Sophia Institute
  • Home
  • Info
    • About Rudolf Steiner
    • Blog
    • Enrollment
    • Faculty/Staff
    • FAQ
    • Feedback
    • History
    • Newsletter
    • Promotions
    • Support
    • Tuition Info
  • Courses
    • online Foundation Studies Program
    • online Waldorf Certificate Program
    • Local Facilitated Group Courses Program
    • Group Leader/Mentor Certification Program
    • online Biography Program
    • online Anthroposophy Courses
    • online Art Courses
    • Waldorf/Steiner Community Courses and Programs
    • Waldorf Teacher Training Individual Courses
    • Waldorf Teacher Training Art of Teaching Courses
  • Publications
    • Germans are Funny
    • A Maypole Dream
    • Holy Nights Journal
    • The Threefold Diary
    • Three Tales
    • Foundation Courses in Anthroposophy
    • Meditation and Initiation
    • The Ultimate Meeting Notebook
    • In The Garden
    • A Child's Seasonal Treasury
  • Contact

Sophia Institute online Art of Teaching Waldorf Program

Art of Teaching Waldorf Grade 4

Lesson 5

HELP

Waldorf Methods/Reading and Math

Introduction

Language is our most important means of mutual understanding and is therefore the primary medium of education. It is also a highly significant formative influence in the child’s psychological and spiritual development and its cultivation is central to the educational tasks of Steiner/Waldorf education. It is the aim of the curriculum to cultivate language skills and awareness in all subjects and teaching settings. Clearly the teaching of the mother tongue has a pivotal role within the whole education.

Mathematics in the Waldorf school is divided into stages. In the first stage, which covers the first five classes, mathematics is developed as an activity intimately connected to the life process of the child, and progresses from the internal towards the external. In the second stage, covering classes 6 to 8, the main emphasis is on the practical.

Course Outline

Sophia Institute Waldorf Courses: The Art of Teaching Waldorf Grade 4
Lesson 1 / Waldorf Curriculum / Introduction
Lesson 2 / Waldorf Curriculum / Grades 4 - 6 (Part 1)
Lesson 3 / Waldorf Curriculum / Grades 4 - 6 (Part 2)
Lesson 4 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Introduction
Lesson 5 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Reading / Grade 4
Lesson 6 / Waldorf Methods / Reading and Math / Math / Grade 4
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
Picture

    Submission Form for AoT45

    Compose or insert your completed assignments here
    Max file size: 20MB
Submit

Tasks and Assignments for Art of Teaching Waldorf Grade 4 /AoT45

Please study and work with the study material provided for this lesson. Use additional study material as wanted/needed. Then please turn to the following tasks and assignments listed below.

1. Create examples of curriculum that addresses the learning method and content appropriate for the grade 4 as follows, Curriculum examples should include outlines and goals, activities, circle/games, stories, and illustrations/drawings:
1.1. Create 2 examples that relate to "Speaking and Listening" for grade 4.
1.2. Create 2 examples that relate to "Narrative Content and Reading Material" for grade 4.
1.3. Create 2 examples that relate to "Grammar" for grade 4.
1.4. Create 2 examples that relate to "Writing and Reading" for grade 4.
2. Additionally submit comments and questions, if any.

Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email.

Study Material for this Lesson

English Language and Literature/Class 4

During the first three classes, literacy skills have  tended to be wholly integrated. From Class 4  onwards there is an increasing differentiation of  skills practice. As more time tends to be devoted  to literacy skills, it is important to maintain the  cultivation of spoken language through recitation  and speech exercises, reporting and describing,  discussing and listening.

​Speaking and Listening

During Class 3 the children gradually became  more detached from their wish to imagine their  surroundings through imaginative stories told by  their class teacher. Now, in Class 4, they turn much  more directly towards nature and the world as it  appears to external perception. As well as reciting  seasonal nature poems, they now also enjoy poems  that tell of human beings who are 'street-wise' or  even 'wise' in the loftier sense." Poems relating  to the main-lesson topics, such as the study of  animals, local geography and history are chosen  for recitation.

The main subject for the narrative content of the  main -lesson is legends, tales and songs from the  Icelandic epic The Edda. Speaking and stepping the  rhythms of alliterative poetry gives the children the  experience that speech carried on the breath can be  filled by the rhythm of a slower or faster heartbeat,  depending on the content. In speaking alliterative  poetry, the will element in speech is strengthened,  an experience which enables the children to bring  their feeling life into strong connection with their  breath and pulse, which has the effect of centering  them. The artistic element of the poetic imagery  prevents this from being a merely physical activity.  Being centered, the children can stand more firmly  in life and orientate themselves in relation to their  environment.

Narrative Content and Reading Material

Apart from these smaller selections from The  Edda, the legends of the Norse gods and heroes  provide the main story content in Class 4. After the  creation story of the Old Testament, the children  now enjoy the great creation images from the  Norse myths. Their initial question, 'which is true?'  is easy to answer. Both are true. Although a high mountain looks different depending on whether  you approach it from the south, north, east or west,  it remains the same mountain. Considerations like  this lay the foundations for a willingness to look at  things from several angles.

Should Norse myths be told in all Waldorf  schools, or just those within the Northern European  cultural orbit? The consensus appears to be yes,  but ... The myths of the Norse gods do appear to  have a universality to them whilst the legends of  the Heroes are much more related to the specific  folk soul and culture. Perhaps tales of 'local heroes'  would be more appropriate here. In the UK, the  story of Beowolf can be told or read in translation,  as can the stories contained in Harald's Saga, which  recalls the life of Harald Hardrada, a key figure in  the events of 1066. The historical background of  the Vikings can also be a theme appropriate in this  class.

Grammar

Among the many comments he made about how  the learning child relates to grammar, Steiner also  pointed to a link between grammar and the ego or  "I". In a talk on language given shortly before the  Waldorf School opened in Stuttgart, he said: 'By  entering consciously into the structure of language  one learns a great deal from the genius of language,'  and this, he said, was 'of the greatest importance: A  little further he then added: 'We owe to language  in particular much of what we have in our ego,  through which we feel we are a personality.'

When appropriate methods were used in the  classroom, he continued, the children's ego-feeling  is awakened in the right way.

If it is wrongly awakened it actually fans the  flames of egoism, but if you awaken it in the right way it fans the flames of the will ... for  selflessness and for living together with the  surrounding world.

Five years later, in a teachers' meeting on June  19,1924 he spoke of this again:

Working on language in connection with  grammar is related to ego-development ...  Not that you should ask how to develop the  ego from grammar; it is the grammar itself  that does that,"

When the children 'consciously live their way  into the structure of language', they become aware  of the great link that embraces all human beings  who share their language with them.

The basic structure of grammar is of course  common to all languages. Universal Grammar, or  generative grammar is, according to modern linguistic theory since Chomsky, innate and facilitates  language acquisition. Raised to consciousness,  grammar gives the child an archetypal experience  of relationships in the world, as they are expressed  by the different parts of speech.

The theme for Class 4 is tenses:

It is just this time that one endeavours to call  up in the children a clear idea of the tenses  and all that comes to expression by changing  the form of the verb ... A child must clearly  feel that she cannot say 'the man ran' when  she means 'the man has run '; ... that she  acquires a feeling for when to say 'the man  stood' and when to say' the man has stood' ...  Forming language plastically is what we  should practise in the mother tongue when  the child is about ten years old, a feeling for  the plastic formative quality of language.

In English the children need to become aware  of the qualities of the main tenses, past, present  and how the future is formed. The forms of modal  verbs and auxiliaries, to do, to be, to have, can, may,  etc., can be learned in connection with the tenses  as well as question forms and negatives.

In answer to a question about how to treat the  perfect tense in German, Steiner said:

I would pull out all the stops in discussing  with the children the parallel between the  past and the perfect. What is a perfect  human being, a perfect table? I would bring  out the connection between what is perfect  and finished and the perfect tense,"

In English it is clear that we must find equivalent  phenomena. The distinctions between the simple  past tense and present perfect or past perfect would  be examples. The formation of all the tenses, past,  present and future, should be taught, including the  use of simple and continuous forms.

Prepositions are words indicating direction.

Spatial relationship and locality are also themes  that belong in Class 4. Initially the literal spatial  relationships indicated by in, on, at, above, beyond,  etc. can be explored. These need to be physically  experienced in space and can be pictorially  represented, e.g. through a picture of workers in  a house, on the roof, at the corner, going into the  cellar etc. Other grammatical topics which can be  taken include the use of adverbial phrases of time,  place and manner, sentence structure and the  identification of the main clause. In punctuation  the use of question and exclamation marks can be  taught as well as the use of the comma.

Writing and Reading

Essay writing still chiefly involves recounting  accurately in writing what has been heard verbally.  Formal letters are also practised, e.g. writing to a  farmer, a baker, a jeweller about a possible visit to  their business premises by the class. The children  also learn to write with a fountain pen, perhaps  having first made and used a goose feather quill.

In spelling the children should be learning  groups of related words and learning common  but difficult words such as beautiful, experience,  create. They should also be taught to guess the  pronunciation and spelling of unfamiliar words.  The children are shown how to use a dictionary.

The children write accounts of the stories and  experiences they have had in school and in daily  life. They write descriptions of animals, scenes  from history, their impressions of local landscapes,  journeys they have made and so on. Specialised  vocabulary and terminology may be provided  by the teacher on the board. They may also copy  important texts such as sayings and quotations,  poems and the texts of songs. Dictation in a range  of modes remains an important tool for listening,  spelling and word recognition.

Class readers may be used but these are  supplemented by access to a wide range of literature  in the classroom and in the library.

Checklist for Literacy Skills in Classes 4 to 5

Most children of normal ability range will be able to: 

Speaking and listening 
4    Perform in a play and speak several lines  individually, increasing in length by the end  of Class 5 and be able to perform on stage  before the school community. 

Writing and reading
4    know how to use a dictionary 
4    write with an ink pen
4    write an accurate account of events or stories heard in class 4    write a formal letter 
4    know irregular plurals 
4    know more irregular families of spellings 
4    know remaining vowel and vowel/consonant  digraphs 
4    make a reasonable guess at unknown words in a text 
4/5    read confidently and independently 
5    read aloud fluently with awareness of  punctuation including direct speech 
5    take down a dictation on a known subject  with reasonable accuracy 
5    use a dictionary to find unfamiliar words for  both spelling and meaning 
5    use of common suffixes and prefixes

Grammar 
4    use the comma and exclamation and question  marks
5    use quotation marks in direct speech, colon  and semi-colon, and appropriate use of  paragraphs
5    know use and character of all major parts  of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,  prepositions (time and space), the articles,  conjunctions, interjections
5    use simple and continuous verb forms in all  tenses, including present perfect and forms  of the future, in questions and negatives and  active and passive moods

Additional Resources

Copyright by Sophia Institute