anyone homeschooling waldorf with experience...

[spiritofthings]

My son is 4 1/2 and copying letters and numbers with crayons that he sees in the newspaper, or on the covers of books or really any print that he sees in the house.

Our "homeschooling" right now just consists of a daily circle time and a story. My son enjoys this just fine. I'm thinking ahead and wondering what is to come if he is copying letters and numbers and asking questions about these with much enthusiasm. How can I "hold off" learning about numbers and letter until first grade?

I'm so interested to do a waldorf-style homeschool program with him and ideally would like to start on these things until first grade. This is probably a common situation right? What to do?

[Callimom]

You might want to ask this in the Waldorf section of learning at school as I think they have a homeschooling thread there.

That being said, one of the benefits of homeschooling is being able to let the child rather than a philosophy or institution dictate the pace and scope of learning. My instinct would be to support him rather than to actively discourage him. We are somewhat waldorf inspired homeschoolers but only up to the point it works for my kids.

Good luck!
Karen

[William's Mom]

I agree! We are also waldorf-inspired, but I follow my son's schedule more than anything else!

[LuxPerpetua]

I just responded in the Waldorf forum, but I thought I'd add here (since your wording is a bit different) that I wouldn't worry about "holding off," just "not pushing."

ETA: The Waldorf homeschooling thread is actually on this forum, just a few pages back. Most of the people in the Waldorf forum have preschoolers, and most of these attend a Waldorf preschool.