A recent post on one of the Waldorf homeschooling email groups I subscribe to reminded me of this wonderful book on teaching chemistry using a Waldorf approach.
Waldorf teachers use a phenomenological approach in teaching the sciences. So rather than reading about a particular concept and then conducting an experiment to prove it true, Waldorf students [...]
Though there are a lot of great Waldorf math resources, I sometimes found that I needed a little more than what I found there. Waldorf resources are great for detailing how to go about explaining a concept holistically, but when you just need a whole slew of problems for practice, mainstream resources are the way [...]
Continue reading about Really Good Mainstream Math Resources
We all have days when we feel a bit down in the dumps as teachers. Sometimes we need something uplifting that will affirm our work and inspire us to be the kind of teachers we want to be. I have three books that have done just that for me. I’ve turned to them during those [...]
I have been hesitant to take up the task of recommending a book by Rudolf Steiner to recommend, mostly because I hardly consider myself qualified. I enjoy reading Steiner myself and I appreciate the intellectual acuity required to decipher his work, but I don’t feel that I’ve mastered the task enough to be able to [...]
Well, in all my excitement to give reviews for story resources through the grades curriculum, I neglected the poor early childhood teachers (isn’t that always the way it goes?) There are some really great resources for early childhood material. Here are my favorites.
The Wynstones Series, by Margret Meyercourt and Jennifer Aulie – This is by [...]
Continue reading about Early Childhood Resources — Songs, Stories and Rhymes
I guess music is on my mind these days. I’ve been going through my music resources a lot these days and having a lot of fun finding songs I had never discovered before.
This week I was asked to bring some activity to our school’s Parent Council meeting. I taught them one of the songs and dances [...]
Continue reading about A Resource for Singing Games and Dances
I just had to share my favorite book for songs about the seasons.
Sing Through the Seasons by Marlys Swinger – This book is full of great seasonal songs that can take you right through fourth grade. The melodies are not pentatonic, so the Waldorf purists would not consider them appropriate for kindergarten or first grade, but [...]
I know it isn’t bright and sunny everywhere, but in my neck of the woods spring arrived a bit early and it has me feeling like getting outside and moving! As a teacher, leading games was never my strong suit, but as my teaching years went on I appreciated more and more the value of [...]
Okay, we finally made it! Waldorf schools are probably the only place where people still tell stories to eighth graders. My students loved a good story and I could still captivate them with a gripping tale right up to graduation. The history curriculum in eighth grade is “Revolutions” and traditionally the French, American and Industrial Revolutions [...]
Continuing with my series of story resources for the mythology/history curriculum through the grades, here is my entry for grade seven.
The Waldorf history curriculum for seventh grade centers around the dynamic and enlightening time of the Renaissance. Here are the few resources that I used extensively when I taught this block.
Copernicus by Heinz Sponsel – Using this [...]
