Homeschooling with Waldorf: Getting Started

EP179: Want to discover how to get started with Waldorf homeschooling? In today's episode, you'll hear all about the three essential elements of Waldorf education along with specific steps for getting started with homeschooling so you can craft a learning environment that honors the natural progression of your child's development. Discover how embracing the rhythms of daily life and infusing education with the lively arts can transform not only your homeschooling experience but also the deep connections within your family.

Find the Show Notes Here (www.artofhomeschooling.com/episode179)

Inspired at Home Membership (www.artofhomeschooling.com/inspiredathome)

Chapters

• 0:09 Exploring Waldorf Homeschooling Basics
• 18:05 Inspired at Home Community Episode

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

You're listening to the Art of Homeschooling podcast, where we help parents cultivate creativity and connection at home. I'm your host, jean Miller, and here on this podcast you'll find stories and inspiration to bring you the confidence you need to make homeschooling work for your family. Let's begin. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. We are getting back to basics in this episode for an often requested topic on getting started with Waldorf homeschooling. So today I want to first talk about how and why holistic learning is important and then give you some tips for getting started and how to keep Waldorf homeschooling simple, inspiring and doable even fun.

Speaker 1: 1:12

I see so many homeschooling parents overcomplicating things and getting stressed out. I was there, my friend, so this is the episode for you. Let's explore how to homeschool with Waldorf with more joy, because I think we all need a little extra joy in our lives, right? You might have heard me mention before that I was a high school English teacher before kids. So I had this idea that I would be a classroom teacher and my kids would walk to the neighborhood public school and we'd all be off in the summertime. But then I had two boys, 16 months apart, who were very active and very creative, but not so much into groups or structured environments. When they were in preschool, another mom and I started a Waldorf-inspired playgroup and that grew into a homeschooling community, and so our homeschooling journey began. In those early years, I discovered the Waldorf approach and fell in love because of its holistic and experiential nature.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Let's start with just a quick intro into the Waldorf approach. Even if you wouldn't call yourself a Waldorf homeschooler, I want to point out that there's so much in this approach that can benefit anyone, no matter how you homeschool. So stay tuned, stick with me here. All right. Three facts about the foundation of Waldorf education. The first is that the first school was founded by Rudolf Steiner in 1919 in Stuttgart, germany. That's over 100 years ago. The second is that the incentive was the devastation of World War I. And the third fact is that Steiner wanted an alternative to the lecture note-taking approach he observed in schools around Europe at the time, because he felt that that was too abstract and not engaging enough for the children.

Speaker 1: 3:22

I have a one-sentence description of Waldorf education that I developed years ago. You might call it the elevator pitch. Right, this is my elevator pitch for Waldorf. You might even want to write this down, because it comes in handy when you're feeling like you're being grilled by friends or family about what this Waldorf thing is and why you're doing it. So here you go.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Waldorf education is a developmental approach to learning that incorporates rhythm and the lively arts into all subjects. That one sentence gets at the three essential elements of the Waldorf approach, and those are child development, rhythm and the lively arts. I'm going to talk about each of these here. The long and the short of it is that Waldorf education is holistic. It embraces all aspects of the human being and human development the physical, emotional, intellectual, cultural and spiritual. In my own experience of 25 or so years of homeschooling with Waldorf and now mentoring parents all around the world, I've found that this holistic aspect is so nourishing for our kiddos, but also for ourselves, and because of that our children really do grow into themselves in a beautiful way. In Steiner's words, our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are capable of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. I like to say that our job as homeschooling parents is to help our children discover their gifts and then be able to go out and share those gifts with the world, and I think holistic homeschooling is the very best way to do that. So, when we're talking about how to homeschool, with Waldorf getting started, how exactly do we achieve this goal, this endeavor to develop human beings who can contribute to the world and the communities around them? Well, steiner said that the job of the teacher is to look at the children before you and bring them what they need, and what better setting to do this in than a homeschool? I think it's really important to talk about the essential elements that I mentioned before when we're getting started with Waldorf homeschooling, because they really do form a foundation for our planning, our lessons and our motivation to keep going. So let's get into child development, rhythm and the lively arts in a bit more detail.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Our first steps to building a strong foundation for Waldorf homeschooling are to understand child development and then observe our kiddos to see where they are, so that we can help them continue to grow. This is really the foundation, right, and we can look at how Steiner suggested we do this, starting with that very first Waldorf school. It's fascinating to me that Steiner never wrote down a curriculum. He genuinely wanted each teacher to observe the children they teach and develop a curriculum and lessons out of those observations. Out of those observations, he did list story recommendations for each age and grade that nourish the child's unfolding consciousness and knowledge of the world, following the path of child development. Now I want to mention here that grasping all of this is what motivated my team and me here at the Art of Homeschooling to develop our Ages and Stages Guide. It's free and you can get a copy over on my website. I'll put a link for you in the show notes and a few other books to recommend here for building a strong foundation in child development. And Waldorf would be Beyond the Rainbow Bridge. You are your child's first teacher, heaven on earth and navigating the terrain of childhood. I'll link to all of those too. All right, we've talked about child development and observation, how those two go together when designing a holistic learning environment.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Now let's talk about our second main element, which is rhythm. What is rhythm? So it's literally a steady beat, right? Think of a piece of music and how rhythm helps you follow along and know exactly what to expect, with some surprises and variations thrown in as well. There are natural rhythms in the world happening all around us all the time, whether we notice them or not, like the seasons, days of the week, etc. There's a certain flow to these rhythms. In our homeschools, though, we can use this idea of rhythm to help our days go more smoothly, because an established rhythm helps one activity flow into the next without as much effort. Rhythm is so nourishing for children because it builds predictability, it helps children feel secure and forms the foundation for cooperation and connection. In short, rhythm makes life easier for all of us. We can also use this concept when planning our homeschool lessons. Based on this idea of sleeping on it, which is now recognized by neurologists and educators as helpful for learning, we can present educational concepts one day and then come back to review them the next. If you want more help working with rhythm, go get your hands on our free rhythm starter kit, which I'll also put a link to in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Now let's talk about the lively arts. I think this is my favorite of these essential elements, because I've seen how the lively arts can really bring learning alive by increasing a child's interest and engagement. The idea of the lively arts came about because Steiner wanted to transform the liberal arts into something more experiential and memorable, something less abstract and more active. As I mentioned, steiner felt that classroom experiences were filled with boring teacher lectures. So he came up with the lively arts and developed an approach around these. The lively arts include storytelling, music, movement, drama, poetry, painting, drawing and modeling. The lively arts make learning more fun. They bring us joy as human beings and they help to make the learning more memorable. In a homeschool setting, engaging in the lively arts with our children is really enriching. It helps enrich the lessons and the learning, and I want you to think about trying one lively art at a time and exploring with your children as you get started with Waldorf. You can check out our free guide Weaving in the Lively Arts for more ideas on this. So just go to the show notes artofhomeschoolingcom slash episode 179 to get a direct link to this guide.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Now in our homeschool lessons we can bring new material through story to encourage connection and engagement. In the early years we're teaching skills through fairy tales and fables, but even when we get into ancient and modern history, we can still bring the content through biographies and autobiographies or well-told descriptions of events and significant historical figures who made a difference in the world. So after starting with stories, I find a good way to bring in other lively arts is to just focus on one or two for each main lesson block, which is easiest to do a month at a time. So you choose a subject or a topic and you're going to focus on that for a month, and choose a lively art to go with it. Remember, these lively arts aren't just add-ons, but they play a significant role in bringing the learning to our children. So now let's get into some concrete action steps for how to homeschool with Waldorf and get started.

Speaker 1: 12:08

I often suggest choosing one topic a month, as I said. So right now you could think about what main lesson topic you're focusing on this month or what you want to focus on next month. Then choose a main source of presentation material, that spine or reader, the story or resource that you want to use. These are sometimes referred to as living books as opposed to a textbook or worksheets. You want to bring stories on the topic that you are exploring with your children. Next is thinking through how to weave in the lively arts, not all at once, mind you. So choose a few, one or two for now, and then remember that rhythm is your friend, not only throughout the day, but also as a two-day lesson rhythm where you bring a story and engage in artistic activity on the first day and then review or retell the story and write a summary on the next day.

Speaker 1: 13:17

For example, you can do a story and a drawing on day one and then retell the story together and write a short summary on day two. The written work might be as simple as a caption, even for a drawing one sentence or a few paragraphs, depending on your child's age and grade. That's a simple two-day lesson rhythm that you can continue to repeat for the whole block. For optimal learning, you can include a warm-up before the story or the review with songs, poems, marching, beanbag tossing and even adding games related to your topic that you're exploring. With this rhythm in mind, I want to encourage you to choose stories that you love, that light you up, that you think your child needs to hear.

Speaker 1: 14:09

The idea is that we start with stories in Waldorf and we build our lessons around them. There are just so many beautiful stories in the world waiting to be read or told, waiting to be read or told. You can even choose your stories and creative activities and plan main lesson book pages, all without a purchased curriculum. Yes, it's true, and that's what we're all about here at the Art of Homeschooling helping you step into your role as a homeschool parent with confidence. We have a set of block topics and resources that give you a layout of what this might look like for each grade. It's a wonderful printable that you can purchase as a standalone or as part of Homeschool Simplicity 101. I'll link to both of those in the show notes for you, along with a few other resources for further exploration of how you could build your own main lesson blocks.

Speaker 1: 15:11

So just to recap, here is a super simple way for getting started with Waldorf homeschooling Plan monthly main lesson blocks around a topic, a book or a project that meet your child where they are right now. Choose your resource for the story material and plan out what you'll read each day from that resource, leaving time in between or days in between to review and retell, between to review and retell. Choose which of the lively arts you'll bring this block or this month. Remember to try one at a time at the beginning. For example, the first month you could get some beeswax crayons and drawing paper to draw a scene from each story. The second month you might add a poem or a song. The third month you might get some watercolor supplies and explore wet-on-wet watercolor painting. Remember, there's no rush, all right. And the final point here is plan for about an hour or two each morning for your main lessons and then choose a few skills that you want to practice with your child in a different subject that you could do for 20 or 30 minutes after main lesson each morning or later in the day.

Speaker 1: 16:34

If you're homeschooling multiple ages and grades, be sure to check out a recent episode how to Homeschool Multiple Ages at the Same Time. It's episode 177, and I'll be sure to link to that in the show notes. Here's what I want to leave you with. You can learn to customize homeschooling and make this work for you and your family. It does not have to be complicated, and your family it does not have to be complicated. As parents, we know what our children need and when we're not sure, we can slow down enough to observe and see what they need.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Be sure to check out all the free guides that we have available for you, one for each of the three essential elements of Waldorf homeschooling, for each of the three essential elements of Waldorf homeschooling, and if you find yourself wanting more support on your journey, come join me in a wonderful community of heart-centered homeschoolers inside, inspired at Home. It's an online community offered as a monthly or annual membership, where you'll find masterclass trainings, group coaching and community support. You might also consider coming in person to the summer Taproot teacher training held every August, which is a place to unplug, enjoy hikes and swims in the lake while learning from experienced homeschoolers in immersive hands-on workshops. You can find links to all of these resources.

Speaker 1: 18:05

I've mentioned the free guides Inspired at Home Community, the Tapper Teacher Training, in the show notes for this episode at artofhomeschoolingcom slash episode 179. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Remember you can keep Waldorf Homeschooling simple, inspiring and doable, even fun, and I'm here to help. That's all for today, my friend, but here's what I want you to remember Rather than perfection, let's focus on connection. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast.