"If you've had the experience of binding a book, knitting a sock, playing a recorder, then you feel that you can build a rocket ship-or learn a software program you've never touched. It's not bravado, just a quiet confidence. There is nothing you can't do. Why couldn't you? Why couldn't anybody?"
Peter Nitze, Harvard and Waldorf Graduate and CEO and President at Martek Biosciences
Peter Nitze, Harvard and Waldorf Graduate and CEO and President at Martek Biosciences
Handwork
Handwork is an essential part of Waldorf curriculum, developing fine motor skills while encouraging persistence and perseverance. Handwork can help build the capacity for critical thinking and can promote neurological readiness for reading and writing. It encourages a living connection to math through practical use of number, patterns and measurement.
Starting with finger knitting in Kindergarten, children focus on working with their hands throughout the grades. First and second graders learn knitting and move on to crochet and spinning yarn in the third grade. Fourth graders practice cross stitch and move on to knitting in the round in fifth grade. These crafts are followed by embroidery and hand sewing, doll making and machine sewing in middle school.
These crafts are not presented as a stand-alone task, rather, they are woven in to the curriculum. For example, our Eighth Graders are learning about machine sewing at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. An underlying goal behind all these crafts is that students gain a real appreciation of the material as they create objects of practical use to the outside world.
Starting with finger knitting in Kindergarten, children focus on working with their hands throughout the grades. First and second graders learn knitting and move on to crochet and spinning yarn in the third grade. Fourth graders practice cross stitch and move on to knitting in the round in fifth grade. These crafts are followed by embroidery and hand sewing, doll making and machine sewing in middle school.
These crafts are not presented as a stand-alone task, rather, they are woven in to the curriculum. For example, our Eighth Graders are learning about machine sewing at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. An underlying goal behind all these crafts is that students gain a real appreciation of the material as they create objects of practical use to the outside world.
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woodworking
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Woodworking is taught as an expression of will. Beginning in fifth grade, students take a piece of wood and transform it into a beautiful and functional product. With each pass of the chisel or turn of the auger, students learn lessons in patience, reslience and flexibility. Students are given opportunities in woodworking that support the development of problem-solving and critical thinking. In completing a woodworking project, students gain the experience that they can make things happen, that they have the power to be a creative and transformative force.
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Music
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Rudolf Steiner believed the human being is a musical being, and the making of music is essential in experiencing what it is to be fully human. Music in the Waldorf curriculum awakens and nurtures the deep inner life of the child. Song and rhythm is part of the Waldorf curriculum beginning in Kindergarten. Singing is incorporated throughout the grades. The pentatonic flute is introduced in first grade, followed by the recorder in third grade. Beginning in fourth grade, children choose a strings instrument.
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gardening & farm program
“Garden work should be an obligatory addition to the lessons.”
~Rudolf Steiner~
~Rudolf Steiner~
At Cedar Springs all our Grades students participate in our gardening program. With the gardening teacher, they plant, dig, harvest and hear stories of nature. Through these actions, they develop an understanding of seasonal cycles, beneficial insects, tool usage, plant cultivation and food preparation. Their real work as farmers supports sensory integration and provides time for healthy movement. Gardening also helps the child learn how we are connected to each other and the Earth and to illustrate our dependence on others to provide the nourishing food we need.
