Waldorf Inspired Homeschooling

Nov 25
Hana

Homeschooling using the Waldorf pedagogy is a wonderful option for families, but sometimes, breaking down what the philosophy is and how to practically implement it can be challenging. These videos help break down what a main lesson is, how to do a block rotation, what daily work, how opening activities are used and more.

Daily Work

https://youtu.be/YRHM6SOcLJo

Daily work is the independent work I assign to my students to work quietly and without needing assistance. I usually have my students work on this when I need time to prepare other lessons or work with another student. I start daily work packets or binders around age 9 or 10 years.

I usually start with a single page or language arts or math worksheets. I use old workbooks, hand me down workbooks or worksheets I find online to put together the students’ daily work. Key to making this successful is that the work is 1-2 grade levels below their grade level so they may work independently. The purpose of daily work is to provide ‘busy work’ with a purpose. Sometimes we need our students occupied in quiet work. Daily work serves that need but also provides an opportunity for students to practice and eventually master math and language arts skills they previous learned. Mastery takes years, so if you’ve only just introduced and learned fractions in grade 4, you’re likely going to need a few years to master everything about fractions. Daily work provides that opportunity to become proficient at skills the student has learned but doesn’t know well. While the student is moving forward in new learning with lessons, she may practice those skill in their daily work.

Typically I only assign worksheets in language arts and math, but occasionally I add in other subjects. I begin by only assigning a single page of math and grammar which takes about 5-10 minutes, but as the students get older they are assigned up to 10 pages daily with work taking up to an hour by the time they are in high school.

Opening Activities

https://youtu.be/_9rSPRIX6zA

Opening activities are short varied activities you may do to start your homeschooling day. You may include things like playing a board game, practicing a musical instrument, doing some mental math, or reading a picture book. These short engaging activities serve many purposes, but be clear what your purpose is or you can get lost in the opening activities and before you know it, hours have past and your whole school day was opening activities! Not that it’s a bad thing! Sometimes we have spent our best hours deep in a game of Scrabble that should have been just a few turns before starting our main lesson. But instead of picking up our game the following day, we end up playing a riveting 2 hour game.

When children are young and easily engaged in imaginative or pretend play, very little is arguably better for their education, well being or developement. But if you must pull them away from from such nourishing activities, choosing something equally engaging or intriguing might be the ticket. Transition activities suitable for small or large groups may differ from those especially suitable for small groups or individual students. Sometimes simply reading aloud is enough to draw students to you. Other times I realize that if I prepare an activity and the students see me preparing materials they are curious and if I begin the activity (either to make a sample or work out project details), they are drawn to what I’m doing. Very little needs to be said to invite them into the learning space, they are naturally curious.

If you are looking for ways to include those beautiful flash cards or conversation starter cards, opening activities might be the right place. I use these kinds of cards sparingly and usually with older students from middle school and high school. Our most used set is the Harry Potter conversation card set, but there are many to choose from. One year, my daughter and I did a mother daughter journal where we wrote in the same journal with daily question prompts. Then we could read each other’s answers.

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If you have kinesthetic learners, you may find that working with clay, wax or putty keeps them engaged longer as you deliver a lesson. Creative project driven students may become engrossed by origami or suncatchers. Competitive students may love board games or math puzzles, but if your students are younger than 9 years old, or not into competitive games, you may opt for cooperative games like those from Peaceable Kingdom, or you may modify games to make them cooperative.

Handwork is another fabulous opening activity if the project is already under way. Working for 10-15 minutes daily makes a big project manageable and reduces fatigue. If your student is too young for knitting, they may like a knitting tower or lucet. These tools are easier for little fingers that are still developing their find motor skills. Form drawing is often included in the main lesson, but some creative form drawing may be just right for an opening activity, but be mindful not to tire your students with such a mentally engaging activity. If you try form drawing, you may need to get thick stick crayons. One of my favorite winter activities is dipping candles. But dipping candles is a timely and often messy activity. Instead, try rolling beeswax candles! They only take a few minutes, but you need to make sure your wax is warm enough to roll or it will crack. A hair dryer is enough to soften the wax. Don’t try the oven as I did! It will melt faster than you can close the oven door.

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Mental math, Mad Libs and pictures books are by far our most used opening activities. We do mental math daily, but that’s not an activity that’s going to to draw your students away from their engaging activities unless you have a student who loves math very much! But a math game might bring some into a learning space with interest and Mad Libs are not just great fun and humorous, but I think it’s the best, funniest, and most creative way to learn your parts of speech. My go to favorite has always been picture books. The variety of topics is unmatched, the illustrations are gorgeous and the learning is deep. You can learn about people, history, science, politics, grieving and more.

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The Waldorf Main Lesson Block

https://youtu.be/JdFHdg8FvQk

The Waldorf Main Lesson block is a block of time in which a subject is focused on. Generally the blocks last 3-6 weeks, but longer blocks are advised to break into two or three smaller blocks and separated by other blocks. The Main Lesson block rotation is not necessarily set according to the waldorf pedagogy, but some blocks are advised to come first in certain years depending on what the other blocks are for continuity and context. For instance a block on form drawing and introduction of the letters will come first before a grammar block on blending letters. Or a block on Ancient Greece will come before the block on Ancient Rome. For me, I rotate my blocks according to seasons. I learned this from a non-Waldorf homeschooler named Rachel DeMille. She did her history in the winter and science in the spring. I loved how she saw a natural rhythm in her family and adjusted her lessons to work with the seasons and the needs of the family.

I rotate my blocks by starting with or Language Arts and Math blocks in the fall, History in the winter and Science in the spring. We tend to do our handwork more regularly in the winter when we are reading aloud our history or novels. This block rotation works well for our family as I see my students more lively and eager to learn in the fall, and ready to take on more challenging learning. Then we all need a mental break and do more passive learning of listening and reading to stories of the past in history or literature. Even though our Southern California winters rarely get too cold, we do tend to slow down and naturally move inward as the days are shorter and cooler. By the time spring rolls around, we are eager to get out and get moving. We love doing our science main lesson blocks in the spring, or field trips, or more time outdoors. We often run out of time and end up carrying over a science block to the fall and end up starting the year with a leftover science block from the previous year.

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