Library Lady's Corner
Teenagers: Emerging Adults Part I June 23 2016
In the mighty arc of maturity that human beings must travel before achieving adulthood, we lag far behind all others in the animal kingdom. It is astonishing to watch the birth, for example, of a horse. The little colt tumbles out of the womb and within hours is cleaned and standing up, taking tentative steps with its newborn legs. Think in comparison of the months it takes for a baby to master the use of its arms and legs to practice.....The Truth About Age Twelve June 20 2016
The age of twelve is remarkable. As childhood comes to its end, the twelve-year-old can feel accomplishment and mastery of many skills in jump rope, running, reading, arithmetic, high jumping, memorization, writing, logic, and reasoning. Just as the sense of mastery peaks, the child’s body begins to change. Though the first changes are invisible, the child feels them with a growing sense of alarm at what the changes might be. Read More...Being Nine Years Old June 16 2016
The teacher knelt before the boy to explain how to cross the street carefully and to check to see if he felt uneasy about crossing without a teacher holding his hand. The boy’s mother was taking a job in the area and she wanted her children in a Waldorf school. The boy had come to visit the second grade that day. He had, up till then, been home schooled, and there was a question about whether or not the boy belonged in second grade or third grade because of his age—older than the youngest in the third grade and younger than the oldest in the second grade.
After the teacher had completed explaining carefully how to cross the street without a teacher helping him, the teacher asked, “Can you do that?.....
“What’s the Big Deal about Teeth in Waldorf Schools?” June 13 2016
First Grade Readiness and the Waldorf School Plan
A parent of a kindergartner asked a teacher this question one day, “What’s the big deal about teeth in a Waldorf school?” It’s a good question as Waldorf teachers take seriously the changing of teeth, from milk teeth, or “baby teeth,” to the new growth of adult or second teeth.
Deciding whether or not to declare a child ready to move from kindergarten to first grade is a weighty decision to make.
Change Your Mind – Observe! Science Kits and New Ideas June 02 2016
The science kits are themselves a lot like the science teaching done in Waldorf schools—or really like all teaching in Waldorf schools: filled with endless potential for opening minds to new ways to see things, think things, discover things. Our hope is that parents might also try these kits and experiment at home with their children and experience some of the fun of figuring things out from observations. Minds can change by simply trying an experiment and observing the results. Our motivation is that these science kits might be catalysts for insight.The Waldorf School and the End of Year Report May 27 2016
Assessment is a “hot topic” in the news and in educational debate. In Waldorf schools assessment takes many forms, none of which includes standardized testing.
During the year, concentrated “blocks” of study might include an end-of-block assessment. A block might be three or four weeks long and concentrate study on one topic. After a botany block in the fifth grade an outdoor “treasure” hunt to find, for example, a monocotyledon, a pistil, a tap root, a deciduous conifer branch, a dicotyledon, and so on, might be the "test.” Read More...
Three Timelines in the Education of a Youngster: Three Opportunities for Misunderstanding April 28 2016
Let us think peace and use the understanding of dissimilar timelines to weave collaboration and solutions instead of additional strife in an unsettled and unsettling world. Our children will thrive if we do.Stories for Upper Grade Students April 19 2016
At this time is becomes important to think of the child’s true and higher self. Misdemeanors or illegal actions must be dealt with quickly with appropriate consequences directed but without harshness or judgment. To remember who the child really is in his or her best character, understanding that these developing pre-teens are capable of many downright dumb experiments that instruct and pass away. To give the student the impression that he is condemned to a label of “bad” or “untrustworthy” is unbearable for one so young. This can engender bitterness or instincts of revenge or retaliation. Warmth and decisiveness and unwavering adherence to whatever the consequence is for a misdeed are important. Once the consequence is completed, the youngster should know that the burden of that misdeed is lifted and that the child’s goodness can again prevail. This may need to be repeated a number of time before the young person regains equilibrium.There’s Science and There’s Science! Part III April 15 2016
In Waldorf high schools, anatomy, physics, chemistry, geology, immunology, astronomy, personal health and physiology, and many other sciences are studied in earnest. Resonating in the hearts and minds of high students are the fading memories of the childhood that taught them how to be crackerjack observers. They love the Earth and feel connected to the Earth through their acute observations and explorations. Read More...There’s Science and There’s Science! Part II April 12 2016
One cardiologist whose daughter attended a Waldorf school noticed an eighth grader’s illustration of the human heart from anatomy lessons. The cardiologist commented that if the whole team of cardiology under her understood the workings of the heart as well as the Waldorf student who drew that picture, she would have the finest team in the country.There’s Science and There’s Science! Part 1 April 09 2016
Though it is hard to imagine for some how this could become science in the upper grades, this sense of awe when children are small, marveling at the many miracles to be seen in nature, lead to the opening of doors to the deeper mysteries of science. Without wonder and a sense of reverence, these doors are likely to remain closed.Why Waldorf Schools do Plays Every Year in Lower, Middle, and High School April 05 2016
Drama is the bridge from free play in early childhood to more organized play in elementary grades. Wearing a costume and feeling what it is like to be a character who is unlike oneself can change a human being’s whole perspective on life! Even professional actors have expressed their love of costumes and character development.Reading for the Love of Literature vs. Reading to Decode Part II March 28 2016
Enemies of good and joyful reading are fear and pressure, two almost consistently present elements in our approach to mainstream schooling these days. It takes great courage as a parent and a teacher to protect the child’s right to develop his or her reading skills at a pace suitable to that child, to let the reading arise on its own as we teach the stories and soundings that call them to it.Reading for the Love of Literature vs. Reading to Decode Part I March 24 2016
In other words, children learn language through sounding, playing with sounds and gathering words together in sounds. Without hearing the sounds, children cannot deeply comprehend their mother tongue.Reincarnation and the Irish March 03 2016
Did the Irish in the days before Patrick believe in reincarnation?
(It is never too early to prepare for St. Patrick’s Day!)
You bet they did! The Druids and the Irish that revered them believed so strongly in reincarnation that if one died in debt, no effort was made to settle account out of any wealth left behind the deceased: the debtor knew that he could catch up with the indebted on the other side! Read More...
Bedtime February 09 2016
There are children who love bedtime and go willingly. But more children love life, love the daytime and wish it could be longer! Bedtime for these children can often be a harangue that exhausts even the most robust parents!
Parents report over and again that once there is a rhythm that never varies, bedtime more and more takes care of itself. Mindfulness from parents around bedtime helps a lot. This is a sacrifice for parents to give up their own activities to shepherd children attentively at bed time.
February is Library Month! February 04 2016
This month we’re writing about the Library Lady and Libraries everywhere. The Library Lady is especially glad that the month for her work is featured in February. What better time than the coldest month of the year to curl up with a book and read the time away to spring?! Read More...Book Review: Solving the Riddle of the Child: the Art of the Child Study by Christof Wiechert January 25 2016
The very essence of Waldorf education lives in the Child Study. Observing the children is primary task of every Waldorf teacher. The entire curriculum should be formed out of this child observation practice and new organs of perception are developed from this practice. This is why Rudolf Steiner was so insistent about administration being done by those who are with the children every day, not by others who have nothing directly to do with teaching the children. The real revolution lives in this open secret of Waldorf education: that the observation of children is the heart of the curriculum… Read More...Music Instruction in Waldorf Schools January 22 2016
Once a child reaches first grade, the change of teeth tell the teachers that the child is ready to learn in a new way.An Advent Story for the Fourth Sunday in December December 26 2015
L’Ange Mauve
On the last Sunday before Christmas there is a great angel, draped in a violet cloak all tender and warm, who appears in heaven and hovers over all the earth. She carries in her hands a great lyre. She plays on that lyre a music, very sweet, and she sings a song very melodic and clear. But to be able to hear it you must have a silent and attentive heart.
She sings the great song of Peace, the song of the Infant of Christmas and of the Kingdom of God who comes to the earth. Many little angels accompany her, and they also sing and celebrate in heaven.
Then all the seeds which sleep in the Earth are awakened, and the Earth herself listens and weaves: the song of the angels tells each seed and the Earth that God does not forget and that one day each seed and the whole of the Earth will be made new in Paradise.
An Advent Story for the Third Sunday in December December 19 2015
On the third Sunday of Advent an angel all white and luminous descends to the earth. He holds in his right hand a sun beam that is marvelous to see. He goes to those in whose hearts the red Angel found true love, and he touches them with his radiant sun beam. Then that radiant light penetrates the hearts of those people and the angel fills them with light and warmth deep inside.
And these people’s eyes are illuminated by the sunlight - it flows down to their hands, their feet, and into their whole body. Even the poorest and the most humble among human beings are transformed and begin to resemble the angels, if they have a drop of pure love in their hearts.
But all the world does not see the angel of white. Only the angels see him, and those whose eyes are illuminated by that light of the angel. Those with that light in their eyes can also see the little baby who is born on Christmas in the manger.