Elementary School
Classes 1 through 5
The curriculum of the elementary school is rich and diversified, offering humanities, mathematics, science, and the arts. Mastery of the traditional academic disciplines is interwoven with artistic and practical activities to provide a rich and varied educational experience for every student.
Each morning begins with the "Main Lesson," lasting for two hours and taught by the class teacher. During this uninterrupted time the class teacher leads the students in a rhythmic component of the lesson and then presents the current academic subject, which the children question and discuss. The teacher engages the students with a variety of approaches: scientific, literary, historical, and artistic. Each student creates a record of Main Lesson work in books that are filled with compositions, observations, maps, diagrams, and illustrations. These colorful Main Lesson books are carefully crafted with attention to detail and artistic presentation. They are a unique and vital element of Waldorf education.
A recess and shorter periods follow the Main Lesson, with subjects such as French, choral and instrumental music, handwork, woodwork, form-drawing, painting, movement education, eurythmy (form of movement), and gardening/farming. Thus, the rhythm of the day alternates between work that requires intellectual focus and physical activities that engage the body and hands.
The following is a brief summary of the language arts, mathematics,
and science curriculum presented in Main Lesson, class by class. Find
out more details by clicking on each class heading.
- Class 1: Fairy tales, folk tales and nature stories; pictorial introduction to letters; preparation for reading through writing; qualities of numbers; introduction of the four operations in arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division).
- Class 2: Legends and fables; stories of saints and heroes; continued work in writing, reading, and arithmetic; introduction of cursive writing.
- Class 3: Old Testament stories; composition and grammar; study of practical life (farming, housing, and clothing); time, weights, measures, and money in arithmetic.
- Class 4: Norse mythology and sagas; local geography and map-making; local history; study of the animal kingdom; fractions and decimal fractions.
- Class 5: Ancient history and mythology from India, Persia, and Egypt; Greek mythology and history; North American geography related to vegetation and agriculture; botany; decimals.
Physical Movement/Education
Classes 1 through 5 receive Movement Education as an essential component of their curriculum. Our goals and objectives are to develop:
- an understanding and a healthy approach to movement and exercise;
- an increased social awareness and responsibility (the ability to work and play with a group);
- an understanding of, as well as specific skills in relationship to, sport and games;
- a sense of growing strength, flexibility, and endurance through movement activities;
- the ability to listen to and follow instructions; and
- a movement program in harmony with physical development, bringing appropriate activities for each stage of development.
Recreation activities may include pentathlon training, circuit training, running, archery, skipping, cooperative games, skiing, and swimming. Supervised activities take place outdoors and in the gym at lunch break.
Eurythmy
Eurythmy as a subject is part of the Waldorf School curriculum from kindergarten through twelfth grade. It is an art of movement that has existed for almost ninety years. Eurythmy is not based on age-long experience, like music or painting; these arts are entirely integrated in our culture and for centuries they have become an everyday phenomenon. Eurythmy is still fully in development and has consequently remained a specific Waldorf School subject. Eurythmy requires that we become inwardly mobile. When we hear sounds, we are taken along into continuous change, from high to low, from soft to loud. We are also carried along on the course of a melody, in changes of melody and melodic moods, and in the subtleties of spoken language. In eurythmy, these changes and their related inner movements are made manifest by movements of the body. This is done both individually and in groups. The body becomes an instrument, making visible what otherwise is only audible, i.e., music/speech.
French as a Second Language
French is taught twice a week and begins in Class 1. In the early grades, children are immersed in the French language through songs, games, and stories. In the middle grades children learn conversational French through practice reading, short plays, and writing small skits, which they enjoy performing for their peers.