Unique Aspects of Our Grades Program

Class teachers accompany a class for several consecutive years and teach all core subjects. The close relationship that develops between the class teacher and students benefit the child's growing confidence and self-esteem.

Academic work each day in the grades begins with a 2-hour Main Lesson that addresses core subjects in great depth. Blocks last three to four weeks to provide time for students to fully digest and assimilate the material.

Rather than standardized textbooks, students create written and illustrated Main Lesson Books from their teachers' presentations and blackboard drawings. This creative process enables them to "own" their learning and allows the children to experience a subject on a far deeper, richer level than the intellectual one.

Between the ages 7 and 14 children learn most naturally through beauty. That's why stories and art are used as teaching vehicles. The stories chosen for language arts and history blocks match closely the developmental stage of the children. For example, stories of saints & heroes and fables appeal to the developing sense of right and wrong of second-graders.

Curriculum Overview

Primary Grades 1-3
Pictorial introduction to the alphabet, writing, reading, spelling, poetry, and drama. Folk and fairy tales, fables, legends, Old Testament stories.

Numbers, basic mathematical processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Nature stories, house building, and gardening.

Middle Grades 4-6
Writing, reading, spelling, grammar, poetry, and drama. Norse myths, history and stories of ancient civilizations. Review of the four mathematical processes, fractions, percentage, and geometry. Local and world geography, comparative zoology, botany, and elementary physics.

Upper Grades 7-8
Creative writing, reading, spelling, grammar, poetry, and drama. Medieval history, Renaissance, world exploration, American history, and biography. Mathematics, geography, physics, basic chemistry, astronomy, and physiology.

Special subjects also taught are handwork: knitting, crochet, sewing, cross-stitch, basic weaving, toymaking, and woodworking. Music: singing, pentatonic flute, recorder, string instruments, wind, brass, and percussion instruments. Foreign languages (varies by school): Spanish, French, Japanese and German. Art: watercolor painting, form drawing, beeswax and clay modeling, perspective drawing. Movement: eurythmy, gymnastics, group games.

Please contact us to
arrange a visit and to
discuss your interest in a
Waldorf grades program!