This Waldorf Steiner class is designed with the homeschooling families in mind.  Here, I will teach the Class Two Waldorf (Steiner) curriculum including literacy, numeracy, art, science, and geography.  Lessons are taught in blocks of 3-5 weeks (as indicated below).  

The classes will also hold a space for music as the children learn to play short, popular songs on the recorders.  There is no need to learn notes on a sheet, all music is learned through repetitive playing and watching me show how to play the notes in the class.  The sound of the music and the tones and rhythm are what help teach the students how to play.

In class 2, students immerse themselves in stories of Celtic Narratives, Animal Fables, World Legends and the Lives of Saints.  They will hear stories (including hearing the tales of The King of Irelands Son, The Celtic Dragon Myth, ), draw illustrations to match with the tales and stories (with crayons, pastels and pencils), paint pictures, use bees wax for modelling and use other creative resources to express and retell the stories.  They will also use their Year 1 foundation skills to write simple retell sentences about the stories and read their own writing (in this year, reading back their own work is a precursor to reading others work).  Through this lens, the students will learn different spelling techniques to incorporate into their writings.  The children will also learn simple Celtic verses which they will copy and learn to recite (and begin to read as they recognize more words).

Literacy blocks will include writing texts using appropriate punctuation, self-writing recounts, reading self-written texts, recognizing that letters can vary and have different sounds, recognizing an increasing bank of sight words, building on phonetic knowledge (including consonant digraphs such as sh, ch,th), learning a range of spelling rules (including vowel digraphs, long vowels, blends and silent letters) and exploring descriptive words in the texts.

Numeracy blocks will be divided up through the year.  Blocks will include the studies of Times Tables and Number Patterns, Place Value, Magic Numbers and the Layout of Sums.
*Times Tables and Number Patterns will explore number sequences in movement, rhythmic counting and geometric patterns, continuing to recite the times tables in chorus, ordering and sequencing number patterns with objects in grouping and in movement as well as through geometric patterning.  The children will do simple mental arithmetic of number facts and simple sums in narratives and complete multiplication facts to represent the number sentences with concrete objects, initially working from the whole to the parts.
*The Place Value main lesson will teach the children to recognize, model read and write numbers to 1,000, use addition facts to 20, group and regroup collections of numbers in hundreds, tens and ones, continue to use the four processes (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) in different written layouts, understanding the connection between addition and subtraction, and begin some informal measuring (half and quarter).
*The Magic Numbers main lesson engages with the mathematical world of structure and the relationship between the numbers through the exploration of stories, problems and games that underline their magical qualities.  They will revisit the odd and even numbers, find patterns in multiplication, visualize square numbers as part of the times tables, find the patterns in sums and gather and draw representations of information from class.
*Finally, the Layout of Sums will teach calculations and representations of sums (addition and subtraction) from pictures and horizontal / column sums.

Form drawing will continue and we will use Celtic representations (such as the Celtic knot) to explore:
-more complex lines, ribbon forms and freehand geometric forms, 
-horizontal symmetries, 
-transformation of a straight line to a curved line, 
-draw the same line facing in different directions (left to right), 
-explore movement and drawing in space using directions and polarities of movement (fast/slow, holding/ releasing) and, 
-continue to develop harmony, symmetry beauty and order in the form.

Our Geography / Science lessons this year will be The World Around Us.  This unit will be split into three blocks.  These blocks will engage in stories of a wide region looking at weather patterns, landscape and plants of the desert lands (and how there are similarities and differences across continents and deserts).  The children will learn some plant names and their meanings (how is their name related to their features).  The children will form pictures of ocean animals, their homes, their movements, their needs, their young and their interactions with life.  They will write stories about the animals and the weather and how they move in their environment.  They will hear indigenous stories of land (from different countries) and how animals moved through the land (migrations of birds, etc.).  With support from families, children can make clay landscapes, dioramas, or even plant out some plant species we have learned about in class, trying to create the write environment.
Block 1 will focus on scenes of beaches, oceans and islands.
Block 2 will engage in the desert life.
Block 3 will focus on scenes of the natural forests, bushlands and rainforest regions.

In these block lessons, children will use a Main Lesson book to record their drawings and writing.  They will also use watercolor paints, pastels, beeswax, and block crayons to create art around the study.  Form drawing will be carried through the blocks to orientate and balance through spacing, position and balance of form on the page (right / left, top / bottom, beginning / end).  More simple art forms will be added to the studies, including creating an environment from our science and geography study (diorama, clay, etc.), simple weaving, leaf rubbings, and more (depending on household resources).
      
Main Lesson blocks are taught in sections of 2-4 weeks.  They cycle through from Literacy, Numeracy, Science / Geography.  Form Drawing is taught throughout the year and is imbedded in weekly lessons.

Main Lesson blocks will begin with a Celtic Story study for a 3-week block before moving to a Numeracy block, Number Patterns and through to the first Science / Geography block.

Beginning dates and lessons:
Week of September 1st: Celtic Stories (Druids)
Week of September 8th: Celtic Stories (Celtic Dragon Myth)
Week of September 15th: Celtic Stories (Celtic Wonder Tales)
Week of September 22nd: Numeracy : Number Patterns

These blocks do not build on each other, they each have their own outcomes and children are welcome to join at anytime.  Parents might like to join during specific blocks to help their children grow and learn in a specific learning area.  Please contact me for more information on the learning outcomes for the blocks and where we are up to.