I’ve been reading and learning about the Waldorf philosophy of education, recently, and I totally feel like I’m home! I may not agree with all the finer points of anthroposophy, on which it’s based, but the intuitive, spiritual, fairy-land imaginative and simplicity of it feels so much like me. Plus I was able to find a very inexpensive guide for implementing a Waldorf homeschool. This one mom’s guide for the whole year is only around $22. I got the one for 1^st grade and went over it all, and it looks like so much fun, so wonderful, and delightful. The things I especially love about Waldorf are:

• Celebrating Festivals – this becomes a part of the homeschool, not something extra I have to do by myself.
• Natural Rhythms – watching and keeping balance among the natural rhythms of a day, week, month, season, year and lifetime.
• Simplicity – keeping life simple, caring for the home, using natural materials, homeschooling inexpensively, eating healthfully, etc.
• Nature Table – have a tray, corner or table with items we put on it from outside, to reflect what’s going on in nature that season. I want to start this immediately, I love it so much. The first week you put on it rocks & minerals which you’ve found from outdoors, the second week you add plants from outside, the third week you add something symbolizing animals (a feather, a nest, a playdough animal you’ve made), and the 4^th something symbolizing humans (a handmade craft, for instance). You leave it up for as long as you want, then clean it out and start again with a new month, or a new season, whatever. It’s a way of bringing nature indoors.
• Form Drawing – this looks so fascinating to me. Plus it will be an awesome way for any of my hesitant drawers to learn, slowly and easily, drawing techniques.
• Focus on Art – I really like the whole Waldorf way of learning which incorporates hand drawing and painting and sculpture to cement learning. We don’t do enough of this. I like how a beginning reader makes his own books to practice reading, doing the art for it and everything.
• Handwork and Music – I love how students spend time learning handwork skills (like knitting, embroidery, sewing, and later, woodworking, etc.) and learn to play the recorder and sing.
• Nature Walks – like Charlotte Mason, there is a focus on going outside and doing a nature walk every day.
• Story-telling – I love the focus on learning through imaginative stories, whether classic fairy tales or a teacher’s own made-up stories. The stories are awesome!
• History – even though the Waldorf method is not Christian, per se, yet third graders spend an entire year learning the Israelite history from the Bible and experiencing some of their culture, etc. I also like how many ancient cultures are studied, especially through their literature and myths, which will be so fun and fascinating.
• Blocks – I like the simplicity of scheduling subjects by unit study blocks, lasting 3-4 weeks each, then moving on to something completely different. This is the opposite of Charlotte Mason, where you do a lot of very different subjects each day, going from one short lesson to another. I much prefer this idea where you concentrate on one topic deeply for a period of time, and not much else (some elements are daily, such as music, handwork, form drawing, etc.) until the next block.

Plus, I’ve also noticed that I could be doing 3 grades at once, and all three kids will enjoy and get things from the others’ lessons. Justin (1st grade) will be especially interested in Shannon’s ancient Egypt studies, for example. I think I could either order our days so that I spend 30-60 minutes on each grade each day, or I could set aside one day for 1^st, 1 for 3^rd and 1 for 5^th, and on that day we’ll all do that grade’s work together (several days or a week’s worth of work in that one day). On the fourth day we’d catch up and do more group activities, such as recorder, handwork, form drawing, painting and other skills that they all need to learn.