As we approach the end of the school year—one more week after this one—I feel both joy and sadness. I feel joy for all the wonderful times we had together—getting to know you and your families, watching your beautiful children grow, and sadness for the goodbyes that come at the end. But I won’t say goodbye quite yet—not until next week!...[read more]
“Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.” – George Bernard Shaw
I just returned from my daughter Rachel’s college graduation. What a wonderful and amazing experience—exhausting, too! One of the US Senators from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, gave the commencement address. It...
I was looking at Chapter 8 of Heaven on Earth. She covers four topics in that chapter, all of them interesting—clothing, nightmares, speaking with children about death, and choosing childcare. As I was reading, I was thinking about what a difficult subject death is for many of us. That made me think of the birthday story that I told...
[read more]This week we come to the end of Chapter 9, “Creating Your Family Culture.” In the last 2 sections, Sharifa talks about children hitting each other and then discusses blended families.
In the section entitle, “What about hitting,” Sharifa emphasizes the importance of going through the earlier steps first. Make sure that the daily...
It seems so quiet around here with Sarah Herman, our dear student teacher, gone. What a lovely gift it was to have her here with us for the past three weeks.
I wanted to continue looking at Chapter 9 in Heaven on Earth. In the next section, Sharifa talks about children’s quarrels. It is good to let them try to work things out...
Welcome back everyone! I hope you had a wonderful couple of weeks. I am also happy to welcome Sarah Herman, who will be student teaching in parent child for the next three weeks. She will be mostly observing this week, but for the following 2 weeks, she will share a circle and a story and more!
This week, I wanted to talk about...
“[T]here is one central task that each parent is given at the birth of his or her child. This is to carry for the child, until he can carry for himself, the fundamental human question, “Who am I?”…It is crucial that we allow this question to remain open, that we not close the door with our preconceptions.” So writes Sharifa Oppenheimer...
[read more]Welcome and welcome back to the spring session of the Parent-Child Program. I am so glad to be with you all again. Last week was a very long week without all of you. We have a variety of spring activities planned, including planting, painting, felting and paper mache. I could still use more squares for the story time blanket, so the...
[read more]As we finish our Winter session of Parent-Child, we will also finish the chapter on “Indoor Environment” in Heaven on Earth. As I look through the end of the chapter, though, I feel like we could spend a lot more time talking about it. If you have additional questions or thoughts, please bring them to class. We will move on to Chapter 9...
[read more]After a rather long detour through the four foundational senses, we will be heading back to Chapter 4 in Heaven on Earth, “Indoor Play Environments.” Sharifa does talk about some of the senses in this chapter. She speaks of the visual experience, “The watchwords for the education of the eye are simple, clear and beautiful.” Simple...
[read more]Welcome back, everyone! This week we will talk about the fourth of the foundational senses, the sense of self-movement. Rudolf Steiner speaks of the sense of motion as the sense that allows us to experience our own movement. Whether we are walking, crocheting, or speaking, we must be able to direct our bodies in order to accomplish our...
[read more]This week we move on to the sense of balance, the third of the four foundational senses. The sense of balance is closely related to the sense of movement, which we will speak about next week. Balance is, of course, related to the ears, and to those three amazing sets of semicircular canals that help us orient ourselves in the three...
[read more]This week, I would like to discuss the sense of touch. One of the things that really struck me when I first studied this sense was the idea that when we touch something, we experience not only the object or person that we touch but we also experience our own boundaries. When we touch something, we have an emotional as well as a physical...
[read more]This week I want to write a little more about the life sense, as this is one of the foundational senses that children develop in the first seven years of life and as it is one that you may not be familiar with. It is also described as the sense of well-being. Children generally feel secure and comfortable within their bodies—feel at...
[read more]We have spoken a lot this year about how a child absorbs everything through his senses. In her chapter on indoor environments, Sharifa Oppenheimer speaks about nourishing the senses. I thought we could spend a little time looking at Rudolf Steiner’s view of the senses. Steiner speaks about 12 senses. In his time, it wasn’t agreed on...
[read more]“Play is the heart of childhood, the foundation of our humanity.” So begins Chapter 4 of Heaven on Earth, the chapter on indoor play. We all know by now how essential play is for healthy brain development, healthy bodies and healthy social interactions, and much more. Sharifa begins the exploration of how to create indoor play...
[read more]Happy new year everyone and welcome to the winter session of our parent child class! I am so glad that you have decided to share this time with us. New beginnings are both wonderful and challenging. Having a community to share the joys and challenges with is, indeed, a blessing.
I thought that the beginning of this new session...
Festivals are wonderful, especially when shared with a child. As the days grow shorter, the season of lights is upon us. It is, however, easy to be overwhelmed by what Kim Payne calls the 4 pillars of too much—too much stuff, too many choices, too much information and too much speed. How can we avoid these? It’s not always easy, but...
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In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away…” Antoine de St. Exupery in Wind, Sand and Stars.
I have a friend who told me that when she was a new Waldorf early childhood teacher, she would often stay up late to prepare for her class...
[read more]I wish all of you a lovely Thanksgiving, filled with love, light, family and friends and, of course, good food. Thank you to all of you who were able to come to our Lantern Walk. I enjoyed sharing it with all of you. Even those who weren’t able to attend were part of the preparations. Our lantern festival celebrates the time of year...
[read more]Here are the “three R’s” of Waldorf Early Childhood education: Rhythm, ritual and reverence.
How can we bring more of all three of these to our children’s days? I am copying an article for you that may help with creating some rhythm. We can look at the tasks/activities in our lives and think about how often we do them—daily, weekly,...
As many of you know, I have been teaching a class called “Language in Early Childhood” in the Arcturus Early Childhood Teacher Training Program. Because of this, I have been thinking a lot about how we speak with our young children and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you. (We will get back to “Heaven on Earth” next week.) In this...
[read more]Chapter 2 in Heaven on Earth is called “The World of Rhythm.” It could just as easily be called the rhythm of the world. When a baby is born, he has no regular rhythm. He doesn’t know day from night—I remember this part very well. He doesn’t have a regular rhythm for eating or sleeping. His organs are finding their...
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Sharifa Oppenheimer discusses how we can support vigorous brain functioning for our young children in the next section of Chapter One.
She recommends:
1. Drink adequate water,
2. Eat adequate protein—young children need both protein and fat for healthy brain development. This is why I added hummus or lentil soup to our class snack...
It’s golden in the treetops,
It’s golden in the sky,
It’s golden in the treetops,
October’s passing by.
These early autumn days are lovely and golden. A shower of falling leaves in the sunlight reminds us of the magic of nature. Experiencing it with a young child can help us to remember the wonder of the world around us.
It...
Dear Families,
It was lovely to see so many of you at our Harvest Festival. What a beautiful day it was. Seeing so many children dancing and playing in the sunshine was a joyful experience for me.
In Chapter One of Heaven on Earth, Sharifa writes of the critical importance of imitation for the young child. In answer to the...
This week we begin our reading of Heaven on Earth by Sharifa Oppenheimer. For those of you who do not have the book, I would encourage you to get it—we still have a few copies left to borrow, as well.
The first chapter discusses how children learn. She tells us that children learn “through sensory experience; through both energetic...
[read more]As promised, we will be discussing the article, “Making Peace with Toddler Conflict” by Trice Atchison from Spring/Summer 2009 Gateways (the journal of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America). She writes this article to help us meet conflict with “understanding and finesse.” Sounds good, yes? She begins by talking...
[read more]Take a look at our Pinterest page--let me know if you need an invitation to join.
Dear Parents,
Welcome to the Chicago Waldorf School Parent-Child program. We are delighted that you will be joining us. We hope that your experience will be joyous and educational. I would like to go over some of the details of the program so you will know what to expect when you come to class.
INTRODUCING YOUR TEACHERS
I am...
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