I've been waiting not-so-patiently for my new camera to record the wonders of First Grade. I'm lamenting the fact that my chalkboard drawings and table puppet set-ups couldn't be captured on camera. Oh well! We'll have a lot of first grade yet to come.
We started in the middle of January. It's traditional in Waldorf schools to have a short ceremony of the first day of school where the incoming first-graders are presented with roses as they are welcomed to school. I chose to do this for Sariah, and it really did make the day more special.
The very first thing that first graders learn is how to draw a line and a curve. They then proceed to draw many forms made from lines and curves. If you think about it, all the letters of the alphabet can be made from lines and/or curves, so this is a great way to prepare the children for writing.
I used Marsha Johnson's 1st-2nd grade form drawing e-book from her Magic of Waldorf website. This e-book has been a godsend for me! Drawing the forms has always been easy. Coming up with stories to introduce them and activities to practice them has not been so easy. Marsha's e-book has a number of ordered form drawing lessons that include short nature stories and suggestions of ways to practice the forms. I wish I could remember the stories for the forms below, but I don't, and I'm too lazy to go look them up.
What you see on the paper is the culmination about about 20-30 minutes of activity that has NOT been on paper. I tell the story while I draw the form on the board. The form represents some aspect of the story--usually an action, not an object. (We don't want the children to think of the forms as a picture of something specific.) Then I have Sariah trace the form on the board with her finger. Then we might draw it in the air with varous body parts, draw it on the ground and have her run, walk, skip, hop it, etc. We might have her draw it on a paper taped to the floor while holding the crayon between her toes. We might write it on each other's backs. We might trace it with our fingers in rice or form it out of playdough. We do many things to MOVE while we practice it. Then we put it on paper or on the chalkboard. I read in an article somewhere that what is drawn on the paper is the physical representation of a MOVEMENT. I thought that was profound. I had always focused on the form and thought of everything else as ways to practice the form. I had not thought that the form IS the movement, put on paper.
Thus, the actual drawing of the form should only take the last few minutes of the session.
We began the school year with two full weeks of nothing but form drawing, and then we went into our first language arts lesson block. (We still do form drawing once a week on Monday mornings.)
I took our first block directly and completely from Marsha Johnson's free files, which are found on her yahoogroup, Waldorf Home Educators. She had all the songs, poems, games, activities, stories, painting ideas, etc. in that file. It made it so easy--and so fun! I absolutely love this way of teaching language arts. I think it is brilliant!
We start each main lesson by doing about 20 minutes of movement or "rhythmic" activities. We say a poem, we do movement verses, we do beanbag exercises, we jump rope, and we do clapping/counting verses, among other things. This is our fun warm-up to the rest of the lesson. The fun part is that Preston can join in and is entertained. The challenging part is that Preston can join in and is entertained. (Can you see trying to do jump rope with a toddler who wants to be right in the middle of the jump-roping? He is slowly learning to take turns...)
Then, on the first day, I ended with a story--a fairy tale from Grimm's. We told the story of Snow White and Rose Red.
On day two we acted out the story using tabletop puppets and then she drew a picture of the story in her book.
The main point was to get the bear to be a very specific shape...
...because on day three we would find a letter hidden in the bear's body--the letter B! (Or, as I presented it, the letter "buh" for "bear".) On my chalkboard drawing, I actually drew the letter B right over the bear's body.
The next week's story was the story of The Water of Life, and it included a mountain, or, actually, two mountains that close in on each other.
And this is perfect for introducing the letter M:
On week three, we told Hansel and Gretel, and I made sure that the gingerbread house had a funny shape, so we could introduce...
...the letter W, for witch--of course! You can't see in the picture, but on my chalkboard drawing, which was to an extent copied by Sariah (though she got to put in many of her own details), the witch's eyebrows were also a W shape, as was her broom and her raggedy hem.
On week four, the story was The Goose Girl. Can you find the letter in the shape of the goose and the shape of the girl's basket?
Each week followed a similar pattern. Story on day one, art on day two, writing on day three. Marsha also has skillful ways of weaving in games, verses, and activities that tie in the fairy tales. We had so much fun with some of these things, and they were so good for the development of Sariah's senses. For example, when we did The Water of Life, the lesson plan suggested having her walk over a balance beam while carrying a full goblet of water, while we repeated a verse about "not spilling a drop of the water of life".
Each week we have a painting day, usually in Thursdays. In this block, the painting stories all related to the fairy tales being told. In Waldorf, at this age, the paintings are not supposed to be formed. They are intended to be experiences with color. I worried that Sariah would resist, because she has been painting free paintings, usually formed paintings, for quite awhile. But she has accepted this way of painting--and I always let her paint a free painting afterwards. I am happy because not only is she learning to play with color, but she's gaining skill in controlling the brush and is also learning different strokes with the paintbrush--circular strokes, up-and-down strokes, short strokes, etc.
I believe this painting story had to do with a portion of Snow White and Rose Red where the girls are sleeping in a dark forest and are protected from harm by an angel. The yellow represents the warmth and light of that protection while the blue is for the darkness of the night. She was supposed to have the blue come right up to the yellow without mixing. (You can tell it's a bit green, hee hee!)
This was from The Goose Girl, representing the pink of the fields full of flowers, with some blue added to make lavender flowers.
We also had many games and activities to practice the letters. We made "rainbow letters"--basically writing the letters in the seven colors of the rainbow across a strip of paper. We played games coming up with words starting with each letter, and even used our alphabet cards to draw letters and come up with words.
One day we made a book for the letter M. Sariah wrote the first letter on each page, I finished the word for her, and she illustrated it.
(Moonface is a character from a favorite book)
She also made a beeswax letter to stick on the wall for each week. In addition to this, we have formed letters from beans, jewels, and rocks. We have also used letters as forms, walking and running them on the floor, tracing them in the air with various body parts, etc. I really love that this is such a holistic curriculum! We learn with our whole bodies and in many different ways, and Waldorf brings ALL of it into play.
Right now we are in our first math block, but after it is done, and after spring break, we will get back into fairy tales and letters, only we will speed up the process and do two or more letters per week and possibly copy little 2 or 3-word summaries into her main lesson book for each story we do.
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