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Waldorf Homeschoolers?

2K views 12 replies 9 participants last post by  kytka 
#1 ·
I have been looking through here and I don't see a thread for it.

Are there any waldorf homeschoolers around here? I am sure there is. I was unsure of putting this in here, or the Waldorf forum. But I figured that this was the better forum.

So my daughter will be homeschooled by me and we are going to start in a few weeks ( I am thinking Sept 1st. I need time to plan out some things and figure out what I am going to do).

One thing I worry about is that she has no siblings, we have no friends (lots of family though with her favorite little cousins) and I am worried about her not being social enough.

So, what are you waldorf homeschoolers doing?
 
#2 ·
My dd is 4.5 and we're Waldorf-inspired. I say this because we definitely are not purists (we allow creative plastic, we read BOOKS not just tell or act out stories, we use non-natural art supplies, we are not Anthroposophists--these are the main points where we disagree). We currently do a hodge podge of Seasons of Joy, Little Acorn Learning, and our own stuff. We take the summer off but will start back in Fall. Since you said your dd was about to start, does this mean grade 1? I recently bought a grade 1 package from A Little Garden Flower, as they were having a great sale. I don't know if it's still going on though. I also got their kindy book which I want to read over soon. I'm fairly certain, though, for k-2 we will be using Enki Education as our spine. I love Enki. Are you planning on using any sort of curriculum or put together your own thing? I get a lot of inpiration from The Parenting Passageway blog. I also love the blog Filth Wizardry (not exactly Waldorf but highly creative!). Have you looked to see if there is a Waldorf hs-ing group in your area? That might help with socialization. If it's any consolation, my dd has just 1 friend. The book Hold On To Your Kids helped me a lot in this regard. I highly recommend it.
 
#3 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by LuxPerpetua View Post
My dd is 4.5 and we're Waldorf-inspired. I say this because we definitely are not purists (we allow creative plastic, we read BOOKS not just tell or act out stories, we use non-natural art supplies, we are not Anthroposophists--these are the main points where we disagree). We currently do a hodge podge of Seasons of Joy, Little Acorn Learning, and our own stuff. We take the summer off but will start back in Fall. Since you said your dd was about to start, does this mean grade 1? I recently bought a grade 1 package from A Little Garden Flower, as they were having a great sale. I don't know if it's still going on though. I also got their kindy book which I want to read over soon. I'm fairly certain, though, for k-2 we will be using Enki Education as our spine. I love Enki. Are you planning on using any sort of curriculum or put together your own thing? I get a lot of inpiration from The Parenting Passageway blog. I also love the blog Filth Wizardry (not exactly Waldorf but highly creative!). Have you looked to see if there is a Waldorf hs-ing group in your area? That might help with socialization. If it's any consolation, my dd has just 1 friend. The book Hold On To Your Kids helped me a lot in this regard. I highly recommend it.
My daughter will be in kindy.

We are pretty much inspired to, as she knows how to write her letters and name and she can read a little bit(and I am going with it)
I found this web site
http://www.waldorfcurriculum.com/FRE...resources.html

I have been looking through this. I like it.

We would love to buy some curriculum, but right now are are sooooooo sooooo poor. So poor. So, it will be library things and free resources so far. But I think we can get pretty far on that!~

Thanks for the suggestions. I am going to start a "homeschool fund" for our supplies and purchasing curriculum.
 
#4 ·
If she's in kindy then really this is a good year to just go deeper into the seasons and practical housework anyway, so I wouldn't stress.
Seasons of Joy is $15 per season which may be affordable. You probably already know that in Waldorf pedagogy you don't even start mild academics until grade 1 at the earliest (and it is recommended that the child be 7 for grade 1). We've used Seasons of Joy sporadically, but we don't do "circle time" so I've never found a great way to implement it (it's basically a collection of rhymes, songs, crafts, stories, and foods for each season). What has worked better for us is trying to establish a strong daily/weekly rhythm for housework and really delve into the seasons, like making jams in summer and berry-picking, making soups and breads in winter, etc. We read lots of seasonal books from the library, sing seasonal songs, take lots of nature walks, etc. For kindy, I think all of this is fine and it's all free. We make lots of things with cheap acrylic felt from Michael's (it's amazing what all you can do with it!) and use watered down tempera paint for wet-on-wet painting, which we do every Thursday except in summertime. I have no issues with Crayola crayons or markers and we leave up easel paper on our wall all the time so dd can just draw whenever she feels like it. She also draws on the mirror of our bathroom when I take a shower and there is steam, she makes concoctions with shaving cream (heck, I even put shaving cream in the bathtub for her to ice skate on), we make playdough, and we do lots of cornstarch and water play. I get book ideas from Ambleside Online (Winnie the Pooh and Beatrix Potter are hits around here and have been for a year now) and also check out lots of seasonal books from the library. The Waldorf board here usually lists seasonal book selections too so I try and get those. The Parenting Passageway blog also sometimes lists stories/books/ideas that I've found helpful. Frontier Dreams is another good Waldorf blog. For under age 7, the emphasis is really upon daily/weekly/yearly rhythm and gross motor skills, so we do lots of housework, cook/bake, make things, and play play play. We also read, make up stories, and act out stories. This year we might start making our own puppets and doing puppet shows. I'm thinking of printing out some pictures from online and then hotgluing some felt clothes on them to make them more interesting and using popsicle sticks for handles. We have a felt seasonal tree that I make out of cheap felt that we change out leaves on. I also have printed out animal pictures on the internet and laminated them with packing tape, and so we put up new animals for each season. Really, I think any type of education works best when you draw on various resources and your own talents and then find a mixture that works with your child. The internet is great for info--not only blogs but for pictures, crafts, seasonal fingerplays and songs, etc. Packing tape works great for laminating and hotglue and acrylic felt have done wondrous things at our house. A lot of things are free or cheap, like seeds to grow a small container garden. For kindy, especially, I think you can do everything for free or very cheaply. Just read, play, and do fun things. You can look at the Enki website to see the table of contents for the kindy fairy tales and then get them through your library or at a used bookstore. Anyway, long story short, I think I would not even worry one iota about a curriculum at this age--and not really until age 7 or 8 at the earliest. I've heard great things about A Little Garden Flower, and her books are really affordable, especially her e-books, which are about $20 for a full year.
 
#5 ·
Another "inspired" family here. I have all ages of kids and with my first we practiced some Waldorf inspired living but then kind of fell away from it as I had more kids, we moved across country, and my oldest started hsing.
I went a traditional route with him to start hsing and now, after 5 yrs, are much more relaxed and coming back to some Waldorf inspired philosophies.
Now I am getting back into the Waldorf mindset as far as rhythm, enrichment, and handcrafts.
I just bought a year membership at earthschooling.com and there is such great stuff there! www.bearthinstitute.com (I think this is right)
and I also bought some things from A Little Flower Garden during her sale-I really like her radio shows and her yahoo group.

I consider myself in the research/learning phase again even though I've been researching for most of the summer. This fall my main changes will be implementing a circle time for all the kids and getting a better rhythm to our day. My oldest 2 will still do "traditional" programs like Teaching Textbooks for math, Growing with Grammar, and Writing with Ease.

Ann
 
#8 ·
I'm starting with a second-grader this month. It will be our first year homeschooling. My ds just turned 8 and finished second grade in public school, but because of his July birthday we are doing Waldorf second grade at home (though of course continuing to move forward academically). I am putting together my own curriculum for him--I've pulled from A Journey Through Waldorf Math, Making Math Meaningful, Donna Simmons' Living Language book, A Journey Through Waldorf Homeschooling Second Grade, Donna's Form Drawing book, and other resources. I've especially loved the files from Marsha Johnson's yahoo group (Waldorf Home Educators)--I've taken several blocks straight from her files.

I also have a 4-year-old. We are pretty much just doing a daily story time and mixing in seasonal rhymes, songs, etc. My big focus will be on my ds. We used Seasons of Joy last year and it worked really well for her.
 
#9 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by annettemarie View Post
We have a Waldorf-inspired homeschooling thread over in the Waldorf forum-- pop on over!
really? i couldn't find it. I saw the waldorf inspired thread, but didn't see a homeschooling thread.
 
#10 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by TulsiLeaf View Post
really? i couldn't find it. I saw the waldorf inspired thread, but didn't see a homeschooling thread.
I think most of those on that thread are homeschoolers

I know I looked through it before bumping it back up and it looked like lots of hsers w/ littles.
 
#11 ·
Check out Marsha Johnson's yahoo group (waldorf home educators). She has a ton of free info in the files section (I am using her grade 1 files for my first grader this fall!).

Also, www.mainlesson.com is a great source for free stories. They have a waldorf section and you can choose the grade. Kindy is all about rhythm and homelife anyway. Lots of outdoor play, some stories, songs and fingerplays (not necessarily a "circle" but can be done throughout the day) baking/cooking, arts and crafts and there you go!

You may also be able to check out some books from your library. Earthways is great for seasonal craft ideas and even my non-waldorf library system had it!
 
#12 ·
Yeah, "pure" Waldorf doesn't do any curriculum per se for kindy. "School" doesn't start until the year they turn 7. Before that, it's play play play! Lots of nature, lots of working with good daily rhythms, helping with household stuff (especially cooking, I would think), dance and movement and songs and lots and lots of stories.

Of course, you don't have to be 'pure' if your DD is eager to start some 'academics'. Heck, my DD is only 3.5 and is starting to read and write. A pure Steiner acolyte would have my head over allowing that!! So we also count ourselves among the Waldorf-INSPIRED homeschoolers.
We're also inspired by Montessori, Charlotte Mason, and unschooling.

There are some great affordable resources with ideas of what to do with your preschooler/kindergartner in a Waldorf-friendly fashion. For instance, Christopherus has this page with general information on Waldorf in the early years, and they do have a kindergarten book too. Other resources have already been mentioned in this thread.
 
#13 ·
"The child is curious. He wants to make sense out of things, find out how things work, gain competence and control over himself and his environment, and do what he can see other people doing. He is open, perceptive, and experimental. He does not merely observe the world around him. He does not shut himself off from the strange, complicated world around him, but tastes it, touches it, hefts it, bends it, breaks it. To find out how reality works, he works on it. He is bold. He is not afraid of making mistakes. And he is patient. He can tolerate an extraordinary amount of uncertainty, confusion, ignorance, and suspense. ... School is not a place that gives much time, or opportunity, or reward, for this kind of thinking and learning."

We'd love for you to come join us for discussion, comments, interactions and sharing at Waldorf Homeschoolers and Waldorf Homeschoolers on Facebook!
 
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