The Basics of Waldorf Curriculum
The curriculum encourages depth in learning. The preschool side of Waldorf education begins with encouraging the child's imagination and integration of domestic tasks. The teacher carefully selects stories for children to experience so that it may improve their imagination, sense of sequencing, and therefore hand eye coordination. The children play with things they have found outside or a few simple staples of toys that the program may have or own. In primary grades on up the day starts with a very in depth lesson that can take up to two hours to fully explore, and these may follow the same theme for a number of weeks. The afternoon may be spent with large motor tasks, hand work, or other creative tasks.
'The curriculum at a Waldorf school can be seen as an ascending spiral: the long lessons that begin each day, the concentrated blocks of study that focus on one subject for several weeks' all students study all subjects no matter their aptitude and once a subject is taught it is retaught year after year with mini lessons.
There is a heavy use of the outdoors to teach and learn from.
'The curriculum at a Waldorf school can be seen as an ascending spiral: the long lessons that begin each day, the concentrated blocks of study that focus on one subject for several weeks' all students study all subjects no matter their aptitude and once a subject is taught it is retaught year after year with mini lessons.
There is a heavy use of the outdoors to teach and learn from.
Picture from the Seattle Waldorf School Site
Charlottsville Waldorf school explains their curriculum this way:
Charlottsville Waldorf school explains their curriculum this way: