Form Drawing in the Waldorf School Curriculum
Subject Taught in Grades 1-5 to Promote Writing, Fine Motor Skills
Dec 12, 2008
Form drawing, the freehand drawing of geometric shapes, is a subject taught in Waldorf schools that is not offered in most other schools. Waldorf students practice form drawing starting in first grade and continue with it through fifth grade. Later on, in sixth grade, the students learn to use a compass and straight edge to create some of the elaborate geometric shapes they once drew freehand.
Form Drawing Basics Start in First Grade
Form drawing is the very first subject taught to children in Waldorf schools when they start first grade. On the first day of classes, the children learn that every shape in the world consists of either straight or curved lines, or some combination of the straight and the curved. The teacher draws simple straight and curved shapes on the blackboard which the students first walk during circle time, then copy on paper, using the teacher’s drawing as a model. As the year goes on, the shapes become more complex. New forms are introduced with each new grade. By the time children reach fifth grade, they can draw intricately woven Celtic knots, braids, and stars that would intimidate most adults.
Drawing Integrated into Each Grade's Curriculum
The forms the children draw each year are chosen to resonate with the developmental challenges they typically experience that year and with the academic subjects they study in each grade. In fourth grade, for instance, the children learn to work with fractions and to draw geometric forms that express fractions in visual shapes. They also draw forms that relate to the cultures they are studying: forms derived from Norse art in fourth grade, when they study Norse mythology, and forms from ancient Greece and Egypt when they study those cultures in fifth grade.
Form Drawing Goals: Developing Concentration, Eye/Hand Coordination, and Focus
Like many aspects of the Waldorf curriculum, form drawing aims to help children experience abstract concepts such as wholeness with their bodies, not just with the intellect. Form drawing also aims to develop other qualities that will help the young child in school:
- Concentration. The children draw slowly and with care, trying to make each shape as perfect as possible. Even simple forms require focus. It’s much harder than it looks to draw a simple circle, as the children do in third grade.
- Hand/eye coordination. Drawings are copied from an example the teacher draws on the board, which requires the child to repeatedly look up at the example and back down to his or her own work.
- Mastering shapes and forms that relate to letters and numbers. Many of the flowing shapes the children draw in first grade are reminiscent of the numbers and letters they will learn later in the year.
- Distinguishing between left and right, top and bottom, and developing a more integrated view of the world.
- Understanding how individual parts relate to the whole.
Gradual Development of Capacities is Waldorf Goal
Introducing a subject and then returning to it over and over, gradually deepening the discipline in more and more complex ways, is typical of the Waldorf approach. In form drawing, the children go from the simplest geometric shapes to mastering highly complex and sophisticated geometric forms.
For a much more detailed look at form drawing through the early grades, see a slide show on form drawing
by longtime Waldorf teacher and author Eugene Schwartz.
If you liked this article, you might like these other articles on Waldorf schools:
Waldorf first grade curriculum
Waldorf second grade curriculum
Waldorf third grade curriculum
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