Waldorf CurriculumIntroduction
A curriculum could be compared to the list of ingredients
for a recipe. However good the recipe, the quality of the ingredients is crucial
but to make a start the components also need to be available. When they are to
hand, the next question is whether the cook is skilled enough to combine and
adjust flavors so that each item plays its part without overwhelming the others.
An experienced cook may be able to substitute one ingredient for another, even
to improvise in such a way that something new is created. But we should not
forget that emotion, even love, goes into the preparation of food and this will
influence how it is received. And, of course, the expectations, health and
culinary experience of the diners also makes a difference.
A curriculum guides an entire learning process. It should not, like a dish into which a chef has thrown every possible taste, explode in an overwhelming, sensation-bursting blowout; it should bring to the table ingredients that are well- balanced, digestible and nutritious, that promote health and stimulate, not stupefy, the senses. Over time, as with diet, a curriculum can introduce items that may not be immediately appealing, stronger tastes or more subtle and complex ones: intellectual chillis, subjects initially sour or astringent, as well as flavors, textures and scents that help to educate the palate. A primary school curriculum, in particular, sets out ingredients for the hors d'oeuvres of lifelong learning. Of course, many school curriculums share common ingredients, but the distinctive qualities of the Steiner-Waldorf curriculum framework are, we believe, unique:
Course OutlineSophia Institute Waldorf Courses: The Art of Teaching Waldorf Grade 1
Lesson 1 / Waldorf Curriculum / Introduction Lesson 2 / Waldorf Curriculum / Grades 1 - 3 (Part 1) Lesson 3 / Waldorf Curriculum / Grades 1 - 3 (Part 2) Lesson 4 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Introduction Lesson 5 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Reading / Grade 1 Lesson 6 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Math / Grade 1 Lesson 7 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Chemistry / Introduction Lesson 8 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Physics / Introduction Lesson 9 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Life Sciences / Introduction Lesson 10 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Geography / Introduction Lesson 11 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Geography / Grades 1 - 8 Lesson 12 / Waldorf Methods / Sciences / Gardening and Sustainable Living |
Tasks and Assignments for Art of Teaching Waldorf Grade 1 /AoT112Please study and work with the study material provided for this lesson. Then please turn to the following tasks and assignments listed below.
1. Study the material provided and look up other resources as needed and appropriate. 2. Create examples of curriculum that addresses the learning method and content appropriate for grade 1. Curriculum examples should include outlines and goals, activities, circle/games, stories, and illustrations/drawings: Create 2 examples for grade 1. 3. Additionally submit comments and questions, if any. Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email. 
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Study Material for this Lesson
Gardening and Sustainable Living
Most children will not become farmers, many will not become gardeners, or even have gardens, but every morsel of food they put in their mouths has some relationship to farming. Every beverage they drink, the air they breathe, the water in our rivers has a direct and moral relationship to the farm and garden.
The foundations of this subject are laid in the early years when young children explore their immediate environment and learn to use some simple tools to dig, plant bulbs, etc. The tradition of having a 'season garden', or small display of natural items along with an indication of a seasonal festival, also adds to this.
Gardening gives young people a real understanding of nature because they gain experience through practical activity. Working and observing over several years, and reporting regularly on what has been learnt, they build up a feel for the way nature works and our human dependence upon it. Through their communal work in the school garden they gain a foundation for grounded judgement and responsibility. Gardening lessons as such begin in early puberty and can become a real educational help. Younger pupils, however, also interact with nature in a variety of ways and this should not be neglected. With puberty, a growing awareness of increasing independence manifests initially in considerable psychological irritability and lack of equanimity. The steadying rhythms of work on the land can be a great help at this age. The teacher becomes an expert who can show them the processes and complexities of nature. Strong links exist and can be brought to the attention of young people with lessons in geography and environmental studies.
Every school has different options for gardening, depending on local circumstances. The size, variety and arrangement of the school garden should be governed entirely by educational criteria.
Space permitting, the following facilities are ideal:
* Garden house with space for theoretical and practical work, especially in wet weather or in winter
* Tool shed: there must be several of each tool well maintained, properly stored and of suitable size
* Greenhouse with pricking out and potting facilities, and also cold-frames for early planting
* Tree nursery, herb garden, tree and bush fruit, flower beds, lawns
* Beds for annual vegetables, herbs and flowers for cutting
* Composting area
The gardening programme can culminate with a period of practical work in agriculture in Class 9 or 10, or with a forestry period in Class 10.
Getting to know and appreciate gardening skills and knowledge
Learning these skills can help the youngsters gain respect for the skills of others. They also learn to have confidence in their own skills and become better able to assess their own possibilities.
Earthly maturity (puberty): working with the earth is helpful
Gardening provides a degree of stability during this time of physical and psychological change. Meaningful work strengthens the limbs. Psychological qualities such as reverence, gratitude, endurance and wonder are awakened. The schooling of the senses and of causal thinking has positive consequences for the development of more subtle experiential capacities and also of the capacity to think clearly.
Laying the foundation for a practical sense of responsibility
This is best achieved by getting youngsters to care for domestic animals, but it is also experienced when they care for a plot of land for several years, improving the soil and learning how to make and use compost, or when they grow young plants and care for garden beds including harvesting their produce.
Harmony and peace are found through working in nature
The work can lead to a 'healthy tiredness' (especially in Classes 8 and 9). The beauty of the garden and the orderly interplay between natural things (plants, soil, animals, weather, sun, etc.), and also experiencing the regularity of the seasons, can lead to harmonising soul experiences in the long term.
There is a specific educational problem that can lead to widespread feelings of helplessness, especially amongst the young: the creeping destruction of nature. The threat hanging over everything often appears insurmountable, and at an age when they are strongly oriented towards their own future, young people often find their will paralysed by a fundamental feeling of resignation. This can be overcome through proper, caring work in the school garden, on a farm or during a practical period of forestry. The youngsters have a direct experience of how the situation in the garden, the farm or the forest makes direct demands on them and how their own personal efforts lead to the creation of 'new life: Through this it becomes a matter of course for them to want to help and share responsibility. A practical period working in agriculture is especially important in this connection for Class 9 or 10.
The suggested tasks for the different age groups are not a rigid list: the size of the school garden, its situation, soil, climate and other local factors influence how we can do gardening with the pupils, and suggestions about which new tasks to introduce at the different stages may be helpful. In keeping with real life, where necessary the older pupils should take on tasks they have already done when younger. This goes for all the routine gardening jobs such as weeding, which all pupils should be taught how to do.
Where possible the pupils can also learn about forestry and woodland work. One need not be in the country to do this: city parks offer a wide range of trees and hedgerow plants.
All suggested tasks are cumulative - that is, each year adds to the range of tasks, rather than replacing tasks from the year before.
Before Class 6
Depending upon the resources of the school, activities might include:
* Planting autumn bulbs, planting or training willow wands, etc
* Making and/or positioning bird feeders
* Taking part in a 'nuisance patrol', e.g. checking rabbit fencing, making scarecrows, or other devices to deter bird damage
* Harvesting, seed collecting, egg collecting, etc
* Assisting with the construction or turning of compost heaps
* Cultivating herbs, cutting and drying
* Sowing green manure crops, raking leaves for leaf mould, work on the comfrey patch, etc
* The role of worms, bees and birds, protecting hedgehogs and other common garden creatures (e.g. making bumble-bee nest boxes etc)
* Other occasional work of a suitable type craft work using natural materials
* Activities related to the broader curriculum, e.g. activities relevant to festivals, farming and related activities as a lesson theme in Class 3, project related to 'building', etc
Where tools are used, the correct use should be taught and children can be introduced to the idea of risk assessment and ensuring that practical tasks are conducted in a safe manner.
Class 6
Getting to know and carrying out basic practical activities such as:
Gardening
* Sieving soil and compost
* Preparing beds
* Cultivating and harvesting
* Hoeing, initially with the short hoe
* Mowing grass with the sickle
* Making bunches of flowers or herbs
* Weeding reasonably sized patches
Woodland work
* Seed collection and sowing
* Special composts
* Grading of seedlings
Simple 'ecology', the role of insects and other garden and woodland creatures, including "pests" and their relationship to plants and one another
Class 7
Gardening
* Growing crops that need more complicated care, pricking out seedlings, potting
* Making and spreading compost
* Mixing seeding and potting compost
* Knowledge of soil cultivation and digging
* Finding out the geological history of the ground underneath the garden
* Making new beds. Using garden line and drilling rake
* Harvesting and cleaning vegetables ready for market
* Marketing of garden produce and keeping accounts
* Harvesting herbs and herb teas and preparing them correctly
* Making advent wreaths
* Making straw or reed mats
Woodland work
* Tree planting
* Weeding and maintenance of seedlings and saplings
* Thinning out trees by felling
* Cutting firewood
* Greenwood work, hurdles, tool handles
The principle of rotation and soil, garden and other soil diseases and their effect on food production. Practical introduction to the place of selective breeding, hybrids, etc
Class 8
Gardening
* General gardening jobs that require skill, endurance and physical effort
* Mowing grass with the scythe. Haymaking
* Repairing tools and buildings
* Manufacturing foods from produce (pickles, chutney, herb salt, jams; using wax if bees are kept)
* The study of cultivated plants and the soils they need. Simple crop rotation sequences and their advantages/ disadvantages
Woodland work
* Establishing, maintaining and harvesting willow beds
* Coppicing hazel
* Charcoal burning
* Greenwood turning - poles for stools, chairs, ladders
Class 9
Class 9 usually has a longer gardening main -lesson. The pupils get to know about landscape gardening, building paths, steps and fences, ponds, water recycling projects.
* Propagation techniques are studied in theory and practice
* Caring for soft-fruit bushes, fruit trees and decorative shrubs, pruning
Class 10
The pupils learn the mysteries of grafting (as suggested by Steiner). This subject can be dealt with in great depth, which can leave little time for anything else. It depends how much time is available.
Classes 11 and 12
In the Upper School, environmental studies and ecology overlap with gardening in a far more explicit way, including examining some contemporary questions related to soil depletion, water conservation and drainage, GM crops, etc.
Depending on the school's resources there is much scope from practical environmental and landscaping projects, especially involving the timber cycle, with the preparation of timber for carpentry and joinery. Managing nature reserves, biotopes and ponds can even be done on a small scale. Here scientific observation plays an important role. All this can lead to individual project work of a practical, scientific or artistic nature.
The foundations of this subject are laid in the early years when young children explore their immediate environment and learn to use some simple tools to dig, plant bulbs, etc. The tradition of having a 'season garden', or small display of natural items along with an indication of a seasonal festival, also adds to this.
Gardening gives young people a real understanding of nature because they gain experience through practical activity. Working and observing over several years, and reporting regularly on what has been learnt, they build up a feel for the way nature works and our human dependence upon it. Through their communal work in the school garden they gain a foundation for grounded judgement and responsibility. Gardening lessons as such begin in early puberty and can become a real educational help. Younger pupils, however, also interact with nature in a variety of ways and this should not be neglected. With puberty, a growing awareness of increasing independence manifests initially in considerable psychological irritability and lack of equanimity. The steadying rhythms of work on the land can be a great help at this age. The teacher becomes an expert who can show them the processes and complexities of nature. Strong links exist and can be brought to the attention of young people with lessons in geography and environmental studies.
Every school has different options for gardening, depending on local circumstances. The size, variety and arrangement of the school garden should be governed entirely by educational criteria.
Space permitting, the following facilities are ideal:
* Garden house with space for theoretical and practical work, especially in wet weather or in winter
* Tool shed: there must be several of each tool well maintained, properly stored and of suitable size
* Greenhouse with pricking out and potting facilities, and also cold-frames for early planting
* Tree nursery, herb garden, tree and bush fruit, flower beds, lawns
* Beds for annual vegetables, herbs and flowers for cutting
* Composting area
The gardening programme can culminate with a period of practical work in agriculture in Class 9 or 10, or with a forestry period in Class 10.
Getting to know and appreciate gardening skills and knowledge
Learning these skills can help the youngsters gain respect for the skills of others. They also learn to have confidence in their own skills and become better able to assess their own possibilities.
Earthly maturity (puberty): working with the earth is helpful
Gardening provides a degree of stability during this time of physical and psychological change. Meaningful work strengthens the limbs. Psychological qualities such as reverence, gratitude, endurance and wonder are awakened. The schooling of the senses and of causal thinking has positive consequences for the development of more subtle experiential capacities and also of the capacity to think clearly.
Laying the foundation for a practical sense of responsibility
This is best achieved by getting youngsters to care for domestic animals, but it is also experienced when they care for a plot of land for several years, improving the soil and learning how to make and use compost, or when they grow young plants and care for garden beds including harvesting their produce.
Harmony and peace are found through working in nature
The work can lead to a 'healthy tiredness' (especially in Classes 8 and 9). The beauty of the garden and the orderly interplay between natural things (plants, soil, animals, weather, sun, etc.), and also experiencing the regularity of the seasons, can lead to harmonising soul experiences in the long term.
There is a specific educational problem that can lead to widespread feelings of helplessness, especially amongst the young: the creeping destruction of nature. The threat hanging over everything often appears insurmountable, and at an age when they are strongly oriented towards their own future, young people often find their will paralysed by a fundamental feeling of resignation. This can be overcome through proper, caring work in the school garden, on a farm or during a practical period of forestry. The youngsters have a direct experience of how the situation in the garden, the farm or the forest makes direct demands on them and how their own personal efforts lead to the creation of 'new life: Through this it becomes a matter of course for them to want to help and share responsibility. A practical period working in agriculture is especially important in this connection for Class 9 or 10.
The suggested tasks for the different age groups are not a rigid list: the size of the school garden, its situation, soil, climate and other local factors influence how we can do gardening with the pupils, and suggestions about which new tasks to introduce at the different stages may be helpful. In keeping with real life, where necessary the older pupils should take on tasks they have already done when younger. This goes for all the routine gardening jobs such as weeding, which all pupils should be taught how to do.
Where possible the pupils can also learn about forestry and woodland work. One need not be in the country to do this: city parks offer a wide range of trees and hedgerow plants.
All suggested tasks are cumulative - that is, each year adds to the range of tasks, rather than replacing tasks from the year before.
Before Class 6
Depending upon the resources of the school, activities might include:
* Planting autumn bulbs, planting or training willow wands, etc
* Making and/or positioning bird feeders
* Taking part in a 'nuisance patrol', e.g. checking rabbit fencing, making scarecrows, or other devices to deter bird damage
* Harvesting, seed collecting, egg collecting, etc
* Assisting with the construction or turning of compost heaps
* Cultivating herbs, cutting and drying
* Sowing green manure crops, raking leaves for leaf mould, work on the comfrey patch, etc
* The role of worms, bees and birds, protecting hedgehogs and other common garden creatures (e.g. making bumble-bee nest boxes etc)
* Other occasional work of a suitable type craft work using natural materials
* Activities related to the broader curriculum, e.g. activities relevant to festivals, farming and related activities as a lesson theme in Class 3, project related to 'building', etc
Where tools are used, the correct use should be taught and children can be introduced to the idea of risk assessment and ensuring that practical tasks are conducted in a safe manner.
Class 6
Getting to know and carrying out basic practical activities such as:
Gardening
* Sieving soil and compost
* Preparing beds
* Cultivating and harvesting
* Hoeing, initially with the short hoe
* Mowing grass with the sickle
* Making bunches of flowers or herbs
* Weeding reasonably sized patches
Woodland work
* Seed collection and sowing
* Special composts
* Grading of seedlings
Simple 'ecology', the role of insects and other garden and woodland creatures, including "pests" and their relationship to plants and one another
Class 7
Gardening
* Growing crops that need more complicated care, pricking out seedlings, potting
* Making and spreading compost
* Mixing seeding and potting compost
* Knowledge of soil cultivation and digging
* Finding out the geological history of the ground underneath the garden
* Making new beds. Using garden line and drilling rake
* Harvesting and cleaning vegetables ready for market
* Marketing of garden produce and keeping accounts
* Harvesting herbs and herb teas and preparing them correctly
* Making advent wreaths
* Making straw or reed mats
Woodland work
* Tree planting
* Weeding and maintenance of seedlings and saplings
* Thinning out trees by felling
* Cutting firewood
* Greenwood work, hurdles, tool handles
The principle of rotation and soil, garden and other soil diseases and their effect on food production. Practical introduction to the place of selective breeding, hybrids, etc
Class 8
Gardening
* General gardening jobs that require skill, endurance and physical effort
* Mowing grass with the scythe. Haymaking
* Repairing tools and buildings
* Manufacturing foods from produce (pickles, chutney, herb salt, jams; using wax if bees are kept)
* The study of cultivated plants and the soils they need. Simple crop rotation sequences and their advantages/ disadvantages
Woodland work
* Establishing, maintaining and harvesting willow beds
* Coppicing hazel
* Charcoal burning
* Greenwood turning - poles for stools, chairs, ladders
Class 9
Class 9 usually has a longer gardening main -lesson. The pupils get to know about landscape gardening, building paths, steps and fences, ponds, water recycling projects.
* Propagation techniques are studied in theory and practice
* Caring for soft-fruit bushes, fruit trees and decorative shrubs, pruning
Class 10
The pupils learn the mysteries of grafting (as suggested by Steiner). This subject can be dealt with in great depth, which can leave little time for anything else. It depends how much time is available.
Classes 11 and 12
In the Upper School, environmental studies and ecology overlap with gardening in a far more explicit way, including examining some contemporary questions related to soil depletion, water conservation and drainage, GM crops, etc.
Depending on the school's resources there is much scope from practical environmental and landscaping projects, especially involving the timber cycle, with the preparation of timber for carpentry and joinery. Managing nature reserves, biotopes and ponds can even be done on a small scale. Here scientific observation plays an important role. All this can lead to individual project work of a practical, scientific or artistic nature.