Summer has drawn back its heat and light, the days are beginning to feel crisp and cool. We're feeling drawn back to some kind of order and fresh start in everyday life. It seems like a good time to talk about homeschooling also known as the education of our children at home.
Since how to get started and what sort of curriculum to use is often a first question, I thought I’d address the curriculum for the young child in the world of Waldorf education. By young child I mean children who are toddling up to until around age nine. These are the years when they are curious, open and enthusiastic to join us in these tasks, which in turn provide a strong foundation for life.
It is already well known to us as daily life: eating, sleeping, play and household work to keep everything flowing. And with the daily work, it is our task to help our child learn how to be fully human.
This includes healthy rhythms of eating, sleeping, movement and play as well as the activities of daily life, art, time with others and most fundamental of all nurturing activities that build connection between the child and the parent.
Daily Homemaking Activities: like cooking and baking and housework, setting the table, clearing the table, sweeping after the meal.
Playful, Artistic Activities: like singing, ring games, coloring and painting, beeswax modeling, simple storytelling, puppetry.
Being with Others: like meal times and playing with other children (for 3′s and older), being with mom at the grocery or post office and reaching out to others in our building, neighborhood, or community.
Nurturing Activities and this means physically nourishing like touch, whole food and good sleep as well as warm baths, and attentive hand washing, and drying, and dressing, and hair combing, and protection from too much stimulation of the media, adult world, colors and stuff. Soulful activities stories rich in imagination, time and space for free play are deeply nourishing on a soul level. We the adults need to nourish ourselves too for we are the source of the strength to keep the household momentum going. (You know the saying, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy... well it is so, no?)
Stories are an artistic activity that are very important for children because they help create pictures of life and of what it means to be human. Stories connect us with humanity and bring powerful archetypal images that have lived within human consciousness for thousands of years. Adults love stories too.
Children will play out what they see and hear in their environment and stories are a way to provide pictorial images that the child will play out. This is why Waldorf teachers are always encouraging parents to protect children from the stimulation of the media, to protect the inner world of childhood, so rich with imagination, imagination for the moment and the future.
Children need real tools to work with as well, an apron, a sturdy rake, a strong snow shovel and a small version but strong adult garden shovel.
This is where the craft making and handwork in Waldorf come from, in having a relationship to the articles we need for daily living, wash clothes, pot holders, caps, mittens scarves and anything made by mom is so dear to the child, even if they do not outwardly express it, it is.
The what of the curriculum is life, eating, sleeping, caring for the child, caring for the family caring for the home and caring for others in the community. The how to get there in tiny steps is a topic for next time.
Celebrate the Rhythm of Life
Very well said. Thank you!!
ReplyDeleteWonderful words, cheers Marie
ReplyDeleteThank you for the inspiration once again!
ReplyDeleteI love you posts. I have been out of balance this past week. Returning to a quieter place. Not sure how we get so fragmented? Blessings, to you. Chandi
ReplyDelete