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Girls in Grades Class learn about starting a fire from friction in a Nature Studies block.

While kindergarteners learn best when taught concretely through movement and example, children in the grade school years (ages 7 – 14) learn best when they are engaged imaginatively, artistically, and hands-on. Academics need to be presented in vivid, lively pictures through music and the arts, storytelling, and direct contact with the natural world, to bring all subjects alive.

A three-dimensional approach to teaching infuses all of the educational work in grade school. Movement to promote thinking on one’s feet, stories that touch the heart, and activities that kindle the imagination — these are the experiences that foster joy and love of learning in the grade school years.

Glacier Waldorf School is excited to launch its first grades class beginning fall 2007. It is a mixed 1st/2nd grade class. In Waldorf lower grades, subjects are introduced in imaginative, lively ways, through storytelling, watercolor painting, beeswax modeling, knitting, circle and singing games, jump rope, bean bag and string games, learning to play the flute, gardening, and imaginative outdoor play. Subjects are taught in 4-week blocks, where each subject is focused on intensely during the morning Main Lesson period.

The Waldorf grade school is unique in that the class stays with the same teacher for first through eighth grade, instilling a strong sense of community within the children. The unique relationship that develops between the class teacher and each child assures depth of understanding necessary for truly productive learning, and adds to the joy and stability of these formative years.

This middle childhood phase is the time for educating the “feeling intelligence,” as children grow toward their individuality. As they develop their intellects and academic skills, they also develop their inner world of feelings. Waldorf education engages students through feelings by introducing academic subjects through folk tales, legends and mythologies and other artistic mediums which result in an integrated approach of feeling, thinking and doing (willing) that meets the needs of the individual child at this imaginative age.

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The transition from Kindergarten to Grades is considered a very big one in Waldorf schools, and great care is taken to ensure that each child is developmentally ready to make it successfully. Waldorf views the child as passing through three developmental stages: early childhood (age 0-7), middle childhood (age 7-14) and adolescence (age 14-21). Unique to Waldorf education is the view that a child will not be rushed from one stage to another, but given the gift to fully complete each development stage.

One sign that a child is nearing the completion of the early childhood stage is the "change of teeth" process beginning. When a child starts to lose their baby teeth, this is one signal that their life forces being used during the early childhood stage to build up their body, are now beginning to be freed up to be used in other ways, such as embarking on the world of academics.

The change of teeth is only one of many things a Waldorf teacher is observing in each child to signal his or her readiness to move into first grade. There are other physical signs besides the loss of the baby teeth, as well as emotional, social, and large and small motor development skills. To understand more, talk to a teacher at Glacier Waldorf School.

Is our educational system contributing to attentional and learning difficulties in our children?

Dr. Susan Johnson, MD, FAAP, a Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrician, writes her opinion on teaching children how to read and write before first grade.

I have great concerns about teaching preschool and kindergarten children to read and write. Developmentally and neurologically it doesn’t make sense. There is a developmental progression of sensory-motor skills that a young child needs to master in the first 7 years of life. Despite what we think, learning is not “all from our head”. It is the movements of our body in utero, through infancy and childhood, and even adulthood that form the neural pathways in our mind that we later use to read, write, spell, do math, and think in an imaginative and creative way. I see countless numbers of children in my practice who have been diagnosed with “ADD” or “learning disabilities” that miraculously improve when they are taken out of an “academic” kindergarten or given an extra year in a developmental kindergarten that emphasizes movement and the integration of their sensory-motor systems.
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Elementary and middle-school children learn through the guidance of a class teacher who stays with the class ideally for eight years.

The curriculum includes:

• English based on world literature, myths, and legends
• History that is chronological and inclusive of the world’s great civilizations
• Science that surveys nature, geography, astronomy, meteorology, physical and life sciences
• Mathematics that develops competence in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry
• foreign languages;
• physical education;
• organic gardening
• arts including music, painting, sculpture, drama, eurythmy, sketching
• handwork such as knitting, weaving, and woodworking