Lower Grades
a strong foundation to begin their educational journey
Our lower school grades curriculum supports the young child in their rapid development, incorporating academics, the arts, movement, nature, and more to provide a well-rounded, inspired education.
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The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility; these are the very nerve of education.
Rudolf Steiner
Overview
The heart of the elementary school is the strong and caring relationship between the students and their teacher. The teacher remains with the class for several years and many teachers loop first-fourth and fifth-eighth. This long-term relationship fosters the development of strong, loving bonds between the teacher and the children, and as the class moves together through the years, they become like a family to one another.
The Waldorf curriculum is based on an understanding of child development, and as the child’s needs evolve, the curriculum meets their changing academic, emotional, and social needs. We strive to include a diversity of stories and viewpoints from cultures from around the world, helping the students to build positive relationships with and respect for diverse beliefs, cultures, and ways of seeing the world.
Every day the teacher greets each child at the door for the beginning of the two-hour main lesson block. Each block, or unit of study, focuses on a particular topic for three to four weeks, allowing students to immerse themselves in the core content, exploring it in depth. After main lesson, academic and special subjects expand the students’ learning as they engage in language arts, math, Spanish, music, handwork, woodwork (in grades 5 – 8), games, watercolor painting, form drawing, and beeswax or clay modeling.
The children’s imaginations are inspired through story and artistic responses. The students listen intently as the teacher tells a story, creating their own inner images in their mind’s eye. These stories introduce high-level vocabulary and sentence structure while supporting the development of memory, focus, and empathy. The next day, the students review the story in an artistic way, through drama, drawing, or other means, and then engage in writing as well. This way of working with knowledge develops in the children an appreciation for beauty that will serve them throughout their lives while strengthening their capacity to think independently, to form conclusions, and to comprehend the world around them.
Lessons flow between inward, thoughtful work and physically active work as teachers carefully calibrate the balance of “head” activities with “heart” and “hands” activities. The children are outside several times each day, as a regular part of class activities, during Games class, and recess. Teachers deliberately
work with large and small motor activities designed to support each child’s physical integration, which is foundational to building smoothly myelinated pathways in the brain which in turn support academic success.
Our goal is to teach the whole child by awakening their ability to become an independent-thinking, compassionate, and resilient human being who is empowered to do good in the world.
Grade 1 - We Are One Whole Class: Becoming and Belonging
Overview
The second grade child is still filled with innocence while also feeling ready to test boundaries and become aware of the duality of human nature. The Golden Legends bring images of human beings who demonstrate our highest and best qualities, such as love and self-sacrifice, before the children, while the fables explore what happens when we indulge in our lower qualities, such as lying or judging others.
Lesson Blocks
As in first grade, the main lesson blocks alternate between language arts and math. Reading and spelling instruction is deepened with phonics rules that arise out of stories, verses, and images, and the children become increasingly capable of independent writing. Grammar is introduced at
the end of the year in a lively and humorous way which allows the children to experience the contrast between doing words (verbs), naming words (nouns), and describing words (adjectives).
Handwork, the Arts, Movement, and World Language
In form drawing, a subject unique to Waldorf schools, students explore straight and curved lines, learning to find their way in space on the page. In handwork, students make their own knitting needles, carefully shaping and waxing them with natural beeswax, and then they learn to knit. They engage artistically in painting, form drawing, and modeling with beeswax. They recite, sing, and learn to play the pentatonic flute. They learn Spanish and delight in movement throughout the day as well as during Games class.
Grade 2 - The Golden Legends and the Tricksters
Overview
The second grade child is still filled with innocence while also feeling ready to test boundaries and become aware of the duality of human nature. The Golden Legends bring images of human beings who demonstrate our highest and best qualities, such as love and self-sacrifice, before the children, while the fables explore what happens when we indulge in our lower qualities, such as lying or judging others.
Lesson Blocks
As in first grade, the main lesson blocks alternate between language arts and math. Reading and spelling instruction is deepened with phonics rules that arise out of stories, verses, and images, and the children become increasingly capable of independent writing. Grammar is introduced at
the end of the year in a lively and humorous way which allows the children to experience the contrast between doing words (verbs), naming words (nouns), and describing words (adjectives).
In mathematics, students work with more complicated operations with the four mathematical processes, learn place value, and learn to carry and to borrow through imaginative stories and daily practice. We teach the multiplication and division tables through rhythmic counting, clapping, stepping and whole-body movements, practicing in many different ways to learn the tables by heart.
Handwork, the Arts, Movement, and World Language
In form drawing, students explore running forms and learn to balance and reflect them on the horizontal and vertical planes. In handwork, students continue to develop their knitting skills and build on what they know, learning to follow simple patterns. As in first grade, students engage artistically in painting, form drawing, and modeling with beeswax. Music continues with singing and playing more complex pieces of music on the pentatonic flute. The second graders present a class play, and Spanish and games continue and expand to meet the needs of the children.
Grade 3 - Awakening to Self and Surroundings
Overview
At around nine years of age, the brain undergoes a great change, and this change is reflected in the children’s emotional life. They become more independent and curious about the world, while simultaneously often experiencing a sense of separation from their surroundings, suddenly understanding that they are no longer a part of the whole, but a singular, individual, one. This sense of separation can lead to feelings of loneliness and self-doubt. Creation stories from cultures around the world, including Hebrew and Indigenous cultures, reflect back to the child this experience of growing self-awareness as the children experience a “fall from grace” of the early childhood years and face the reality of living here on the Earth.
We support this emotional change through the stories we tell and through many practical activities including studying farming from many cultures, shelters from around the world, and weekly cooking classes. These experiences help the child to realize their own self-efficacy and agency, and they realize that they truly can live here and learn to care for themselves and others.
Lesson Blocks
Main lesson blocks expand beyond language arts and math and include practical studies such as farming, fibers and shelters. The children delight in their exploration of the interrelationships of animal, plant, and human life, planting seeds and harvesting vegetables, preparing foods in their weekly cooking class, learning to card, spin, and weave wool, and experiencing the cycles of nature. They hear stories of Indigenous peoples as they study shelters from many times and many places, giving students an understanding of human ingenuity in using tools and materials they find in the natural world. The children learn about the concept of time and various types of measurement through cooking and hands-on activities.
Handwork, the Arts, Movement, and World Language
In form drawing, students work with forms that balance across all four quadrants, reflecting their new capacity for complexity and seeing from more than one viewpoint at a time. In handwork, students create practical projects including crochet and weaving. As in first and second grades, students engage in various forms of painting, drawing, and modeling. They switch from the pentatonic to diatonic flute and learn to sing in rounds. They perform a longer class play than in second grade, engage in movement through Games, and continue with Spanish.
Grade 4 - Finding Our Place in the World
Overview
The stories of the fourth grade bring the key soul-pictures of the children’s development at this age before them. The stories reflect their struggles and questions now that they have come through the nine year change and become more aware of the surrounding world and their separation from it. This is the perfect moment to begin to introduce them to the wider world.
Lesson Blocks
The fourth grade curriculum supports the new level of children’s maturity. Beginning with their very own desk in their very own classroom, the children begin to explore the relationship between place, culture, and the individual human being through their own stories, stories of the native peoples whose place we live in, and the history of California. Balancing this, the stories of Norse and Finnish mythology explore the gifts and risks of free will. Natural science begins as an study which will expand throughout the grades with an imaginative and artistic exploration of the animal world in relation to the human being through painting, drawing, drama, and creative and expository writing.
Fourth graders now possess the solid academic skills needed to engage in more complex and independent projects. Language arts study includes more independent reading and writing, and the study of spelling and grammar continues. Now that the child has been through their own experience of division and separation, the mathematics study expands to learning to conceptualize and manipulate fractions.
Handwork, the Arts, Movement, and World Language
In form drawing, students learn to draw weaving designs and begin to play with shadow to create the perception of depth. Weaving and cross-stitch skills are taught in handwork classes. Students begin to play a stringed instrument and continue their instruction in music, Games, and Spanish.
Fine Arts
The lower grades curriculum includes a multitude of artistic activities that support the inner and academic development of each and every child. Form drawing is a special aspect specific to the lower grades, and includes drawing forms that encourage a sense of balance, spatial awareness, and symmetry. As well, form drawing sets the foundation for cursive handwriting, and eventually leads into the geometry curriculum found in the upper grades. Watercolor painting is an important aspect of the Waldorf art curriculum, and students regularly draw with crayons and pencils, and often model with clay or beeswax with the guidance of their class teacher. Seasonal crafts and projects are worked on throughout the year, and subject classes often incorporate various artistic mediums to support their curriculum as well.