First Grade 
The First Grade is a time of awakening to many wonders and is seen as a bridge from early childhood to the second seven-year period of development where the forces of feeling, imagination and a sense of beauty predominate. The first grader perceives the world with all her senses and creates, internally, a world every bit alive as the one outside. “Nature lives in me! I am the world, and the world is me.” She dreams into the world and has a deep-rooted feeling of oneness with it. This feeling of unity is the hallmark of First Grade. From this sense of wholeness, the first grader begins to explore herself and her surroundings through imitation of the teacher’s doing and making.
Learning through doing and learning through making are twin aspects of the same fundamental attitude to education that permeates the Waldorf curriculum. Thinking and understanding arise out of activity and movement, and living thinking - or intelligence that can grasp what is in movement or is still in a state of becoming – is internalized movement. In first grade, the children’s natural tendency toward movement and their enthusiasm for life are thus harnessed for learning and for work.
First Grade Curriculum
First graders are introduced to the following core subjects: form drawing, language arts, mathematics, science, painting, gardening, music, handwork, games, drama and Spanish. Each subject is enlivened and made relevant to the child through stories, songs, rhymes, verses, activities that move the physical body and artistic endeavors that move the soul.
Form drawing is the deliberate freehand drawing of forms from nature and from man and is introduced through stories and movement. The children are encouraged to look at the world in a new way, thus providing the foundation for creative thinking, spatial acuity, and writing. The forms (straight lines,
Main Lesson
curved lines, and combinations thereof) are first drawn by walking them on the ground, by using our own bodies to make a three-dimensional representations, by drawing in the air, and then finally by putting it down onto paper with the hand.
Fairy tales and nature stories from around the world are brought to the child in the oral tradition, serving a myriad of purposes. These stories reveal hidden truths regarding human nature, life, and the afterworld – they nourish the soul. The storyteller’s understanding of the deeper spiritual meaning of these stories is conveyed on a soul-level to the child. Hearing the stories out loud encourages the child to take the spoken word and convert them into living mental pictures, exercising her developing pictorial memory. The actual words used and sentence melody builds her vocabulary and helps with enunciation, setting the stage for later instruction in phonics. And from the creative imagery generated for each story and the gestures learned in form drawing, richly hued crayon drawings are generated through which the letters of the alphabet are introduced. This awakens in the child an image or feeling to connect with each letter and its sound. The writing of simple words, focusing on word families, and the copying of short, simple sentences quickly follow. The child learns to write through drawing! Reading comes a little later through the gradual deciphering of what is first drawn by her own hand.
Fairy tales guide our journey
The abstractness of mathematics is made concrete as the nature of each number from one to 12 is explored. For example, one is unity and the whole; two is the duality of life – sun and moon, father and mother, or love and hate. All four mathematical processes – addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication – and their corresponding human characteristics are brought to life through stories, movement, songs, and the physical manipulation of objects and fingers. Most importantly, each process is introduced from the whole to the parts. For example, when introducing addition, we start with the sum (let’s say 5) as the “problem”, and the children are encouraged to discover all the “answers” (3+2, 2+3, 1+4, 4+1, 5+0, 0+5, 1+1+3, etc.). They quickly understand that there is no one correct way of thinking. At the same time, math riddles and mental math are introduced. The multiplication table is physically manifested in the child’s feet and hands as rhythmic counting, walking, and clapping. Math thus resides in the child in the form of living images and physical experiences.
Morning Movmenet
Science encompasses what’s living in the child and appears like hidden gems in the activities planned for each day. The child takes her first step on the path toward scientific discovery by cultivating the ability to observe carefully, patiently, and lovingly. Observation and listening skills are strengthened during drawing, painting, handwork, and music lessons. The child observes how the teacher draws, paints or plays the flute, and she learns to listen to a series of instructions. Through gardening, nature stories, and gently guided observations, such natural phenomena as the changing of the seasons, life and death, the waning and waxing of the moon, and the growth of plants are brought to the child’s awareness and imagination. Through actual physical experiences such as walking quietly in the woods, climbing a tree, or playing in a creek, gained during our Friday Nature Awareness days, the child experiences and experiments with the laws of physics. Science in first grade is not an explanation of why something occurred so much as a kinesthetic knowing and a deep love for nature and the world. It lays the foundation for critical thinking, is the emotional basis for environmental stewardship, and is the physical basis for the understanding of the laws of nature. Science must first be alive in the child’s imagination and reside in her body before she can comprehend the abstract concepts with her intelligence.
The first grader continues to gain mastery of watercolor painting, which was first introduced in kindergarten. During painting, the child is encouraged to explore the movements of her inner feeling life and reveal it using colors and form. The characteristics of and the feelings generated by the sight of each primary color and their combinations are also explored and painting techniques are demonstrated.
In gardening, the child explores the plant world with her senses. We grow and cultivate edible plants, colorful and sweet-smelling flowers, and herbs having distinctive tastes, smells, and feel. These sensory experiences, combined with those from our Friday Nature Awareness days, foster a reverence, love, and respect for the earth and eventually lead in later years to the development of environmental stewardship – feeling the need to nurture the earth and actively exploring creative solutions to environmental issues. We build our own raised garden beds and are involved in a variety of craft projects ranging from building bird feeders to creating fairy gardens and homes.
Music is an integral part of each school day. We greet each day and each other with song and verse. Our daily circle play is accompanied by stories, pentatonic songs, and music from the pentatonic flute. The whole school sings together each Wednesday. First graders also attend a weekly music class taught by Margaret More, a master music teacher with over 30 years of experience. In this class, the children learn to play the recorder and basic concepts in music theory are gently introduced to the children through lively movement, fun games, songs, and the playing of simple instruments. Singing and making music together deepens listening skills in the children. They hear the other and learn to respond harmoniously to the whole – not just musically, but socially as well.
Like music, handwork is incorporated into all aspects of the school day. Handwork, with it’s essential characteristic of doing and making, is central to the development of intelligence and thinking in the child. Twice a week in handwork class they are given time to learn and master a practical skill. In first grade, we learn to knit. We visit a sheep farm, watch the sheep being sheared, make our own knitting needles, and then begin to knit. As our skill progresses, our projects become more complex but always practical.
Games class is initially offered once a week and gradually will be offered every day. Through pictorial images brought by the teacher using stories and song, the children are encouraged to move and act out of their understanding of the games. Movements that strengthen the child’s fine and gross motor skills, sense of movement, spatial awareness, sense of balance and equilibrium, and sense of wellbeing are encouraged. The games introduced focus on the development of cooperative, team building skills.
The dramatic arts are brought each year through performances in which the children are able to take on increasing individuality in their roles. Often the children will act out stories they have been told by the teacher as a way for them to live into the story. The school year culminates with a year-end play presented to the community, led by the children. Typically this is the enactment of a fairy or folk tale in which the children have worked extensively in main lesson: retelling the story to the teacher, drawing it, writing parts of it, reading it back and finally acting it out. The end results are an invigorated sense of confidence and pride it what they have learned and a great joy in sharing it with their family and friends.
Spanish is brought to the first grade twice a week. A native Spanish-speaking master teacher with over 30 years of experience introduce conversational skills and simple vocabulary through songs, rhymes, games, finger play, stories, crafts, festivals, and role-playing. The children’s view of the world is expanded through learning about the characteristics, customs, traditions, culture, and geography of the peoples who speak the language. In addition, empathy is cultivated in the children when their ability to listen to the other as well as their sensitivity to the other’s spoken and unspoken intentions are strengthened.
