* Reference: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, – Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher
Experience
Education Uniquely Suited For Each Developmental Phase
WSOC engages students at each stage of their development. From nature stories and folk tales in the early grades to the study of ancient Greece and Rome in middle school, the subjects resonate with students at each phase of their journey into young adulthood.
Our educators, who share an understanding of child development, deeply consider the students before them and infuse their lessons with movement, art, and plenty of outdoor learning opportunities. View our Waldorf curriculum examples, and explore our grades curriculum to learn more about our unique, dynamic and engaging curriculum.
Day
A Typical Day
The grades classrooms at WSOC are filled with academic, active learning moments: from main lesson bookwork to science experiments, to exploring the natural world all around us.
“The heart of the Waldorf method is that education is an art-it must speak to the child’s experience. To educate the whole child, his heart and his will must be reached, as well as the mind.”
— Rudolf Steiner
Example: Grade 4
8:30 – 8:45 Welcome
Welcome, check in, review schedule for the day
8:45 – 10:30 Main Lesson
Example: California History and Geography
- Review and practice from previous lesson (math or reading)
- New lesson
- Quiet working time, writing in main lesson book
- Myth from Norse Mythology – These images meet the child developmentally as well as provide characters for working out math problems and grammar lessons
10:30 – 11:10 Snack & Recess
11:10 – 11:50 Strings*
11:50 – 12:30 Spanish*
12:40 – 1:10 Recess & Lunch
1:15 – 1:50 Handwork*
2:00 – 2:40 Eurythmy*
2:50 Dismissal
* indicates that class is taught by a subject teacher.
Example: Grade 7
8:30 – 8:45 Welcome
Welcome, check in, review schedule for the day
8:45 – 10:30 Main Lesson
Example: Physiology
- Review and practice from previous lessons. Students are asked to review and explain the complex systems of the human body in their own words.
- New lesson
- Quiet working time. Writing (using notes from previous day and review that morning) and illustrating systems in Main Lesson book.
- Historical stories from the Renaissance, these stories meet the “birth of the individual” in 7th grade.
10:30 – 11:10 Snack & Recess
11:05 – 11:55 Spanish*
11:55 – 12:45 Handwork/Woodwork*
12:40 – 1:10 Recess & Lunch
1:25 – 2:15 Movement/Games*
2:20 – 3:10 Band or Orchestra*
3:15 Dismissal
* indicates that class is taught by a special subjects teacher.
Creativity
Grades 1 - 8 Curriculum
Designed for the development of the child from age 7-14
“If you’ve had the experience of binding a book, knitting a sock, playing a recorder, then you feel that you can build a rocket ship—or learn a software program you’ve never touched. It’s not bravado, just a quiet confidence. There is nothing you can’t do. Why couldn’t you? Why couldn’t anybody?”
-Peter Nitze, a graduate of the Rudolf Steiner School of New York City, Harvard and Stanford, and successful engineer.
Grade 1
Developmental Profile of a Grade 1 Child*
The seven year old child continues to develop independent and pictorial thinking. The child is eager to bring focused concentration to learning settings. Much learning is orchestrated through rich, imaginative pictures, activities, and imitations which lay the groundwork for future critical and conceptual thinking.
Educational Experience
First grade is the beginning of formal schooling marked by children’s new interest in learning, inspired by the awakening abilities of memory and thinking. Waldorf School Orange County meets the student’s innate curiosity and desire to grow with a rich multisensory experience. Students sculpt, draw, move, listen, imagine and sound out — all ways to engage different learning styles — to stimulate the young mind so that the students become motivated eager learners. Students establish good habits of classroom life and work that will form the basis for all subsequent learning at school. The students and teacher build the foundation for an ever-deepening relationship while forming a socially cohesive group during this special year of “beginnings.”
Grade 1 Core Subjects
- The alphabet
- Simple spelling
- Introduction to reading through writing
- Arithmetic
- History and literature: fairy tales, nature stories and folk tales (retold and dramatized by the class)
- Form drawing
- Painting
- Arts and Crafts
Specialty Subjects
- Foreign language
- Spanish
- Handwork: simple weaving and knitting
- Music: singing, pentatonic flute
- Eurythmy
- Games
Grade 2
Developmental Profile of a Grade 2 Child*
The eight year old child continues to reside in a largely self-created psychological landscape. The events and experiences of the outside world are filtered through the child’s imagination and rearranged to accord with the child’s homogenous world-picture.
Cognitively, the child continues to be at home in an environment where content is presented in a richly pictorial way. Concepts are best understood when they are mobile and organic in quality.
Grade 2 Core Subjects
- Spelling
- Reading
- Writing
- Introduction to the elements of grammar
- Arithmetic: all four processes
- Fables and legends (retold and dramatized, leading to composition in the own child’s words)
- Form Drawing
- Arts
Educational Experience
This year, children continue to familiarize themselves with the fundamentals of arithmetic and literacy, further developing a repertoire of skills that were initially introduced in grade 1. The curriculum content for this age serves to cultivate a sense of breadth and richness of the language of the feelings and emotions. Teachers continue to use movement, rhythm and rhyme as a key instructional tool.
Specialty Subjects
- Foreign language
- Spanish
- Handwork: simple weaving and knitting
- Music: singing, pentatonic flute
- Eurythmy
- Games
* Reference: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, – Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher
Grade 3
Developmental Profile Of A Grade 3 Child*
Noticeable physiological, psychological and cognitive changes take place in the child this year. The nine/ten year threshold represents a very significant step in self-awareness. Children realize they are separate from their surroundings and meet the world as individuals, often resulting in increased questions, self-doubt and wonder.
A process begins to unfold through which the child experiences, with increasing strength, a sense of objectivity alongside growing subjectivity. Subjective inner experiences and objective world reality stand at odds within the child’s soul. Questioning, doubt, aloneness and a dawning tendency to criticize are emergent feature in the child’s psychological landscape.
Educational Experience
In this period the child empathizes with stories of the Old Testament, the fall from Eden and man’s first struggles to live in social groups on the earth. At this age, children are very interested in the origin of things.
They want to discover new ways of doing things in the world and imagine themselves in very primitive conditions. The practical life is taken up in studies of house building, farming, gardening, cooking and finding out about the jobs people do.
Grade 3 Core Subjects
- Language Arts: spelling, reading, grammar (noun, verb and adjective), cursive writing, introduction to composition
- Mathematics: multiplication and division, measurement, money and time
- Housing, farming
- Hebrew stories and introduction to history
- Form drawing
- Art
Specialty Subjects
- Foreign language
- Spanish
- Handwork: simple weaving and knitting
- Music: singing, pentatonic flute
- Eurythmy
- Games
* Reference: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, – Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher
Grade 4
Developmental Profile Of A Grade 4 Child*
In grades 4 and 5, when the child reaches 10-11, the transition from early childhood is complete and the transition towards puberty has not yet begun. This second seven-year period is referred to in Steiner Waldorf pedagogy as the “heart of childhood.”
In fourth grade the child feels very much separate from any of the security and comforts that previously were supportive. This is a time to look around and see how one stands in relationship to that which is near and to find security and uprightness through that relationship. Four is a sign of stability and strength and balance: the four winds, the four seasons, the four elements. Four represents a sense of steadiness and completion. It is this sense of four, in the midst of separateness and defiance, that is at the very heart of the fourth grade curriculum.
The fourth grader is at odds with the world. Questions take on a personal twist: “How do you know?” There is an earnestness stemming from a new awareness of just what they’re up against in the world. Therefore, every possible opportunity is given to meet these oppositions in quite unexpected ways, ways in which the child can have the experience of crossing and, at the same time being led towards a wholesome resolution.
Educational Experience
The fourth grade student is eager to learn more about their world close to home. Through imaginatively presented lessons, the teacher meets the growing interest of the children in more concrete areas of knowledge and provides them with opportunities for more independence in their work. The curriculum helps the children form a sense of their relationship to their environment, in both a social and geographical sense.
In form drawing, Celtic knots are challenging tangles of skill and beauty. The feeling of separateness comes in handy here, otherwise one might get lost in the maze. The theme of separateness is further reflected in the mathematics curriculum with the study of fractions, introduced with concrete objects to demonstrate truths before forming mental concepts.
The fourth grade child is now introduced to string instruments — if not introduced in the previous grade — something delicate and yet powerful that will not answer endless questions nor oblige shortcuts to success. A new discipline and respect is called for in the child. There stands the player, and there the instrument, as separate as anything could be! The music is the bridge.
Throughout the year we hear and read stories of heroes. The hero emerges as someone to look up to, emulate, laugh at, respect. There may still be the miraculous feats and yet, the human qualities – the emotions, the struggles and the confrontations – are emphasized; the children understand more than anyone else the hero’s plight to slay the dragon, to woo the maiden, to succeed in the three tasks. In the stories of the Norse Myths, the gods of Asgard are portrayed as individuals with distinct personalities; the children learn from Loki the consequences of amoral cleverness; Thor faces seemingly insurmountable odds, yet through perseverance is at last triumphant; Odin, ruler of the gods, gives his eye to drink of Mimir’s well so that he may gain wisdom and spiritual vision to protect Asgard.
As the children become more aware of the world, the challenges of life may seem overwhelming. The Norse stories give the children the strength to face these challenges.
Grade 4 Core Subjects
- Language Arts: spelling, composition, grammar (noun, verb and adjective), cursive writing
- Mathematics: fractions
- Local geography
- Comparative study of human beings and animals
- Norse myths and sagas
- Form drawing
- Art
Specialty Subjects
- Foreign language
- Spanish
- Handwork: cross-stitching and basketry
- Music: introduction to string instruments and choir
- Eurythmy
- Games
* Reference: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, – Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher
Grade 5
Developmental Profile Of A Grade 5 Child*
This age marks the pivotal point between childhood and puberty and the child attains a certain ease and grace of movement intrinsic to the age. Movement that is coordinated, balanced and harmonious is a key-note of the developmental stage. Cognitively, the children are more able to understand questions and phenomena in a realistic and reasoning manner.
Out of the growing memory powers, a sense for time has developed. Memory allows for looking back and planning for the future and, combined with deepening feeling, for the emergence of conscience and responsibility.
Intellectually and morally, the child is ready for new challenges. Foundations for the basic skills in numeracy and literacy have been set down in the tenth year. Elementary notions of personal responsibility and a faculty for understanding “right from wrong” in a “reasoning spirit” may be grasped from this age.
Fifth graders are enthusiastic about learning, eager for new challenges and capable of hard work and creativity. They still have openness to the world, and a level of confidence that makes them easy to teach. They stand perfectly balanced at a point in their development that places them at ease in the world, harmonious in themselves and in their environment.
Educational Experience
The children now feel secure enough in their sense of self to begin the exploration of the world in ever-widening circles of time and space. In geography, they study the United States and its neighboring North American nations. In history, they meet the ancient civilizations of India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece through the study of mythology and culture.
Plant life is the focus of science, and decimals are introduced in the mathematical lessons. Instrumental music, singing and artistic studies continue.
Grade 5 Core Subjects
- English
- Mathematics
- North American geography
- History of ancient civilizations
- Botany
- Art
- Geometric drawings
Specialty Subjects
- Foreign language
- Spanish
- Handwork: round knitting
- Woodwork: introduction
- Music: string instruments, recorder group and choir
- Eurythmy
- Games
* Reference: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, – Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher
Grade 6
Developmental Profile Of A Grade 6 Child*
In the sixth grade, the harmony and balance often experienced in the previous year fades, and pre-adolescent struggles begin to appear. Physically, the child’s limbs are suddenly growing. Emotionally, the child is at times feeling critical, uncomfortable and longs to be part of a group. The 12-year-old witnesses what may be described as the death of childhood and the birth pangs of the individual.
At this age, the teacher aims to work with the children’s growing orientation towards the outer world. As new capacities for thinking emerge, the children can be led to understand causal relationships at work in the world. The students can be challenged and are capable of high standards in their school work.
Educational Experience
Sixth grade is the gateway to preadolescence and idealism. The curriculum serves to ground the students, to inspire them to venture out toward the unknown and to offer an introduction to their quest in life. This year is both an ending and a beginning.
Grade 6 Core Subjects
- English
- Reports and independent projects
- Mathematics: business math, pre-algebra, geometry
- Roman and medieval history
- Geography
- Physics (sound, light)
- Mineralogy
- Astronomy
- Geometric drawing
- Calligraphy
- Art
Specialty Subjects
- Foreign language
- Spanish
- Handwork: pattern making and hand-sewing a stuffed animal
- Woodwork: introduction, spoon making
- Music: string instruments and recorder
- Eurythmy
- Games
* Reference: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, – Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher
Grade 7
Developmental Profile Of A Grade 7 Child*
In grade 7, the pupils turn 13, become teenagers and enter puberty. The visible physiological changes and rapid growth are accompanied by psychological upheaval at least as disorienting and often more so. In both realms, the child loses whatever balance and tranquility they have acquired in the heart of childhood.
An appetite for knowledge of, and about, world phenomena, mingles with an emerging capacity for reflection and the first promptings of self reflection. The physical changes which establish sexual identity and capacity begin to manifest more clearly. These physical changes tend to appear in advance of the psychological development. While a feeling and yearning for independence and solitude may be experienced, a certain anxiety, emotional sensitivity and embarrassment can run alongside. Sporadic bursts of energy and an appetite for expanding outer horizons compete with periods of lethargic heaviness and subdued introspection.
Teachers and parents come up against the limit of their abilities to directly influence the children. Much of what has been adopted in terms of behavior, attitudes or habits is lost or becomes ambivalent.
Educational Experience
Through the exploration of an unknown world, the seventh grade curriculum challenges the thought processes of the young adolescent, leading him/her to discovery, understanding and discernment. They learn, as the Explorers did, that going one’s own way means leaving behind the familiar territory of security and stability.
Grade 7 Core Subjects
- English
- Poetry
- Independent projects and reports
- Human physiology
- Mathematics: algebra and geometric theorems
- Late Middle Ages and Renaissance history, explorers
- Geography
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Art
- Perspective drawing
- Creative writing block (wish, wonder, surprise)
Specialty Subjects
- Foreign languages
-
- Spanish
- Handwork: doll making
- Woodwork: bowl making
- Music: choir, ensemble, orchestra
- Eurythmy
- Games
* Reference: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, – Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher
Grade 8
Developmental Profile Of A Grade 8 Child*
At 14, the pupils are “into” adolescence: bodily and psychological changes are well under way, so that in general, the young person seems more robust and the tenderness of the previous two years has lessened somewhat. Growth in height and sexual development are clearly established, with the onset of voice change in boys and the establishing of the menstrual cycle in girls.
At this age, the world of ideas begins to take on meaning for the young adolescent and the critical faculties of the 14 year old are noticeably sharper and parts of the accepted framework—particular rules for example—are subject to questioning scrutiny. Counter balancing this critical tendency is the emergence of reasoning or a “reasonable” side in the child.
Educational Experience
A Waldorf eighth grader experiences a gradual but significant shift from the presentation of a subject solely from the teacher to the class, to the mutual consideration of a subject by teacher and class together. A sense of community develops, in which speaking becomes more thoughtful, listening more attentive.
The result is a greater sense of self. The students expand their sense of place in the world. More importantly, they leave with compelling questions that will continue to fuel their love of learning in the years ahead.
Grade 8 Core Subjects
- English
- Styles and forms of poetry and short story
- Independent projects
- Anatomy
- Chemistry
- Mathematics: algebra and geometry
- History: 1700 to present, French and American Revolution, Industrial Revolution, American history
- Geography
- Meteorology
- Physics
- Art
- 8th Grade Project
Specialty Subjects
- Foreign languages
-
- Spanish
- Handwork: machine sewing
- Woodwork
- Music: choir, ensemble, orchestra, recorder
- Eurythmy
- Games
* Reference: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, – Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher
Goals
Challenge
Middle School Athletics
Middle School Athletics Programs
The Waldorf School Orange County Middle School Athletics Program is available to all students in grades 6, 7 and 8.
This after-school sports program fosters the development of good sportsmanship and healthy, active young bodies.
There are no tryouts or “cuts” from teams in middle school; all students in this grade range have the opportunity to learn athleticism, practice positive sportsmanship and enjoy themselves.
Our Wildcats girls and boys teams compete against other local private schools in scrimmages and games. Game practices take place on campus after school from 3:15 to 4:45pm. In addition, we compete in the annual Pilot Cup soccer tournament- this is separate from our regular sports program and is exclusively grades 5 and 6.
Rhythm
Extended Care
Extended Care
Extended care for grades 1 – 8 is a conscious continuation of a rhythm in support of the Waldorf school day.
Activities include arts and crafts, assisted homework and instrument practice time, supervised outside play, story hour and games. Cell phones and other electronic devices are not permitted. Past activities also have included time with Baba the Storyteller, Academic Chess and basketball with a high school volunteer. Please see After School Programs on our website for more details.
Sample Waldorf Schedule for Extended Care
- 2:50 – 3:15 —Inside play
- 3:15 – 3:30 — Snack
- 3:30 – 4:00 — Outside play
- 4:00 – 4:45 — Homework time in a separate supervised classroom (for grades 4-8 who have homework)
- 4:30 — All students not in homework session come inside for play
Big Aftercare is open from the end of the school day until 5:00 P.M.
