Once upon a time, there was a beautiful, shining ship. It had golden sails topped with high-flying multi-colored pennants. The rich burgundy wood of the deck was so polished it glimmered in the sun.

But this wasn’t just any ship. This ship held the magical powers of transformation. When everyone on board worked hard and shared a common vision, the ship could become whatever they needed, allowing them to travel wherever they wanted. It could transform into a packet boat that could navigate the waters of smooth-as-glass canals. It could become a kayak that leapt through the rapids of swift rivers. Or it could become a large canoe that traveled down the waters of the Great River thanks to the coordinated paddling of the entire clan.

On this ship, anything was possible with hard work and a common vision.

One day some incredibly fortunate young adventurers boarded this ship with their captain (who, it turned out, was the most fortunate of them all). They got to know each other, packed their bags (with the help of some devoted land-lubbers), made some agreements, and set sail.

As the journey began, those adventurers listened to their captain and followed her every command. They worked together caring for the ship, swabbing the decks, hoisting the sails, and cleaning the galley.

They cared for each other, picking up extra work when someone needed rest, working through disagreements as they arose, making sure everyone had what they needed to continue the adventure.

They quickly found that the magic of the ship was real. When they worked hard and built a common vision, they could go anywhere! On board that ship they traveled to the frigid waters of the North, where rugged Norsemen lived passionate lives and died triumphant deaths. They journeyed to a mysterious land where yellow sands parted to make way for a meandering, life-giving river. They met powerful kings, wise rishis, charismatic monkeys, tempestuous princesses, ladder-climbing fish, humble queens, opinionated gods, clever goddesses, and living, talking trees that shared their wisdom with those quiet enough to listen. (The adventurers quickly learned the importance of listening.)

At times, the ship would pull into port and some adventurers would disembark — waving and smiling and blowing kisses through tears as they continued their journey on another ship. Sometimes new adventurers would join the crew, ready to share stories and enjoy new experiences.

Their adventures brought laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, delight and heartache. And the adventurers may not have realized it, but the ship wasn’t the only thing transforming.

After five glorious years of adventure, the ship came in to port once again, but this time it wasn’t to find new crew members. After many hugs, tears, and well-wishes, the captain herself stepped off the ship, clearing the way for a new leader, who would guide the ship on even greater adventures.

With her feet on solid ground, the captain turned and looked at the wonder that they had created together. Those young adventurers taught just as much as they learned, and now someone new would gain the benefit of their teaching.

She reflected on the beginning of their journey, thinking of her younger self, and that sun-drenched day when she unknowingly stepped onboard for the wildest, most adventurous experience of her life. She had no idea what awaited her.

Then she thought again of that new captain who would soon stand at the helm, taking their own leap into the unknown.

With a nostalgic tremble in her voice she whispered to herself, “They don’t know how lucky they are.”

The post The Adventure Continues appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

But the truth is, those Pinterest teachers don’t always know what spoke most to my students about our lessons. And though I could certainly reverse-engineer my lessons so that those lovely Pinterest pages will appear to naturally align, that does seem a little backward. This well-trained Waldorf teacher knows that the work should respond to the needs and interests of the students — not the other way around.

So, over the years, I’ve given some intention and developed systems (goodness knows, I love a good system) that guide the creation of our main lesson pages.

The Content

The first thing is deciding on the content. The system I’ve developed for this is one of my favorite things. It was an epiphany that absolutely changed my teaching.

You see, when I first started teaching, I allowed the main lesson pages and the review content to naturally arise out of the lesson. Sometimes we would write a composition about the story. Other times we would do a guided drawing. It all just depended on what the content seemed to ask for.

The problem with that approach was that it sometimes meant that we went weeks without doing a guided drawing, or we might do three guided drawings in a week. With this inconsistent and varied approach was that I couldn’t rely on my students getting the skill-building practice that is so essential to their growth. Though allowing the work to naturally arise is probably the most holistic approach, I feel that skill-development is just too important to leave to chance.

The Solution

So a few years ago, I settled on a main lesson review content plan that guides our weekly work. Each week, we work on three main pieces of content:

• An independent composition
• A guided drawing
• A dictation

I could write an entire post about these three pieces of content, but here’s a quick overview.

Composition

I use the term composition to refer to pieces of writing that the students write independently. I prefer this term because it can apply to different types of content — summaries of imaginative stories, reports about animals, etc. It’s a much more useful term than “essay” or “story.”

Usually, we write compositions on Tuesdays (I make sure to tell a really good, image-rich story on Monday so they’ll have lots of ideas), I correct them that night and we put them in our main lesson books on Tuesdays.

Guided Drawing

This is a full page drawing that I guide to help work on drawing skills. It’s generally a fun way to remember stories together, while still having a skill-building lesson. We usually do these on Thursdays.

Dictation

I’ve written before about my dictation rhythm here and here — and it’s one of my favorite things. Here’s how it works.

• I create a piece of writing about one of the stories they’ll hear that week (or some sort of overview content). I break that writing down into daily chunks. When we first started in 3rd grade, they got one sentence each day. Now in 4th grade it depends. It’s sometimes more than one sentence.
• Each day I dictate the sentence for the day, they listen and they write it in their dictation book.
• We correct their writing together, and talk about whatever phonics or grammar rules we’re working on.
• Depending on the grade, the students receive a dictation quiz at the end of the week. Now in 4th grade, they’re getting a fill-in-the-blank quiz. I’ve chosen meaningful words for the week, they study them and the fill-in-the blank dictation quiz takes the place of a traditional spelling test. It’s a nice and satisfying way to wrap up the week. You can see a sample of our 4th grade dictation quiz here.
• At the end of the week (or sometimes on Monday of the following week) we put that dictation in our books.

Here are some of the things I love about dictation:

• It allows me to expose the students to beautiful writing. I want them to do plenty of their own independent composition (which I think Waldorf teachers don’t do enough of), but I also want them to be exposed to beautiful writing samples.
• I can naturally incorporate phonics and grammar lessons with content that is engaging and interesting, instead of boring, unrelated grammar exercises.
• Because it is such an essential part of our daily routine, I know that my students are going to practice spelling, punctuation, and grammar every single day.

Okay, so those are the three main pieces of content we work on each week. Now, of course, this is definitely flexible. For example, we often don’t do a new composition during the last week of a block, as we’re finishing things up and getting ready to turn in.

Writing Pages

So, if you’re following along, you’ll see that most weeks we have two pieces of writing that go into our books, so that’s what I’m going to address for the rest of this post.

(I’ll just say briefly, about guided drawings, I’m much less intentional about planning the specific drawing skills we’ll be working on. If I were a more skill artist, I would probably have an art curriculum that I moved through as we completed these guided drawings. Instead, I just let the stories and their images guide our work.)

So let’s talk about how to format writing pages.

First of all — come up with a system that your students will use throughout the year to set up and complete the page. The system that you use will depend on the grade, and maybe even the individual student. You want to give them a structure that will help them keep their writing clear. Here’s what I’ve done.

Grade One — Capital and Lower Case

First grade is all about learning the letters and their sounds — with lower case letters coming at the end of the year. For each letter we drew a picture that had the letter hidden within and we did a letter page that included the capital letter, the lower case letter (we hadn’t filled it in yet on this page) and a few words from the story that begin with the letter.

By the end of the year, we wrote short sentences together, but we were just beginning with that work, so I did not get too intentional about a page set-up system.

Grade Two — Sky, Earth and Water

In second grade, we did much more writing, so we needed a proper system for writing in our main lesson books. I used a page set-up that many Waldorf teachers have used through the years — sky, earth and water.

To set up the page, we used the “mama bear” side of our block crayons (I actually think we started the year with “papa bear” and switched halfway through) and drew stripes across the page in yellow (sky), green (earth) and blue (water). It did a pretty good job of helping us to form our letters properly, though occasionally kids’ lines curved on the page. I was always amazed to see that even with their curved lines, they were careful to make sure that lower case letters stayed in the earth area, while capitals reached up into the sky.

The other benefit of this format was that it gave us good imaginative language for talking about where the letters were supposed to be. Lower case y and g “dip into the water”, while h, k and l “reach up to the sky.”

One other note about second grade writing — if I had a student who really struggled with forming the letters properly, I would not hesitate to switch to traditional primary paper with dashed lines across the middle. We used this paper in our primary composition books for “kid writing” (see this post for more info about that) and I think it really helped kids to know how to form their letters. I started out the year thinking that if it was necessary, I would have kids do their final drafts on lined paper and glue them in to the main lesson books. It just happened that my students did pretty well with the sky, earth and water set-up, so I didn’t worry about it.

Grade Three — Alternating Colors

Towards the end of 2nd grade and moving into 3rd grade, my students were writing so much that things just didn’t fit when we used the sky, earth and water set-up, so we switched to using two alternating colors to create lines.

I let go of the imagination to guide their letter formation (they didn’t need reminders about letters that dipped into the water or reached into the sky) and they didn’t really need the dotted center line anymore. So I chose two of the lightest colors (light green and yellow) and we alternated them down the page to create lines.

Also, throughout this year I introduced cursive. In about November, our weekly dictation was written on the board in cursive and they copied it into their main lesson books in cursive. I waited much longer before having them translate their own writing into cursive. I did not change the page set-up when we switched to cursive (they probably could have used it, but it just didn’t seem right to come up with a completely different set-up situation for cursive pages.) Instead, I made sure that we did cursive practice on primary paper with the dashed line.

I should also mention that it was March of our 3rd grade year when we closed for COVID. At that point, I provided cursive exercise packets, but completion of that work varied.

Oh, I should also say that throughout the crayon lines years, we used the papa bear side of our crayon to create borders on the pages.

Grade Four — A Wide Liner and One-Line Border

Now we’re in fourth grade and we set up each writing page with a one-line colored pencil border and we put a liner behind the page. I did a lot of experimenting with making liners that were bold enough for students to see through. Somehow finding a liner has always been the piece of our work that has me scrambling.

I much prefer to create it on the computer — usually a Google Doc — but getting the line to be bold enough has been the challenge. I finally figured out the solution, though. If “add a drawing” to your doc, you can make the line as bold as you want. Then you have a perfectly straight, bold line that you can just print (or online students can print themselves.)

If you want your own copy of my 4th grade liner Google Doc, click here and make a copy.

Borders

Though I know that many teachers encourage students to create beautiful, ornate borders, I prefer that my students keep it simple for writing pages. A colleague once mentioned that when you allow that free-for-all creativity in the borders, kids go a little over the top and it brings out astrality. I’ve certainly observed this as students’ borders get crazy-busy with flowers, rainbows, hearts and forest animals. Of course, I give them a chance to do this kind of free-drawing on occasion, but it is with a lot of intention, and not in their main lesson books.

I’m also a firm believer of the idea that freedom comes out of form. Students need to learn how to work within the form and completely understand it before they can overthrow it with their own inspired creativity. In large part, this defines the developmental path through this period, so I look for all kinds of ways to reinforce it. In my view, the middle grades are ALL about defining the form. Strong form and learning structures help students to relax into their learning and focus on strengthening the skills that will become the tools of their future learning.

This emphasis on form is sometimes difficult for free-thinking Waldorf parents to get on board with. I could write a whole separate post about this, but the Waldorf catch-phrase “Education TOWARDS freedom,” really sums it up. We’re not free yet, and these kids won’t be there until they have a fully-developed ego. Between now and then, they’ll have plenty of time to explore form and experiment with overthrowing it.

Drawings to Fill the Page

Figuring out what to do with blank space at the bottom of the page has been a work in progress for me. Because at this point most of the writing we’re putting in our main lesson books are independent compositions, students’ pages have varying amounts of white space at the end. My students’ handwriting is also significantly varied. I have some students who are still getting a grasp of cursive writing and their letters are quite large. Other students have joined the “teeny tiny writing club” that seems to be a pretty consistent trend in fourth grade. (I actually remember going through that phase myself!)

Whenever possible, I try to account for leftover space at the bottom of the page on my own composition, so students have a model of what to do with that extra space. It doesn’t always work out, though. There are plenty of times when my example goes to the bottom of the page, when a student’s work has all kinds of extra room.

I wish I could be fine with leaving the rest of the page blank, but pages with too much white space just look incomplete to my eye. So when this happens, I tell the students to fill the bottom half of the page with a drawing that aligns with the story. We’ve done enough of them that they know what I mean, but sometimes they get a little out of hand and that astral free-for-all creeps out. Often kids are not satisfied with their own work when this happens, which is a good learning experience for them. Eventually, they’ll know to keep it simple.

The other reason I tend to latch on to this solution is that invariably the students who have extra room at the bottom of the page are those kids who fly through their work. Of course I encourage them to slow down and give more care, but many of them do perfectly lovely work quite quickly. Having them do a drawing keeps them engaged while others finish.

Grade Five and beyond — Getting Creative

Towards the end of fifth grade, we start experimenting with other types of borders. This is still a step-by-step, strongly-led process, though. I want them to have an experience of what kinds of borders tend to work best, and we still have plenty of writing pages that use the good old one-line border.

Even in sixth grade, the most successful borders are when they’ve had a model to look at, so I try to do an example for every page through sixth grade. This doesn’t always happen, though. (By the way, last time around, I figured out a good solution for making sure I have a complete book of my own at the end of the block, even if I did some of the work on the chalkboard or was just too busy to make my own page. I had one of the early-finishers do my page while others finished their work. This ended up being quite an honor and they loved working in my book. I loved having work samples from a wide variety of students.)

In my view, sixth grade is the last of the super-strong form years (6th graders need a lot of structure, even though they seem ready for more freedom), and by seventh grade they’re ready for much more independence and creativity. Last time around, I remember observing this so clearly in the first block of seventh grade — The Renaissance. I can’t think of a better block to encourage creative, artistic thinking.

At this point, main lesson book entries can be a combination of writing and drawing. Students can see how drawings can enhance their writing and vice-versa. (Interestingly, even my fourth graders are asking if they can include a sentence on a drawing page so they can tell the story a little better.)

So, that’s the evolution of writing pages in my Waldorf classroom. I can imagine this becoming a series where I go through how drawing materials, writing processes and other classroom practices change through the years.

How do your writing page routines compare to mine? Is there something you do differently that is really working? I’d love to hear it! Respond in the comments!

The post How to Create a Waldorf Main Lesson Page appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

Okay, on to the topic.

Record-keeping is another one of those topics that wasn’t fully addressed in my Waldorf teacher training.

I mean, yes, there was a lot to cover. And I got a FULL dose of the importance of imagination and activating the feeling life of my students. And truly, this is the MOST important aspect of my work. So thank you Nettie and Betsy!

But, beyond this, I firmly believe that what Waldorf teachers need to do to become more appreciated and respected in the mainstream world is to provide more documentation and feedback.

All it took for me to be convinced of this idea was my first IEP meeting collaborating with the local public school. They asked which “research-based” curriculum I had tried and what records I had regarding the student, indicating more evidence was necessary before they would consider him eligible for services.

Yikes. Clearly my insight and intuitive connection with the student wasn’t enough to convince them he needed extra help.

So, based on experiences like these, here are the top 4 documents I think every Waldorf teacher should be maintaining to track student progress.

Main Lesson Book Tracking

Are your students completing their main lesson pages? In the upper grades you should collect them and give feedback. At this age students themselves need feedback to encourage them to improve. If you’re curious about what this feedback might look like, take a look at my Record-Keeping and Feedback Guide.

In the lower grades, you probably won’t share your observations with students, but you should definitely have a sense for who is completing pages and who needs extra time. This will go a long way towards preparing them for middle school.

Developmental Movement Tracker

In the early grades, I tracked my students’ movement skills with an eye towards how I could help them along.

I created a chart with every student’s name listed and all the skills I was watching for. If you put your email address below you’ll get the chart I used for first grade, but it’s easily adjusted for your grade level.

Student Observations

However it works best for you, make sure you develop a system for tracking your student observations.

I can’t tell you how many times I wish I’d written down thoughts I’d had about a student. Even those insights that seem inconsequential at the time, can be really important when you’re meeting with parents and wanting to impress the importance of providing extra support at home.

Come up with a system that works for you and start keeping those records, even if you’re in first grade.

Extra Support Log

We all have those students who we suspect will need extra support to fully realize their potential. Often, we give them the support they need without really recognizing it.

Do you have a student who you ALWAYS give extra support right after an instruction is given?

Is there a child you KNOW would not succeed without a little extra encouragement from classmates and teachers?

Document this. At the end of every lesson, write down the students you worked with individually. Later, go back and look through your notes for trends. Are there students who wouldn’t have been successful without your support?

Ultimately, this is fine. Providing extra support is part of our work. But make sure you communicate with parents about it. You don’t want them thinking their child is a self-directed, independent learner, when they actually rely on you for a lot of support.

If you’re interested in finding ways you can support your students in the classroom, I am offering a free workshop all about the 3 classroom management strategies every Waldorf teacher needs to have. Registration for the workshop is open now and it will go live on September 10. Make sure you register so you don’t miss it.

I’m all about giving Waldorf teachers the tools they need to give their students all that they can, and this workshop will really help. I hope you’ll sign up.

The post 4 Record-Keeping Documents Every Waldorf Teacher Should Have in Their Binder appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

If you’re about to embark on a 2nd grade adventure, I hope you can benefit from this little run-down of our experience. I’ve certainly appreciated looking back on the joys and sorrows of teaching 2nd grade.

2nd grade is a year of big-time skill-building.

This year, so many of my students became capable and confident readers and writers. Every single one of them can sit down with an idea of something to write and put letters on a page that they can then read back. A couple of them write so well that they pretend to misspell words so I don’t send them back to write something more challenging.

They went from barely recognizing lower case letters to being able to use them correctly and fluidly. And their handwriting is fantastic! (Remind me of these glory days when they’re in middle school.)

I owe a huge amount of their success to the book Roadmap to Literacy. The ideas, exercises, and guidance of this book really formed our year. If you haven’t checked out this book yet, you really should.

They’ve grown just as much in math. They’re adding and subtracting with triple digits and solidifying their single digit facts. And some of them have discovered a hunger for math that simply will not be satisfied!

1st graders are sweet. 2nd graders are cute.

Lately I’ve been looking back on photos of my students from last year and I’m struck by how sweet and tender they were. Compared to then, these days they seem like little beasts! They’re full of activity, feelings and plenty of strife! In first grade they were angels. In second grade they’re puppies. Adorable, rascally, lovable, trouble-making puppies who snarl, nip, wrestle and fall over each other daily — only to fall back in love with each other anew every morning.

Does this sound exhausting? Yes. Yes, it is.

The most important class of the day — recess!

All of that social puppy play has to happen somewhere, and recess is the best place. At every parent meeting I have let the parents know that “Recess continues to be an area of learning.” Though it can sometimes feel exhausting to help them work out their troubles, with each encounter I remind myself of how much they are learning.

Our school has a practice of having the 1st and 2nd grade teachers outside for every recess. Though I was feeling just about done with recess duty in rainy February, I couldn’t imagine my students navigating recess without my guidance. I was SO grateful to be able to support their social-emotional growth!

Well, lo and behold, here we are at the end of the year having beautiful, harmonious recesses! (For the most part.)

These students are learning so much by working things out with each other. They make mistakes, say something wrong, hurt someone’s feelings and then know not to do it again tomorrow. How lucky we are that every day is a new day!

Community is EVERYTHING.

I thought about saving this one for last, because it is so important, but I wanted to make sure those of you who only make it this far read this one.

This was a year of big challenges for me personally and professionally. My daughter went away to college. I continued to face challenges serving on our school’s leadership team. I felt the pressure of teaching students to read — something I’ve never done before! I BROKE MY WRIST!

Throughout all of these challenges, my colleagues supported me every step of the way. Our aftercare teacher stepped in and taught phonics lessons, coached by our 2-hour Sunday night phone calls. Other colleagues took on extra classes so I could stay home and recover. I appreciate my colleagues so much!

But the true heroes are my class parents. They organized a month-long meal train. (I didn’t buy groceries for a month!) Two days after my injury they came to my house and completely made over my garden (an end-of-year gift which had been planned for weeks). They navigated the bumps in the road that come along with having your class teacher incapacitated for two weeks. They filmed our class play performance and sent me the video moments after it was complete. They stepped in to turn the morning jump rope. They continuously asked about my healing process and let me know their care and concern.

In our first parent meeting I remember telling these parents that during this age of authority, their children would be best served by knowing how much they (the parents) love and support Ms. Floyd-Preston. I told them that the attitude they should have is “You are so lucky to have Ms. Floyd-Preston as your teacher.” I told them that I would hold them in the same high esteem. I regularly tell my students things like, “Look at that delicious lunch your dad packed for you! You’re so lucky!” or “Your mom is such a hard worker! We can always count on her!”

At the time, I thought that this would be a practice we would need to work to cultivate, but as it turns out I HONESTLY have the utmost respect for this group of parents. Expressing my love and gratitude for them is easy and genuine. And I experience their respect and support daily.

I don’t feel that this mutual admiration society came about because of any effort on my part. It is simply an incredible gift — one that I am so grateful for and don’t take lightly. So, 2nd grade teachers of the future, my advice to you is to put in whatever effort might be necessary to cultivate a supportive relationship with your class parents.

Appreciate them. Understand them. Raising children isn’t easy. Let them know you’ve got their back.

2nd grade is a year of tremendous growth.

During this year, my students have gone from being little kids to entering middle childhood. They have thoughts, opinions and even fears that they just didn’t face in 1st grade. Last year they were just as easily engaged in movement as with a good story. This year they are all about the story. Today it was about a pair of purring kittens and by the end I could tell I had got them all with “the feels.”

They still want me to tell them what to wear and to check that they’re eating their strong food.

I’m happy to report that authority is still alive and strong. Though I’ve got a handful of students who conveniently “forget” to put on their inside shoes when we come in from recess, those same students ask me what to wear when we’re heading out. Apparently I am still the maker of the rules. Thank goodness.

I’ve even heard from some parents that their students want me to check to make sure they are eating their strong food or that they are dressed appropriately for recess.

If authority is how I can show them I love them, I’m all about it.

Main lesson books are nice and all, but they don’t even begin to tell the story.

This year when we gathered our main lesson books, pulled out the extra pages and started to bind them together, I was struck by how FEW pages there were. Last year we completed a TON of main lesson pages. This year I kinda wondered if I’d done something wrong.

Here’s the thing about 2nd grade. There is SO much skill-building (see above) that there just isn’t as much time to create beautiful main lesson pages.

At a certain point this year I stopped worrying about creating beautiful main lesson pages where students copied my writing and emulated my drawings. Instead, I had them work through THEIR OWN writing.

Independent composition is a much more time-consuming process, but I’m convinced that my students learned so much by doing it! They may not have a thick main lesson book, but what they do have contains their own independent compositions and they’ve got a binder full of kid-writing.

I will say that this approach has presented a challenge for those of you who have been asking me for tips on teaching 2nd grade. I’m afraid I won’t have a robust collection of main lesson pages to share, but I plan on creating a guide to teaching language arts in 2nd grade, full of templates for phonics activities you can do with your students. Stay tuned.

2nd graders still LOVE to move together.

Now this one may be unique to my class, but my students continue to be incredible participants in our daily circle. They move so beautifully together we almost always have a folk dance in the daily rotation. I can’t think of anything better for bringing them together. I’ve been so hard-pressed to find resources for these dances, I’ve been making them up on the spot!

2nd grade learning is SUPER-FUN!

I have always been a teacher who appreciates A LOT of form. When there is too much noise or distraction in the room, I just can’t think straight. If someone makes a small amount of sound in the back of the room it goes straight to my super-sensitive ears, so I often insist on silence. My poor students.

Well, my compromise is Friday Project Day. I started this tradition in first grade and it has continued into 2nd grade, much to my students’ delight. They get to push their desks together, chat to their hearts’ content, and create something about the previous day’s story. My job is to provide them with materials — pipe cleaners, glue sticks, tissue paper, beeswax, cardboard — whatever they need to create their vision.

This year we have had students work with partners to write scripts and create puppet plays. I’ve seen miniature beeswax recreations of story scenes. A favorite was when I introduced brass brads as a tool for creating a wagging tail.

So much fun.

2nd grade learning is SUPER-HARD!

Today I was working with a student on an individual assessment. I presented a math problem and he thought about it for awhile.

After a few minutes I asked, “Are you thinking or are you stuck?”

His response: “I’m stuck.”

It was a moment when I realized how hard we’ve been working this year.

Can you imagine learning some new bit of information and needing to automatically incorporate it into your way of working with the world around you? This is what we regularly ask of students of this age.

My students often astound me with how capably they assimilate new knowledge. But it isn’t always so easy. Of course, the moments that stand out to me are the ones when students have sudden epiphanies or recognize something I’ve taught them. (“Look, Ms. FP! An -ed word!”)

But there are plenty of other moments. Moments when students work hard. They make mistakes. They wish they hadn’t made those mistakes. They learn from them.

And then, in those hardest moments, they notice that others don’t make those mistakes. They realize they are different from their friends. They’re irritated, frustrated, annoyed about it.

They wish they were like those friends who seem to never make mistakes.

They’re ready for third grade.

The post Waldorf Grade 2 | Top 10 Take-Aways appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

Every year I’m amazed by how, no matter how much I plan ahead, the spring is SUCH a busy time of year!

Maybe it’s because our spring break is such a nice, long, rejuvenating break from the every day that I get a little lost in that luxury.

Maybe it’s because the end of the year feels so close I can almost taste it.

But this year is different. For the past week I have been planning our last (10!) weeks of school and getting SUPER clear on what I need to focus on. I’m feeling so ready to jump into productivity mode this spring and get everything done.

So, what am I focusing on?

Waldorf Spring Curriculum Planning

Well, first of all, I’ve spent the last week planning curriculum for the rest of the school year. I don’t know about you, but usually my summer planning runs out sometime around February. From that point on I really depend on the breaks to figure everything out. I mean, I have a general idea of what we’re doing, but I still need to read stories, plan lessons and work through the details. That’s what I’ve been doing during the second half of spring break.

This year, we’re heading back after the break with a math block. (Once again, I’ve been using my favorite math resource.) We’re going to give some solid attention to times tables, division, addition and subtraction facts and I’ll end the block with an introduction to regrouping. I promise to write another curriculum-focused blog post — with more info about 2nd grade math — soon.

With this work done, my lessons will move forward in their usual one-foot-in-front-of-the-other way and I can give my attention to all of the little extras.

What are those little extras, you ask? That’s what this blog post is about. Here’s my brief list.

• Summer Professional Development
• Student Assessment
• Working Through Individualized Learning Plans
• Spring Parent-Teacher Conferences
• Writing Reports
• Planning the Summer

Professional Development

I recently wrote a blog post all about the various professional development options that are available to Waldorf teachers in the summer. I strongly recommend checking out that post.

But beyond going out there and seeing what is available, I like to begin the process of choosing professional development with a pretty thorough look inward. I think it’s really important to take an honest look at your teaching — your strengths and strivings — before deciding what training to attend.

Many Waldorf teachers just automatically sign up for the next year’s “Art of Teaching” course. And don’t get me wrong, those courses are great — and pretty essential if you’re teaching a grade you haven’t taught before. But I know that there are plenty of teachers out there who would realize that there are other aspects of their teaching that would benefit from some training.

If you’re the kind of person who really loves curriculum development, odds are you don’t need an Art of Teaching course. Maybe take a look at classroom management, working with learning differences or getting a specialized training in a particular focus area.

For me, with the big projects of the 3rd grade curriculum looming large, I plan on giving some good attention to classroom management and maybe even a course on the domestic arts!

Student Assessment

My first few years of teaching I was so overwhelmed with everything that was going on during the spring that I told myself I would just wait until school got out to write my end of year reports. I completely put the task on the back burner, didn’t think about it at all, and immersed myself in the teaching.

The problem was that when it finally came time to think about those reports, I didn’t have the data I needed to be able to effectively write them. I mean, I had my notes about my students and my own informal observations, but if I had thought about it, I would have created a formalized process for assessing their skills BEFORE school got out.

Luckily, I realized it about a week before school got out and I quickly notified all of the parents that I was going to keep their students’ work for a few weeks into the summer. After the reports were done I sent out word that reports and student work was available for pick-up in the classroom.

Thankfully my class parents were supportive, but it’s far better to collect the data ahead of time!

Last year I put together a form that I used to check in on my students’ progress. This form then became a rubric chart in the end-of-year report. If you’re interested in using the chart I made, I’ll send it to you if you put your email address in the box on this page.

Working through Individualized Learning Plans

One of the best things about being a Waldorf teacher is that you know almost exactly the students you’ll see in your classroom on the first day of school. This means that we have a huge advantage over those teachers who have to wait until September to respond to the group and make plans for supporting student learning.

I realized a few years ago that doing the work of assessing my students in the spring leads SO naturally into putting together support plans for students who need them. I often meet with the parents of those students at regular intervals throughout the school year, and it’s good to meet in the spring, have a plan to move forward with in the fall, so you can really hit the ground running when the school year begins.

Now, I’m always open to the growth that can happen over the summer, so those plans need to be checked in with and possibly adjusted in the fall, but to do the work now will make a huge difference. It’s hard to write a support plan for a student you haven’t seen in three months. Use the informed perspective you have now and put together a plan

Spring Parent-Teacher Conferences

I’ve actually never understood why almost every Waldorf school I’ve encountered holds parent teacher conferences in the week before Thanksgiving — in November. That’s always felt far too early in the year to really be effective.

Though the spring may not be the ideal time to meet when you’re looking to make some real progress in skill-development, it is the best time to reconnect with families and make sure you’re all on the same page when it comes to supporting student growth.

A wise teacher told me years ago that you should never say anything in the end-of-year report that you haven’t already said to the parents. Nothing in that report should be news. It should instead be a formal document that simply documents the common understanding that you and parents have.

It’s tough to fit them all on the calendar, but it’s totally worth it. Having those conferences on the calendar will ensure that you do the work leading up to it, which will make writing those reports a breeze. Speaking of writing reports . . .

Writing Reports

I know many teachers who absolutely commit to having their end-of-year reports completed by the last day of school. Though I’ve never managed to do it myself — I just haven’t made it a priority — I sure admire those teachers who do!

But even if you’re not going to have your reports completed by the last day of school, there’s plenty of preliminary work to do. I usually like to settle on a format for the report and I do the work of gathering information ahead of time.

I recently put together a little one-video mini-course all about How to Write an End of Year Report Your Class Parents Will Love. I think it’s really helpful and you’ll get a lot out of it. Just put your email address below and I’ll send you the link.

Planning the Summer

Finally, spring is the time to make your summer plans. I’ve found that unless I go into the summer with a clear plan, it’s far too easy for those endless summer days to fritter away. I’ve been sitting down with my calendar, blocking out time for trainings, vacations and school prep days.

You know you’re a busy Waldorf teacher when you have to schedule your down time.

If you’re interested in getting a little guidance with all of these topics and walking through them, step-by-step, with me and a small cohort of Waldorf teachers, check out my Spring Productivity Course.

This 6-week course goes through all of the topics above and shares resources and guiding ideas for giving each one of them your attention. We’ve got a great group already forming and this format works really well for busy teachers. You can find more information about the program here. I hope you’ll join us.

The post 6 Things Every Waldorf Teacher Should Be Thinking About This Spring appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.

I told them that the sprouting leaves of the tulips and the colorful crocuses are certainly encouraging, but the sign that tells me that spring is truly on its way are the little leaf buds on the pluot tree in my front yard.

When I told them that those little leaf buds were there last night when I got home from school, they erupted with applause.

Yes, we’re certainly ready for spring after the roller coaster of a winter we’ve had.

But we teachers see the arrival of spring with somewhat bittersweet emotions. For me, these feelings are mostly because the spring is absolutely my busiest time of year.

During the spring we are conducting assessments, directing plays, writing reports, making professional development plans, leading field trips and planning the summer.

And all of this is happening while we are full-time in the classroom! At my school, the stretch from spring break to the end of the year is the longest period of time without a break. And by the last day of school, I’m certainly feeling it!

Over the years, I’ve found that these last few weeks of the school year are far more manageable if I go into them with a plan.

(Towards that end, I’ve been working on a little something to help us all stay on track this spring. Click through to find out more.)

Right now, the aspect of that spring work I’ve been thinking about is my professional development plan.

Each summer I go away to some sort of teacher conference. I always get a lot out of them and I really enjoy figuring out the best summer conference to attend each year.

Last year, thanks to some extra funding my school tapped into, I got to attend a couple of different workshops.

Grade Specific Summer Training

I almost always attend a conference that gives a lot of detail about the grade that I’m going into. Teaching a new grade every year is one of the blessings of being a Waldorf teacher, but it is also one of the most challenging aspects. I really count on this training to really get me ready for the coming school year. Here are just a few of the options.

• Rudolf Steiner College (RSC has been my long-standing go-to for years.)
• Sunbridge College
• The Center for Anthroposophy
• The Micha-el Institute
• The Art of Teaching at the Sebastopol Charter (this is the one I’m looking into for this year!)
• Teaching as an Art at Gradalis

I’m also really excited about a new opportunity that is sprouting. I’ve been approached by a long-time local Waldorf teacher about hosting a conference here in Portland. Though I’ve done lots of mentoring and attended countless conferences myself, I’ve never led one, and I’m really excited about the possibility. I just love working with teachers and the spirit of collaboration that goes on at those events is absolutely inspiring.

Keep an eye on this space for more information. Or put your email in the form and I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop.

Classroom Management Training

Another training I attended last year was a Responsive Classroom workshop. I’ve blogged before about Responsive Classroom. To my mind, it is the most widely-used, clearly-articulated classroom management approach that aligns with Waldorf ideals. I’m a huge fan.

I’ve attended a few Responsive Classroom workshops over the years and I’ve come away from each one of them completely inspired. And I love that each course I’ve attended had about 200 other attendees! It’s so great to see so many people working and thinking consciously about how they work with children.

I can’t recommend it enough. You can find out more information about Responsive Classroom workshops by checking out the Center for Responsive Schools website.

What kind of professional development are you doing this summer? Any one of the above would be a great option if you’re in a pinch and need to sign up quickly. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about being super-deliberate with my training decisions.

I really recommend sitting down and taking a close look at your teaching this year before deciding. What were your big goals? How close did you come to accomplishing them? What was something you really struggled with this year?

Be really honest with yourself and sit down and journal about it. Let the thoughts flow and really try to identify those challenges — even the ones you don’t want to admit to. Recognizing those difficulties is the first step towards finding solutions and ultimately growing in your profession.

Which is what being a Waldorf teacher is all about, isn’t it?

If you’d like some guidance in identifying those challenges, my spring program might be just the thing for you. Professional development is just one topic that we’ll cover, as we try to keep all the balls in the air this spring. I’d love to work with you, so click through to get more information.

The post Finally Spring! (now get ready!) appeared first on A Waldorf Journey.