A Waldorf-inspired Kindergarten Year

With September just around the corner, I thought I'd dedicate a blog post to our first year of homeschooling with Kyla and Avery. I say Avery because even though she's attending preschool 2 days a week, if you ask her, she thinks she is being home schooled just like her big sister.

After spending endless hours on the computer, talking with other homeschooling moms, and reading through lots of different books, we have decided on combining the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling with Waldorf education. It's a big plus to be living in a town with such a wonderful Waldorf school. So, there is quite a network of other Waldorf and Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschoolers here in Charlottesville.

So, what does Waldorf Kindergarten look like?

First, the teacher engages in every day activities that children can imitate. Examples of this in our days would be cooking, baking, sweeping, mopping, cleaning, as well as painting, knitting and other crafts. Children learn via imitation. One key here is don't say it if you can do it. Show it instead of tell how it's done. In trying to show how to do things instead of telling my children, this is definitely an area that I need a lot of work in!

Children learn best through whole body activity, so another aspect of Waldorf ecducation is to give children worthwhile activities to imitate. Not by instruction, but by seeing an adult doing those jobs and the child joining in. They may choose to join in or not, but the option is there. And, having been doing this for quite awhile now, our children choose to join in about 90% of the time! Sometimes this can be difficult when we just want to simply get the job done quickly. But now with homeschooling around the corner, I see it even more as part of schooling. as well as part of simply living. So, if dinner takes 2 hours to prepare, but they are helping chop vegetables, measure flour, wash dishes or sweep the floor, then our afternoon has been spent in a healthy way and our kids have had opportunities to participate in useful and important tasks. I also adapt some of my work to the changing seasons and celebrations around the year (Harvest celebrations, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, spring and summer celebrations). This might involve a special adventure such as apple picking and coming home to peel the apples and bake apple pie, or it might be lighting our Advent candles in December as we anticipate celebrating the birth of Jesus on Christmas day.

So, in waldorf kindergartens the child is engaged in work, they play with open-ended creative toys, media exposure is kept to a minimum or none at all (more on this one later), children play dress up, and they also hear stories and participates in circle time. The arts are also a big emphasis of Waldorf education. In our homeschool, I tell the same fairy tale or Bible story every day for a solid week. Then we do a movement game or a fingerplay. For example, this week we are telling the story about the Sheep and the Pig. I get almost all of the stories from www.mainlesson.com for free. The emphasis here is on storytelling and not reading the story. Telling the story helps with their imagination as well as their listening skills. I'm going to have to work on this one, as it will take extra time on my part to really learn the story so I can tell it without having a "cheat sheet". :-) Our fingerplay this week is:
"Two little birds sitting on a wall, one named Peter, one named Paul...fly away Peter, fly away Paul...come back Peter, come back Paul." I remembered this one from kindergarten myself :-) After we have circle time, we do art based on the story of the week if we can.

I could continue to write about Waldorf and the Charlotte Mason Method. There's so much wonderful information out there. But instead, I want to show you what our general schedule is for the day. So, here are some links that have helped with our homeschool planning and explain a little more about Charlotte Mason and Waldorf:

Simply Charlotte Mason

Ambelside Online

Christopherus Homeschool Resources

Why Waldorf Works

Head, Heart, and Hands

So, in our home we are going to try to have our days named by activity. Monday is errand day, Tuesday is baking day, Wednesday is cleaning day, Thursday is painting day, and Friday is nature day. This is so much fun for our girls so far and really helps with the routine of things. Our girls often ask us, "What are we going to do today, Mommy?" and I say, "Well today is Tuesday and Tuesday is baking day. We are going to bake blueberry muffins together." This gives the days somewhat of predictability to the the girls and helps them make sense of the week and how it generally flows.

Here are is our schedule for the week. Avery is in preschool on T/TH so those days are going to look a bit different and it will be the time I do more 5-year old appropriate things with Kyla.

M/W/F

7:30 Breakfast. We sometimes light a candle (the girls love watching this) and we say our Bible verse for the week. Pete reads a Bible story from A child's book of character building or from the Bible.

7:50 Get dressed the girls dressed and ready for the day. Kyla dresses herself in clothes she laid out the night before.

8:15-10am- Morning walk. In our yard, around the neighborhood, to the park

10-10:20- Circle Time. Storytelling. Fingerplay games. Movement games.

10:20-11:00- Craft project based on story or the season.

11:00 Kyla helps with lunch preparation...usually fixing her own sandwich.

11:30 Lunch. We say a prayer, light a candle and eat.

12:00 clean up

12:30 Read aloud a book on the Ambelside and Waldorf list of books for Kindergartners.

1:00 Rest time for Kyla...nap for Avery

1:45 Kyla and I read a couple pages in her chapter book (Right now that's Little House on the Prairie) Then we read one page in either her Usborne book of Nature or Living Long Ago. Then we play some math games with dominos, counting seashells, etc. For example, today and yesterday the girls have been collecting cicada shells that are everywhere around here! They look gross to me, but the girls think they are fun and cool. So Kyla has been adding and subtracting these things. It wouldn't be my personal pick to do math with cicada shells, but she's having a grand time!

2:15/2:30 Avery is now awake with us and we usually have a protein and fruit or veggie for snack. Sunflower butter on banana is usually a big hit!

3:15 Outdoor play or visit with friends

4:30 Read aloud (A Poem of the week from A child's garden of verses and another favorite book)

4:45 Dinner preparation

5:30/6

6:30-7:30 Playtime with daddy. Clean up from dinner.

T/TH

Same as above except: After morning circle time Avery goes to school from 9-11:30. Here is our schedule while Avery is in school.

Tuesday:

Baking day! Bake bread, muffins or scones..or make a pot of soup when the weather gets colder!)

Reading (from Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons)

Writing letters (from Handwriting without Tears)

Thursday:

Painting day! (Wet on wet watercolor painting)

Math games

Nature walk and draw/color in nature journal what we just saw in nature that morning.

Just as a little side note: in Waldorf kindergartens they do not emphasize academics such as reading, writing and math before the age of 6 or 7. However, Kyla has been teaching herself how to read and is hungry to know more and the same goes for adding and subtracting by using objects. If she were not interested, I would probably wait until she was 6 to begin this, as they do in Waldorf, but since she is interested and loving it, we're doing it! :-)