Library Lady's Corner
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.
Waldorf Schools and the Darkest Time of the Year December 14 2015
In Waldorf schools, December with its disturbing weeks of the deepest darkness begins with the Winter Garden. The children experience darkness and the return of the light as each individual candle gets lit and the light fills the room with increasing brilliance. The picture of the light of each of us in community is a perfect one. Hope and confidence in the light’s return is expressed quite literally.The Winter Garden in Waldorf Schools December 01 2015
During the month of December, the days grow their darkest. In Waldorf schools, just after Thanksgiving, there is a celebration called the Winter Garden, or the Advent Garden. Advent means “To Come” and aside from this term used in some religious celebrations, it is meant to announce the coming of the light.Buy Nothing Day 2015! November 27 2015
Here at Waldorf Publications we have established an annual event on the day after Thanksgiving: a day in which we enjoy the warmth of the day-after-Thanksgiving with family and friends. We invite you to join us and buy nothing. To balance the energy pushed upon us by the commercial world and simply “Buy Nothing” we can all take a day to breathe out and prepare for the coming winter. We invite you to join us in this by being creative if you feel so drawn.Mom’s Choice GOLD Awards for two new books from Waldorf Publications!! November 19 2015
The Sun With Loving Light is an exquisite book, filled with songs, verses, poems, and stories perfect for early readers and for family reading time. Mom’s Choice Awards has recognized this book with a top-flight, GOLD award in the illustrated children’s book category.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part XII October 30 2015
The Waldorf student’s final year brings many inspiring, yet difficult questions to the surface. Many of these questions come at the level of the individual: what are my strengths and weaknesses and how do I work with them? Where do I go from here? Why might I choose a particular path or direction in the world, and how do I approach the many opportunities and challenges before me? The Waldorf twelfth grader feels at last his or her part as a citizen of the universe, eager to step into the world and to leave school behind.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part XI October 27 2015
In eleventh grade, the Waldorf students experience their thinking opening to its intellectual zenith. The sciences lead them to continued explorations into the world. New levels of questioning are possible and asking “why” is now in a matured and deepened way. The inquiries of the students show a yearning for the true meaning of things – the reasons and intentions behind a particular phenomenon, action or institution in order to understand comprehensively and to discern their relationship to it. Why are we a nation? Why do plants differentiate themselves? Why are there forces of good and evil at work in the world?The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part X October 23 2015
By grade ten the students’ have a turning to capacities for intellectual pursuits, and for self-knowledge, invite questions of evolution and transformation. Childhood fades completely and students begin to step up and out of the confines of their previous youthful modes of perceiving, through tensions and polarities, towards experiences of inner and outer balance. A process-orientation echoes through the tenth grade Waldorf curriculum in support of this delicate transition.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part IX October 20 2015
Entering high school often heralds an intense period of remarkable physical growth, inner struggle, and social development in a young person’s maturation – they are full of subjectivity, emotional energy, and willful activity. High school students are climbing to the peak of their intellectual capacity at about the time of graduation from high school. At the same time, students step towards greater intellectual capacities, and specifically the capacity to discern out of their own wisdom and sense of judgment. To meet the intensity of these inner developments, the ninth grade curriculum is rich and full of matching intensities found in the intriguing world around them.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part VIII October 16 2015
Eighth Grade represents an important milestone in the education of children as they complete their lower school experience with deepened exploration and exciting culminations. As part of the eighth year, the students turn a critical eye to modern history, examining important turning points from the zenith of world exploration to the struggles for freedom and independence in the French and American revolutions, to the history of industry. Biographies of famous leaders carry the students through time from Napoleon’s great conquests to the strength and ideals of the modern civil rights movement.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part VII October 09 2015
The grade seven curriculum is filled with the vitality needed to match the seventh graders’ remarkable growth at this time as well as their developing intellects. Social skills roller coast while artistic abilities flower. The Renaissance leads the way with the great artists as inspiration for these practicing artisans of early adolescence. Guided by their class teacher, and building on years of observation and appreciation for the gifts of the Earth, the students continue the quest of deepening their understanding of humanity, and its place in the natural world. On from the Renaissance, the students are led into the sciences to chemistry, mechanics, combustion, physiology, and astronomy.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part VI October 08 2015
As the Waldorf class enters grade six, they step towards a wakeful readiness to tackle more conceptual aspects of their studies, with the active imaginations and flexible, mobile thinking that Waldorf pedagogy and curriculum foster throughout the grades. This also holds true specifically for the children’s further exploration and relationship to the natural world. Sixth graders get to the bottom of things with explorations into geology, an expansive study of the mineral kingdom, often leading from minerals to metals, gems and crystals, and completing this spectrum of complexity with some of the roles and functions of mineral substances in the human body.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part V October 07 2015
The fifth grade curriculum builds rich tapestries of heroic myths, epic stories and the histories of ancient civilizations. But perhaps the most cherished centerpiece of the fifth grade experience takes place in the great outdoors: The Fifth Grade Olympiad. Based on the classic games of ancient Greece, the students prepare and participate in a pentathlon of javelin, discus, wrestling, long jump and running meets, often with other nearby Waldorf fifth grades. The games each bring distinct qualities to life – balance, beauty, precision, levity and gravity – in a celebration of these attributes, ever-present in human experience and in the natural world.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part IV October 06 2015
Strong, willful experiences meet the fourth grader as they work their way through the ninth-year change. In epic tales of an imaginary world unlike our own, the sense of wonder and amazement kindled in early grades finds dramatic representation in Norse mythology: the stories impart spirited depictions of supernatural beings, gods, giants, elves and their animal friends and foes. The stories of mythology and poetry provide stirring personifications of animals, which encourage an interest and care for them that is too frequently under-cultivated in society today.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part III October 05 2015
Among many other investigations, third grade addresses the question of how we live, survive, and thrive in relationship to the Earth. The children begin to experience story in connection to history, culture and tradition, as they hear stories from the Old Testament, from Native Americans and from other groups and cultures. Specifically, third grade offers many experiential explorations into how humanity works with and transforms nature to meet the needs of civilization. How did ancient peoples work and live with the land? How did they build their homes?The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools ~ Part II October 02 2015
In second grade, many nature-filled legends and fables take center stage, as the children grow into greater awareness of contrast and difference in the world around them. As a result, they are increasingly available for stories about human nature and ideals. Many stories emphasize the relationship and responsibility between human beings and the natural world, especially the animal kingdom.The Green Curriculum in Waldorf Schools October 01 2015
A Twelve Part Series
From Roots to Bloom
A few years ago on AWSNA’s “Green Pages” Sarah Hearn, Waldorf graduate from the New York City Rudolf Steiner School, with help from a class teacher or two, wrote a series of short articles on the many ways in which the curriculum in our schools connects a child to the Earth, awakens a devoted love of Nature and grows environmentalists who carry a passion for caring for the Earth and all its gifts. Sarah has agreed to have these little articles republished as a guest blogger here. She called her series “From Roots to Bloom,” to emphasize the growth in a human being as reflected in the plant kingdom.
As Michaelmas Approaches..... September 22 2015
Why Do Waldorf Schools Celebrate Michaelmas?
Excerpt from "Waldorf Journal Project #15 - Michaelmas"
Summer’s haze vanishes when the clear skies and crisp air of September arrive. This is the time we establish our rhythms for the year; in many respects it is more of a New Year than January 1. It is a time of separation and individualization. The cool, pristine air wakes us from our summer daze and our thinking becomes more precise. With the beginning of school, we send our young ones off with memories of our own education etched indelibly into our own personalities. It is a time when we naturally think back upon our own lives.