Form Drawing, Math, or Language Arts Skills Practice curriculum. Stories, movement, and artistic activities or working with manipulatives is a significant part of Class 1 Math or Language Arts Skills Practice.
Class 1 students will be assigned individual Form Drawing/Math or Language Arts homework to work on outside of class time. Students can expect to spend an average of 1 hour each week on individual homework outside of class time.
Form Drawing Skills Class
Form Drawing is a uniquely Waldorf subject. Very simply described, the children do their best to reproduce a line form demonstrated for them by the teacher. Forms progress through the year, from the straight and curved lines of the first lesson, through many combinations and variations of straight and curved lines, to the symmetrical forms of late First Grade. The first Main Lesson block in First Grade is dedicated to Form Drawing, but we will continue to practice our forms during this class time. We may also work to strengthen our hands with beeswax and clay modeling.
Form Drawing is an excellent way to start the year, as it lays the foundation for good posture, pencil grip, and paying attention to the teacher. Form Drawing leads the child gently into the capacity to work with two-dimensional space while finding and maintaining a standing, upright, physical balance. Eye-hand coordination and fine motor control are also key here. Each form drawing proceeds from the action in a story told by the teacher, and the children are encouraged to walk or run the form outside of class.
Class 1 Math Skills Class Topics
Becoming comfortable in counting up to and backward from 100
Writing numbers 1-24 from dictation.
Rhythmical and skip counting forward and backward by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, and 10s.
Roman numerals
Introduction to all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division)
Using manipulatives and demonstrating knowledge of the four number operations up to 20
Using tools such as manipulatives or drawings to model problems
Mental calculations using single digits in all four number operations
Solving mental math journeys
The number line
Math games and movement activities
Simple word stories to solve
Class 1 Language Arts Skills Class Topics
Upper- and lower-case letters and their sounds
Common word families with short vowels
Common consonant blends
Reading memorized text using phonemic awareness to track words
High frequency (sight) words
Phonics rules
Writing a phonetically accurate word and sentence
Basic syllabication
Grade level vocabulary
Simple sentence structure
Basic capitalization and punctuation
Main Lesson & Skills Classes Support Each Other
There are three math Main Lesson blocks for Class 1. These are taught as part of the Lotus & Ivy Main Lesson class. Both our Main Lesson class and our Math & Language Arts Skills Practice class, together, are part of the full Lotus & Ivy curriculum, which provides a comprehensive, whole-child, and rigorous education. We encourage students to enroll in our Math & Language Arts Skills Practice program, in addition to our Main Lesson classes, because it gives children a yearlong course in age-appropriate math and language arts topics in addition to the math and language Main Lessons.
Students do not need to be enrolled in Lotus & Ivy Main Lesson Class to enroll in Lotus & Ivy Form Drawing/Math or Language Arts Skills Practice; however, most students in the Math & Language Arts Skills Practice class are also in the Main Lesson class. If registering a la carte for Math & Language Arts Skills Practice, we recommend you follow the same Main Lesson block rotation at home.