Tag Archives: books

Waldorf Starter Kit

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This post is a part of Waldorf Wednesday. See all the links here.

The inspiration for this post comes out of the initial frustration and paralysis I felt when trying to choose resources that would help me to homeschool with Waldorf-inspired methods. This is my third year doing this, and I have found I return again and again to a very small set of resources. I have recommended them to homeschooling friends in real life. I have recommended them to people through this blog and also people who have emailed me privately. One or more of the resources listed below can usually be found on my desk at any given time. These are the resources I use to do the bulk of my planning – both long-term planning and that last-minute “oh-no-what-are-we-going-to-do-today” planning. (Which, despite my best intentions, still occurs.)

Just a note: I am not associated with any of the companies listed below, nor am I given any royalties, favors or brownie points from any of their Waldorf Empires. All prices listed are for new items and do not include shipping.

Start with the general curriculum: I don’t use a scripted curriculum, and I just want to say that up front. I have purchased several and wind up looking at them, getting completely “spinny” in my head, and then quickly reselling them. I would be embarrassed to admit how many times I have done this. That said, I would recommend starting with some general resources that provide an overview of the Waldorf curriculum tailored specifically for homeschoolers. Especially in the beginning, and especially if you are coming to Waldorf late, I cannot recommend these 2 books more highly. They are wonderful and provide a solid grounding in Waldorf homeschooling.

  • The Christopherus Waldorf Curriculum Overview for Homeschoolers, Donna Simmons (Grades 1-8) $56 (new; Christopherus)
  • A Journey Through Waldorf Math, Melisa Nielsen (Grades 1-5) $18 ebook (new; Waldorf Essentials)

Add in some extras: Either of the first 2 books will provide more ideas than anyone could ever accomplish. They are chock-full of verses, crafts, recipes and stories all arranged seasonally. They make it easy to put together a daily circle time, a weekly baking day or a special festival celebration. I actually think that either one could be an early years or kindergarten program on its own. I have also thought if we ever needed to take a year off from formal homeschooling, we could structure a year around the seasons and festivals using either of these books as a spine. Anyway, I own both of them, and it varies as to which is my favorite. (Just a note: the recipes in All Year Round are written for a British kitchen and have no conversions for those of us across the pond.)

The second suggestion is an updated and expanded edition of The Waldorf Student Reading List, which used to be the best $9 you could spend. I don’t have the newer version yet (it is on my wish list though), but since it has been compiled by the same people, I feel confident it will be full of solid suggestions for read alouds that coordinate with the anthroposophical view of child development and the various main lessons for a given year. I keep The Waldorf Student Reading List in my library bag, and consult it almost every time we go to the library.

  • All Year Round, Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marije Rowling $17 (new; Amazon)
  • or
  • Family, Festivals and Food, Diana Carey and Judy Large $16 (new; Amazon)
  •  Make Way for Reading, edited by Pamela Johnson Fenner and Karen L. Rivers $18 (new; Amazon)

Get a few art supplies: Don’t feel pressured to buy a ton of art supplies all at once. (I have written more about this subject here.) I think block crayons and watercolors are the most versatile and least intimidating. Drawing with block crayons imparts a soft, gestural picture with few details. You don’t have to worry about things like facial expressions or hands. In the beginning, wet-on-wet watercolor should just be a study in color. Don’t worry about introducing form until you are comfortable with the paints themselves. This took me over a year, but some of our early color paintings are still my favorites.

Total cost – if you purchase everything – is around $140 without shipping. All of the books and supplies are useful for multiple grades, which I think increases their value even more. If you have a favorite resource or suggestion for getting started with Waldorf that is not listed above, tell us about it in the comments.

Testing

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We completed our state-mandated testing a couple of weeks ago. North Carolina is a very easy state in which to homeschool. Basically, you need to keep attendance records and administer a standardized test every year (all rules and regs for NC can be found here). The results are not reported to any state or local office, and merely need to be kept on file at home.

Vincent loves taking the test and he tests very well. That choleric fire comes out and he rises to the challenge. Me? I will admit to a twinge of nervousness. After opening the envelope and thumbing through the test booklet, the chatter in my head goes something like this: “Oh, we haven’t done that.” “We’re not doing that until next year.” “That’s a fourth grade concept?” I let myself have about five minutes of this useless, ridiculous, unfounded anxiety. The scores don’t even go anywhere!

I will save my verbose rant about “teaching to the test”, and merely say I think when we reduce education to a correct answer on a generic test, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Education is bigger than punctuation, isolated vocabulary, and poorly written word problems. Are the mechanics of grammar, the love of words and the concepts of mathematics important? Absolutely. However the measurement of them in isolation is flawed at best. At least this is what I tell myself after my five-minute panic.

We have made the choice to homeschool our children. Our decision is not reactionary in any way. It is not a rejection of something, but rather an embrace of something else. Even though the number of families choosing to homeschool is growing, we are clearly in the minority of those with school-aged children. As Waldorf-inspired homeschoolers, we are a minority within a minority. This is where we have chosen to be, and I would not change our decision for anything.

On our second and final day of testing, Jude chose a book of poetry for me to read during storytime, which included the following stanza from “Rose Pogonias” by Robert Frost:

We raised a simple prayer
Before we left the spot,
That in the general mowing
That place might be forgot;
Or if not all so favored,
Obtain such grace of hours,
That none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers.

After storytime, both boys went out to play. Vincent was trying to catch butterflies in a field of clover. Not an hour later, my neighbor came to mow that field. We waved to him and watched him from the back porch. The English major in me couldn’t resist getting the book and reading that stanza again. No explications or explanations. Just the words. The perfect words to name that sweet sadness. Natasha Trethewey, our new poet laureate here in the US, says that poetry finds a way to “speak the unspeakable.” I couldn’t agree more.

On our final day of testing, I was taught a lesson that I seem to have to learn and relearn – again and again. What we do and how we spend our days matters. This is the education we have chosen and that we want for our boys: something that fosters thought, encourages connection and speaks truth. Ultimately what we teach and what we learn should reflect, engender and celebrate all that is. On that day, education looked like a tractor in a field. It smelled like freshly cut clover. It sounded like poetry written before I was born. Above all, it felt like home.

Read This Book

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Rascal by Sterling North

Read this book. Read this book aloud. It is a pleasure from beginning to end, with language that just demands to be savored. I cannot say enough about it, and have recommended it to everyone I know. I picked up Rascal by Sterling North from the 50 cent bin at our library. I have mentioned before our penchant for Newberry winner and honor books, and the silver medal on the front cover is the only reason I bought it. I put it on our read-aloud shelf because I thought it could augment our current US Geography or upcoming Man and Animal block nicely. I always begin a new book by reading the back cover, and after the summary was a review blurb from the Chicago Tribune, “Everyone should knock off work, sit beneath the nearest tree, and enjoy Rascal from cover to cover.” I couldn’t agree more. We were all enchanted by the first page. (OK, well, I was enchanted by the first page. The boys took until the end of the first chapter.)

Rascal tells the autobiographical story of a boy and his pet raccoon during the year of 1918. The geographical, naturalistic and zoological details alone would be enough to recommend this book be required reading for all 4th graders – Waldorf homeschooling or not. Sterling North paints a vivid picture of a boy’s small town life in Wisconsin in prose that is deft, tender and true. And although I loved every part of this book, the character of Aunt Lillie was my favorite. After the Spanish Influenza has struck Brailsford Junction, motherless Sterling is taken by his father to recover at the home of his aunt and uncle:

“Aunt Lillie came to greet us, wiping her hands on her apron in that perpetual gesture of humbleness which seemed to afflict whole generations of farm wives, who gave so much to so many in return for so little.”

And it is Aunt Lillie who tells young Sterling he should become a writer instead of a doctor:

“‘And then you could put it all down,’ Aunt Lillie said, ‘the way it is now . . . case weather, the fog, the lantern light . . . the voices of the men – hear them – coming in for breakfast. You could keep it just like this forever.”

Sterling North takes this request to heart and puts it all down with such an aching eloquence that I read the entire last two chapters with quaking voice and brimming eyelids. Treat yourself and your children to this book. It is a gem.

PS If you fall in love with raccoons like we did, here is a cute felt finger puppet to make.

*You can see what else we read this year here. And here is a list of our summer reading so far.

Story Time

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This summer I went to an estate sale with two of my best friends in town. It was one of those great, spur of the moment adventures. At the sale, I bought a small white bookcase. There was nothing special about this bookcase, except that it was small (which means perfectly sized for this old farmhouse of ours) and painted white (I am a sucker for anything painted white). I didn’t have an immediate plan for this bookcase, but for $2.50 I wasn’t too worried. After I brought it home, this little shelf become a fixture in our living room. Stocked with a dozen or so books, it became an anchor to our afternoons and enables all three of us to have a quiet respite during the day. Daily storytime – something I had wanted to do for a long time – had finally become a reality.

There are a few parameters around story time. Mostly I just want both boys to cultivate the (lost) art of listening. There is no summarizing, no reviewing, no critiquing, no questioning. It is just a time to simply get carried away by a good story. I curate the books on the shelves, and the boys alternate choosing what we read each week. Stocking the shelves has been great fun. I frequently consult The Waldorf Student Reading List (the best $9 you can spend if you are homeschooling with Waldorf-inspired methods, imho) and also the Newberry and Caldecott lists of winners. All of this information is in my head as I scour yard sales, library sales and used book stores. I honestly don’t know if there has ever been a new book on that shelf. Between what I paid for the shelf and how much I pay for the books (typically not more than I paid for the shelf!), this may be the most economical part of our homeschooling journey.

So around 3 o’clock every afternoon, I make a cup of tea, set out a snack tray and light a candle. The three of us (and sometimes the dog) sit on the couch and enjoy a good story. I usually read for about 45 minutes.  People – including my husband – are sometimes surprised at what two rambunctious boys have enjoyed: Anne of Green Gables, Winnie the Pooh, Ramona. (Heidi however has languished on the shelf unread since last summer. I keep thinking she is like the poor girl who never gets picked for kickball.) We just finished Little Eddie by Carolyn Haywood today. It was written in the 1940s and the opening scene involves workmen replacing a telegraph pole. Great stuff. Tomorrow we begin Jude’s pick, B is for Betsy, again by Carolyn Haywood. This one was written in 1939 and tells about Betsy’s year in first grade. We are all looking forward to it.

PS Here is a link to what we have read so far this year.