The Waldorf School of Philadelphia will relocate to 6000 Wayne Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19144 in September 2014. The Waldorf School of Philadelphia is partnering award-winning real-estate developer, Ken Weinstein to develop 6000 Wayne Avenue, formerly known as St Peter’s Episcopal Church. The property will become our permanent home in September 2014. With its historic Frank Furness buildings and grounds once walked on by Walt Whitman, the structures of the new site will give WSP the space to grow physically and programmatically.

The hallway in what will become our grades building.

This beautiful space will become a grades classroom.

The former sanctuary will become our school meeting space, Great Hall.

All photography courtesy of Matthew Christopher Photography  www.matthewchristopherphotography.com

At The Waldorf School of Philadelphia the grades school day begins with a long, uninterrupted lesson, referred to as the main lesson. Here one subject is the focus; the class deals with it in-depth each morning for several weeks at a time allowing the teacher to develop a wide variety of activities around the subject at hand. Shown in the image below, the first grade language arts block is brought with lively rhythmic activities to get the circulation going and which bring children together as a group; they recite poems connected with the language arts theme, practice tongue twisters to limber up speech, and work with concentration exercises using body movements.

After the day’s main lesson students record what they learned in their main lesson books.  Below can be seen the third grade students learning about volume measurement. The teacher enlivens the lesson with a recipe for fruit punch that includes a variety of different volume measurements, in this case ounces, cups and quarts. The students learn to add the different measurements together and convert the amount into quarts.

Following main lesson there is a recess period after which teachers present shorter review lessons with a strongly recitational character. Afternoons are devoted to lessons in which the whole child is active: eurythmy (artistically guided movement to music and speech), handwork, or games, for example. Thus the day has a rhythm that helps overcome fatigue and enhances balanced learning.

The curriculum at The Waldorf School of Philadelphia can be seen as an ascending spiral: the long lessons that begin each day and the concentrated blocks of study that focus on one subject for several weeks.  Here in the image below is the fourth grade teacher and her class studying  Zoology.

As the students mature they engage themselves at new levels of experience with each subject. It is as though each year they come to a window on the ascending spiral that looks out into the world through the lens of a particular subject. Through the main-lesson spiral curriculum, teachers lay the groundwork for a gradual vertical integration that deepens and widens each subject experience and, at the same time, keeps it moving with the other aspects of knowledge.

The image below shows the fifth grade teacher telling a story about Native Americans and how it is said that the Smokey Mountains were named. This story is an element of the fifth grade US history block which builds on the third grade Native American block.

And so it can be seen that all students participate in a full range of basic subjects regardless of their special aptitudes. The purpose of studying a subject is not to make a student into a professional mathematician, historian, or biologist, but to awaken and educate capacities that every human being needs. Naturally, one student is more gifted in math and another in science or history, but the mathematician needs the humanities, and the historian needs math and science. The choice of a vocation is left to the free decision of the adult, but one’s early education should give one a palette of experience from which to choose the particular colors that one’s interests, capacities, and life circumstances allow.

If the ascending spiral of the curriculum offers a “vertical integration” from year to year, an equally important “horizontal integration” enables students to engage the full range of their faculties at every stage of development. The arts and practical skills play an essential part in the educational process throughout the grades. They are not considered luxuries, but fundamental to human growth and development.

 Thank you to the Why Waldorf Works website for this text 

The 8th grade chemistry block involves learning about complex carbohydrates, food and fuel sources and the role of plants. Students have been wondering about the connection between plants and science (that’s our curiosity building curriculum at work!). Stop an 8th grader and ask about it. Their answers might surprise you!

Almost every culture has had days of celebration or recognition in its past and, often, continuing into modern times.  The shearing of sheep, bringing in the harvest, or the birth of a child have all been events for celebration, among many other events.  Celebrations are important to the rhythms in Waldorf schools.  In particular, festivals borrowed from ancient cultures mark the cycle of life and the changing seasons, and they frequently provide the foundations for Waldorf festivals.  Festivals bring a community together in a time when human beings are frequently separated from one another by the real and imagined boundaries of time and place.  Michaelmas is the first of the seasonal festivals celebrated at The Waldorf School of Philadelphia.

As autumn ushers himself in, with these glorious days it is hard to imagine that the life forces of nature are gradually receding and turning toward their long winter sleep.  As human beings, however, we are awakening to our inner life. It is a time that we turn to building and strengthening our souls as we prepare for the dark days ahead.  We face a time of renewed courage and the need to carry an inner light of wisdom as the days grow shorter.

Within the school’s life we face these challenges by learning of St. Michael who tamed the dragon.  We hear stories and sing songs of the warrior against evil who guides and inspires us to take courage against darkness.  In the grade school we face our own festival of courage, and in the kindergarten we make and paint felted shooting stars that Michael sent to give us light.

The lead up to Michaelmas, and the festival day itself, is a wonderful time. It is one of the few times that the whole school, both Early Childhood and the Grade School, comes together in celebration.  With our combined strength of will and inner courage we face the darkness together and shine a bright light to guide us through the coming winter.

Our Michaelmas celebration takes place within the school day on Wednesday, September 27th.  Parents will be regaled with stories at the end of the day but are asked not to come to the actual festivities. We have noticed that it is especially hard for the children whose parents are unable to attend, so it’s best that Michaelmas be a festival purely for the children.

It’s going to be another amazing year at The Waldorf School of Philadelphia! Teachers, administrators and students gathered this morning for The Rose Ceremony, a Waldorf school tradition for welcoming first graders to the grade school. Pictured are students from the Class of 2013 along with the incoming first graders, the Class of 2020. Welcome one and all.

Hearty congratulations to the students of the 8th grade who graduated on Sunday, 3rd June. Pictured is Cristina Shiffman and her students with their letter press diplomas.

The Greek Pentathlon is an exciting addition to the fifth grade curriculum and another example of how Waldorf education brings learning to life.  What better way to make learning Greek history a living, breathing experience—one that the children live in their bodies as well as their minds—than by actually competing in the event?   And yet, the Greek Pentathlon is so much more.

In Movement and Games class, the Pentathlon has a significant place in the curriculum throughout the entire year for fifth graders.  We started with an introduction to the five pentathlon events (javelin, discus, long jump, 55-yard dash, and Greek wrestling) at the beginning of the school year, and spent a portion of each class training for one of the events.    We took a break from the training in the winter and then returned to it in the spring with greater attention to the details of each event.  This was a new aspect of Games class as this was an activity that required the students’ attention and effort without any visible outcome — at least none that they could see immediately.  There was a special atmosphere that surrounded our training sessions and a subtle sense of “uprightness” soundlessly made its way into the class. The students followed my training instructions with intention, encouraged one another, competed in a constructive way, and took responsibility for their training.

On Pentathlon Day, May 10^th, fifth grade students from six Waldorf schools (Princeton, River Valley, Kimberton, Susquehanna, Baltimore, and, of course, Philadelphia) proudly wore their colored tunics to represent each of the four Greek city-states: Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Sparta. They competed against the other athletes in their own city-state in the five events and then joined forces with those same athletes to compete against the other 3 city-states in the relay race. At the closing ceremonies, every athlete received a medal and a personal message from their judge about their own performance throughout all the events.   The final step was the presentation of the laurel wreaths.  A wreath was given to one boy and one girl from each city state that the judges thought best represented the “spirit of the games”.  Throughout the day, our fifth grade students embodied the spirit of the games!  In every event, they strived to do their best, reaching for a ‘win’ with pride, accepting and giving encouragement and praise (even when competing against each other!), and gracefully accepting outcomes.  Out of eight laurel wreaths awarded, three were presented to students from our school:  Elijah Myers, Shahada Westbrook, and Kieran Versaw-Barnes.

I’ve had the privilege of being part of this experience with our fifth grade students for the past eight years and it still has the power to awe me beyond words.  Each year I gain a new understanding of some facet of the Pentathlon.  It is much more than an addition to the block on Greek history or an event to test students’ physical abilities:

• It’s accepting the reality of a disappointing performance without feeling defeat;
• It’s being beaten by an inch and ‘high-fiving’ the winner;
• It’s accepting the judge’s decision with grace;
• It’s jumping further than you ever jumped before;
• It’s sticking the javelin when you never stuck it in training;
• It’s wrestling until your arms are exhausted . . . and wrestling some more;
• It’s running faster than you ever thought you could run;
• It’s running faster, and with more beauty and grace, than anyone else thought you could;
• It’s being awed by an amazing discus throw by an opponent.

The entire Waldorf School of Philadelphia community has every right to be proud of the way our fifth grade students represented our school at this year’s Greek Pentathlon.   So when you see one of our fifth graders, congratulate them for their performance and thank them for representing our school with such grace.

by Treacy Gallagher, WSP Movement and Games Teacher

The experience at The Waldorf School of Philadelphia is unlike any other. It provides an atmosphere of beauty, wonder and joy. However, the curriculum offers much more than a beautiful experience. It is on the cutting edge of  delivering a proven, research-based, art-infused education that inspires the development of creative thinkers with agile penetrating minds.

Waldorf Education is designed to produce creative thinkers. The entire school culture sets out to support critical, creative thinking. Art infuses every subject and each subject is taught in concert with one another, math, reading, science and history are integrated with music, art and movement, creating an educational gestalt. This is how earlier this morning a handful of grades students, while waiting for school to begin, began a game of air-hockey. Everything they needed for the game they found in the Applied Arts Wing. Hand-carved wooden coasters made by fifth grade students became the pucks and the floor became the game space. Waldorf Education awakens and lights up every part of a student’s learning life, including apparently, early morning improvised games of air-hockey.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking ~Albert Einstein~ Scientist  (1879-1955)

“Is it true that Waldorf students are not taught to read until second grade?”

No! It is not true. Learning to read is an entire process with many contributory facets, and Waldorf Education undertakes reading instruction in almost the opposite way that it is introduced in most schools across the nation Indeed, the foundation for reading instruction is laid already in the kindergarten.

In the United States, the mainstream approach to reading has been to introduce decoding skills as the first step in the reading process. This entails memorizing the alphabet and its corresponding sounds through repetitive drills and then linking these sounds together to read simple words and sentences. This is the approach that is built into early readers. You probably remember: “See Dick run. Run, Dick, run. Run, run, run.”, or some similar type of reading material when you were in school. Because the content of these early readers must be very simple to restrict words to those that can be easily sounded out, teachers are forced to wait until the middle and upper elementary years to work on more sophisticated texts. Then teachers must work hard to improve comprehension since the pupils at this age have already moved beyond the phase of where imaginative thinking is at its peak.

There is a second concern about teaching reading skills in this sequence. This approach is difficult for many young children because, in many cases, their eye muscles have not matured to the point where they can track properly on a page. Thus, a number of children will be labeled as slow or remedial readers simply because their eyes may not have matured as early as other children.

Waldorf Education approaches reading instruction from an almost opposite direction specifically so that instruction is synchronous with the development of children. Reading is much more than recognizing sound/symbol relationships. For true reading to occur, there must be a corresponding inner activity that takes place as the child decodes words: that is, the child must form an inner picture of what he or she is reading so that comprehension develops. The rich life of the imagination is most potent in a child during kindergarten and early elementary years and is present at the same time that the child’s sense for the sound and rhythm of language is at its peak.

To capture these capacities at the time that they are most present in the child is the rationale for a foundation of reading that begins first with spoken language. The rich language of fairy tales, the pictorial imagery of songs and poems and the desire of the young child to listen to stories and repeat rhymes and sing songs all become the basis for a language arts curriculum through which a child may come to love “the word”. Imagine how much more complex and imaginative are the stories to which a child may be introduced if they are orally presented rather than through the simplistic language of a reader. Imagine how much a child’s vocabulary can develop from listening to the content that the teacher brings. Imagine also how much more sophisticated a child’s understanding (comprehension) of the world can become through hearing the rich and complex language in the teacher’s presentations and stories.

For all of these reasons, Waldorf students will be given a strong foundation in comprehension, vocabulary and in the sounds and meanings of their native tongue. Then students will be introduced to writing and spelling the letters and words that are part of their stories. And, as a final step, the students will read from their own texts describing the stories that they have heard. In this way, students have the proper time to develop all of the skills that are part of the complex skill of reading at the time when it is most appropriate for them to do so. When reading is approached in this way, children become voracious readers who love and understand what they choose to read.

The original post can be found at www.whywaldorfworks.org