Book Review: The Invisible Boat and the Molten Dragon April 20 2018

One genuinely marvelous thing about this second book in Eric Mueller’s Invisible Boat series is the steady stream of pictures of how nature looks behind the curtain of beauty we see. The creatures and the palaces, and the gardens and the light, are all resplendent with imaginations that ring true and lift the heart with a feeling of what’s happening on this living Earth of ours!

These pictures are charming, sometimes breathtaking, and ofttimes startling. Through these images, we are drawn closer to the earth.

Book Review: Painting at School April 16 2018

Dick Bruin and Attie Lichthart have devoted their lives to painting and the teaching of painting. In their new book, Painting at School, they express a deep understanding of color and joyful devotion to painting and its value in the lives of individuals, especially in children.

Their original work, now almost twenty years in the world, Painting in Waldorf Schools, is still rich with insights about painting as soul food for children (and adults) and valuable in its suggestions about approaching painting lessons. The original book came with a CD of paintings.

Spring Cleaning and Clearance SALE! March 25 2018

Publications moved in January. Now you can help us settle in! Check out this juicy list of books on sale just for you!

Teaching History à la Waldorf - Part II March 14 2018

Part II: Grade Five through High School

With the introduction of this first glimpse of what could be called “real” history, the stories that preceded this moment have prepared the children to turn from mood and memory of where they came from to be born on earth, to interest in what this earth holds as its own stories, its history.  Their memory muscles have grown strong, and the eagerness to learn more has been cultivated by these stories. It’s in the fifth grade that the first “real” history comes with the tales of the Trojan War, the Peloponnesian wars, and the recorded work of Greek philosophers and mathematicians.

Teaching History á la Waldorf-Part I March 09 2018

History, or as it might be better to say, “Herstory,” is literally the story of the culture in which we live: his-story or her-story.
When a child is born there follows a long, demanding road to mastering the use of arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes, vocalizing sounds, moving around, crawling, standing, speaking, and understanding this remarkable world which the tiny human being has joined.
Part I: Birth through grade four — learning to think about history through pictures

Valentine's Day ~ an eye-opening day of lovers and appreciation! February 14 2018

Chocolates, flower, cards and candies fill the fourteenth of February every year. It’s a tradition that dates back to 270 A.D. and the life of Valentine. History from this long ago is hard to come by, and is veiled in legend and lore as well as enlightened with clear facts. Given it’s original date, it’s easy to understand that it is a combination of Roman and Christian traditions.

A Path Worth Treading - Encountering Nature and the Nature of Things February 13 2018

A Guest Blog from The Nature Institute

Here at the Nature Institute, we have conceived of a new year-long foundation course in Goethean science. For participants who attend the program and want to continue the work with further guidance, we plan to offer a second year with more individualized work which could be followed by a research fellowship.

Why a Class Play in Waldorf Schools? February 08 2018

For almost every grade in most Waldorf schools, there is a class play. This is an exciting event and means a great deal to everyone: the teachers, the students, the parents, the extended families of students. Interestingly enough, Rudolf Steiner never indicated that every year should have a class play! This is a tradition built in the ensuing decades of the last 100 years of Waldorf education. Doing plays is a happy tradition, but not a necessity in the curriculum!

Cross-Quarter Days and the 2nd of February February 02 2018

Long before Punxsutawney Phil became a celebrity groundhog, astronomers the world round knew this day as an important cross-quarter day in the cycle of the year. Cross-quarter days are those that fall precisely halfway between the solstices and the equinoxes.
There is an oxymoronic quality to the day: if it is bright, sunny, it bodes ill for a short winter, if it is a cloudy, lowery day, it means winter will end soon. This is a characteristic of cross-quarter days. 

Happy Groundhog Day or is it Candlemas? February 01 2018

In the mighty Celtic calendar, the year is marked by the two solstices and the two equinoxes. At the Winter Solstice, the days are the shortest of the year; at the Summer Solstice, the days are the longest of the year. At the Autumn Equinox and the Spring Equinox the days are exactly as long as the nights.

The days that mark the halfway mark between these four celestial events are traditionally named “cross-quarter days” as they are the between the quarters markers.

Saint Brigid's Day February 01 2018

Just before Groundhog Day (Candlemas in Christianity), on February 1, is Saint Brigid’s Day (also known as Bridie, Brigit, Brigitte, Biddy, Birdie).  This Irish saint was known for the feeding of the poor, tending to the sick and dying, and instilling hope in the hearts of the desperate.  She was beautiful by all accounts; a radiant, high, Irish beauty, who chose to give her life to God.

Season's Greetings from Waldorf Publications and the Research Institute for Waldorf Education December 22 2017

Hanukah is now complete, the Winter Solstice is upon us, and Christmas follows soon! All about the Light that balances the darkness and warms the world with Love.
All of us at the Research Institute for Waldorf Education (RIWE) and Waldorf Publications (WP) are filled with the lights of your work around the continent to bring Truth, Beauty, and Goodness to the young!  We are grateful for your friendship and following. We look forward to a New Year of promise and transformation with you, our Friends!  Thank you for your work, for your dedication to Waldorf Education, and to RIWE and WP!

Waldorf Publications — big Changes afoot! December 18 2017

Waldorf Publications is moving its operations to 351 FAIRVIEW AVENUE, unit 265, HUDSON, NEW YORK!!  Our phone number will be: 518-828-9999  This move will consolidate our three-site approach to date and we will, at last, all be in one location. Plus, our new neighbor will be the Rudolf Steiner Library, who moved into the former Walmart building two years ago.  We are part of a “rejuvenate abandoned box stores” effort on the part of two native Hudson sons who wanted to put life into the big space. We look forward to being a part of this!

Book Review - "Entry Points: A Guide to Rudolf Steiner's 'Study of Man'" December 08 2017

Entry Points: A Study Guide to Rudolf Steiner’s Study of Man
In 2003-2004, when eBooks were launched, before any test marketing or forethought, and eBook readers were “the new best thing” with Nooks and Kindles competing for the “best Christmas present of the year,” the word was that books were a thing of the past. Books were so “yesterday.” But books are holding steady.  Maybe it is because reading a book holds an 85% comprehension and retention rate while reading eBooks (any screens, really), comprehension drops to 34% on average.

November 28, 2017 November 28 2017

Keep the Research Institute for Waldorf Education, RIWE, in your good thoughts on Giving Tuesday!
Give a gift if you can but most importantly give us your good thoughts. Thoughts are as valuable as financial contributions!
Here at RIWE, the parent organization of Waldorf Publications, the work is quiet and steady to ensure that the world finds the highest caliber information about Waldorf education and its efficacy. The effort started in 1996 with an eye to North America, but since its inception, the world comes looking here when it needs to know what Waldorf schools do for the young and their families, and what Waldorf teachers need to do it.

Save 15 - 50% During the Holiday Sale! November 27 2017

Winter Festivities at Waldorf Publications begin Monday, November 27^th with a fantastic sale — the ONLY SALE this season.

Waldorf Publications is moving to Hudson, New York in December. We will be filling up a big, empty, box-store, joining the Rudolf Steiner Library (next door), and consolidating our operations, and saying good-bye to a retiring co-worker.

Now is the time to do your holiday gifting at Waldorf Publications! November 27^th  through December 10^th ONLY! 

Books for youngsters, teachers, colleagues, and parents all at a discount to make gift-giving season the very best for you (and to help us to lighten our moving load!)

Remember, this is our only sale for the Holiday Season.

Buy Nothing Day! November 24 2017

Join us for our 5^th annual BUY NOTHING DAY! Instead of Black Friday, make this relax at home Friday. Stay home with your family, be offline and create homemade potpourri, colorful yarn and twig decorations, or learn a song, (all instructions, lyrics, and ideas included here). Or snuggle in and read a story!

Balance the universe with quiet, loving, relationships at home with the people you cherish most on this (traditionally frantic) Friday.

Book Review: Towards the Deepening of Waldorf Education October 19 2017

In the 1980s and early 1990s, The Pedagogical Section Council of North America worked closely with the Pedagogical Section in Dornach, Switzerland, to develop a publication that gathered the esoteric material Rudolf Steiner gave to the Waldorf teachers in the first Waldorf school in his first training lectures and along the way at teachers’ meetings. The book was beautiful and lovingly compiled.  It had a linen hard cover with gold leafing for the title.

How Do Children Learn to Write and to Read? October 13 2017

Literacy has been made an urgent issue in the last decade. As parents and teachers, we worry, often deeply. Back in the 1900s, we didn’t worry so desperately. Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat, and T.V.’s “Sesame Street” were ever present to reassure us that ways were there for children to learn to read. Maybe these extrinsic tools for children to learn to read and copy writing laid the foundations for the worry — if these tools did not do the trick, perhaps there was something wrong with the child.

Book Review: Willibrord - A Wandering Saint in Dialog with His Friends October 02 2017

This new book by Frans Lutters, experienced Waldorf teacher from Holland, Willibrord, A Wandering Saint in Dialog with his Friends, holds great potential for teachers and parents looking for the right mood for story telling with seven and eight year olds.

Teachers and parents of second graders face the delicious challenge of filling eager young souls with rich ideas filled with ideals in a right way. In Waldorf schools, the teacher’s efforts of forming a class in grade one settles over the summer months and second graders arrive ready for good stories and new knowledge.

Book Review: The Dynamic Heart and Circulation September 13 2017

Edited by Craig Holdrege
Reviewed by Ronald Koetzsch

 

Most of us learned in high school biology that the human heart is a four-chambered mechanical pump. The size of a fist, it sends blood to the lungs to be oxygenated and then sends the returning oxygen-rich blood throughout the body in the roughly 60,000 miles of arteries, veins, and capillaries. Even considered only as a mechanical pump, the heart is amazing. The heart beats, without ceasing, about 72 times a minute, over 4,000 times in an hour, about 100,000 times in the course of a day, 365,000,000 times in a year, and about 24 billion times in the course of an average lifetime!

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Book Review: The Moon Prince and the Sea August 21 2017

Waldorf graduates like Daniela Rose Anderson often carry a global consciousness.  They often volunteer for service in unlikely places with the greatest needs. Daniela did such volunteering and came to know a boy named Sumit and a girl named Marina Both were very young and both had terminal leukemia. The heart of Daniela linked the two hearts of the children who shared the same illness from faraway places.Save

Book Review: Award Winning "Helping Children on Their Way" August 16 2017

Waldorf Publications is proud to be recognized by Mom’s Choice Awards with Helping Children on Their Way

Elizabeth Auer has assembled a remarkable group of educators to write about many aspects of supporting children in their different and varied “stuck places” along the road to a balanced development for life.

Book Review: Earth Science July 17 2017

By Hans-Ulrich Schmutz, PhD
Reviewed by Ronald Koetzsch

Many Waldorf parents and Waldorf teachers regret that they themselves did not receive a Waldorf education. But parts of the Waldorf curriculum can be studied and experienced at any age. Earth Science, by Hans-Ulrich Schmutz, although meant as a guide for Waldorf high school science teachers, gives any rueful adult the opportunity to work through the rich Waldorf earth science curriculum for grades nine through twelve.