Practical and Artistic Activities
Household tasks, such as chopping vegetables, kneading dough, washing and drying dishes, sweeping, cleaning and polishing are integrated into the day. Children learn the simple crafts of
sanding, sawing, hammering and wood drilling as well as sewing, finger knitting, wool teasing and carding, silk and wool dyeing. Watercolor painting, crayoning free form drawings, and modeling with beeswax are part of weekly rhythms, each offering their own tactile experiences. Children sing and dance to seasonal and traditional songs and poems during circle time, and experience stories told by the teacher or presented as a puppet show.
As well as Dance, this year we are planning to have a trained Eurythmist visit the class and engage the children in Eurythmy, a unique form of movement developed by Rudolf Steiner. Eurythmy helps to lay the foundation for learning to read later on, by correlating motions with sounds in speech. Through all of these, and other practical and artistic activities, the children experience themselves engaged in inherently meaningful and productive ways that bring order, creativity and beauty into the world.
Each day had its own proper work, Ma used to say:
‘Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday.
From “Little House in the Big Woods” by Laura Ingles Wilder