This sample is from Lachlan in Santa Cruz, CA

 Grade 1

Language Arts: introducing the letters/sounds via Grimm's fairy tales and other fairy tales with a two day cycle for each letter.   There are many schedules for introduction that are floating around in the Waldorf community.  I prefer Eric Fairman's first grade guide, A Path of Discovery, available via www.bobnancy.com . Barbara Dewey also has a good guide for reading available at www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com . I usually break the letter introduction into at least 3 blocks of consonant and then one of vowels.

One idea that I love is to introduce the letters in a story within a story.  I have been working on a book based on an idea that Eric Fairman uses in his guides.  He has a story of a young family searching for a new home, they travel to distant lands to find the new home and each night by the fireside, the father tells the children a different story.  This story is a Grimm's fairy tale with the letter/sound being taught within the story.  For instance, on day one the family could pass by a large mountain to make their camp, the same day you would introduce the letter M, you could use the Grimm's Mt. Semili story for the introduction.   In the past I have used two large chalk boards, one to draw a picture of the traveling family and the second to draw the letter being introduced nice and large.  On this same day one, after the telling (not reading, it's very important to tell a story rather than reading it if possible) the story, my child and I will sit and draw from the Grimm's story. I have found it very helpful to keep a main lesson book of my own to work on with each child, that way we have the experience together and my drawing skills improve!  We do our best to incorporate the letter being introduced into our picture, for instance with the letter M, you can incorporate it in the peaks of the mountain from the Grimm's story.  On day two, we review the letter/sound and the story.  As a writing introduction, I may have them write a line or two about the Grimm's story.  We put it all together on facing pages of the main lesson book.  We follow this same schedule for the rest of the letters.  Some teachers and home educators introduce both upper and lower case letters together, others do the lowers in a separate block.  I have done it both ways.  I would suggest if you have a young first grader to do them separate if they don't already know them (in this day it is hard to find a child that's not picked them up somehow!)  if your first grader is older, 7 plus in years then you can decide if combining them is a better idea.  I started with my older first grader doing them separate and he got frustrated so we combined them and he enjoyed that much more.

Do not panic if your child is not reading by the end of first grade!  This is fairly normal, the beauty of homeschool is that you can help your child at his/her pace, not at a classroom's pace.   In a Waldorf classroom setting, the children are on many levels and the teacher accommodates them all.  One thing we did to help them explore reading is to play "eye spy" regularly in the car, for instance "I see something you don't see and it starts with the sound mmmmm"  We play it often enough that now they play it together without my direction.  These sorts of activities start them really thinking about how sounds blend to make words.  If they don't pick up on it for a while don't stress, play bean bag games and just keep reinforcing patiently (lol!) and they will get it. 

Some special needs children have a need to be very tactile in their learning so finding objects that begin with or have the sounds being learned helps tremendously as they can touch and feel the object in their hands.

Mathematics:  introduction to math the Waldorf way is tons of fun!  In the first math block I start with counting, it may be review for some late first graders, but early first graders will be glad you took the time.  After I spend a few days on counting (and I don't get meticulous about it, we just practice by throwing the bean bags back and forth) then I move on to Roman numerals.  These are SO much fun!  The numeral I is easy to draw in one sun, one moon, one of me, or you could concentrate on what things your child's body has ONE of... one nose, one mouth, one heart, etc.  Do the same for the other numbers.  I generally go through twenty over the course of a few weeks, we have fun playing counting games and drawing things from them, one fun idea we've done in the past is used the song "the Twelve Days of Christmas" when doing the block in the winter as you can easily draw all the fun things in the song.

 In the second math block, I introduce the math gnomes.  Dorothy Harrer has a really good book called Math Lessons for Elementary Grades, it's available through the Rudolph Steiner Bookstore , her book has some fun stories with the gnomes.  Math gnomes can easily be made with simple sewing or they can be purchased from Bella Luna Toys . 

After the basics of the four processes are learned then it becomes easy to introduce some times tables, in grade one I like to stick to what is recommended by other Waldorf teachers, 2's, 3's, 5's and 10's.   We then move to practicing math lightly in Circle Time with bean bags, tossing them back and forth.  It is very important to teach them backward and forward, 4=2x2 as well as 2x2=4.   We also take time in this block to learn the numbers from their whole to their parts.  For instance, what is 12?  12 is 6x2, 3x4, 12x1 but it's also 2x2x2x2x2x2 or 2x2 and 3x1.  They have loads of fun decoding this mystery of numbers.

Foreign Language: if you chose to introduce a foreign language at this age, make sure you don't fuss with grammar and you teach it through play, tapes and computer games are not recommended.  If it's a language new to Mom or Dad, then take the time to learn together.  If you are learning Spanish for instance via a tape system for yourself, then you learn first and pass what you learned in a practical way on to the kids.

Painting:  Wet on wet watercolor is such a mystery to those new to Waldorf... RELAX!  It's not hard, the secret is to get comfortable with it yourself first, take an evening after they retire to bed and PLAY!  I like the Stockmar paints, they are available through many Waldorf sources.  Start with the smallest bottle until you are comfortable with them and you only need the three primary colors to start with, you can easily mix other colors from those.  I start with a nice fat paint brush, this gets you comfortable with how the paint flows.  I generally do a 1/3 dilution, 1/3 paint, 2/3 water, mix well, you can mix it half and half if you'd like too, the key is to experiment.  I put my watercolor paper in the sink for about 5 minutes, place it on the paint board, sponge off the excess and then I go to town.  We spend many family evenings painting together, all of us, my husband included... in fact the children have paints at their father's house and my ex husband paints with them too!  It is contagious!   In our regular school week we generally paint once, we paint rather than drawing that day from our lesson.  Don't be afraid to paint with really young children, it is a lot of fun.  I have painted with kids as young as 18 months, all they need is their own paper (it doesn't have to be wet for that age) a tiny bit of paint and a fat paint brush.

Handwork:  first grade is the perfect time to introduce knitting.  We like to start out in Kindergarten with finger knitting, there are many internet sources, I also like Barbara Dewey's handwork book, it has some wonderful instructions for simple projects.  I suggest if you don't know how to knit that you learn first, and don't let them watch you learning.  After you've practiced and feel good about things then you can pass it on to your child.  We have a fun saying that we learned years ago from a Waldorf source that I have printed in large letters in our handwork area... "under the fence, catch the sheep, back we come, off we leap."  My oldest has been knitting for 3 years and I still watch his lips move to the poem while he knits.  Keep first grade projects simple, no purling yet.

Recorder: This is a fun time to introduce the recorder in Circle Time.  Again, if you don't play then you should learn before you try to get them going on it.  It is always fun to work on a song all season long and perform it for family members or friends at a festival or gathering.  I suggest a simple wooden recorder, there are many resources for learning this online.

Form Drawing: I am not going to cover form drawing in each grade only because I have a separate section just for that.  There are a few different schools of thought in the Waldorf community about form drawing and how much to do when.  Some teachers do forms once per week, others do one per month, even others do an entire block that focuses on forms.  I have fiddled with what works for our homeschool and have found that the best for us is to try to get it in once per week.  We focus on the same form or the same family of forms for an entire month, we spend time practicing on drawing paper and then after we have enough practice, we put them in our lesson books.  Before moving to paper, we draw them in the air, trace them on each other's back's, etc. 

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