Waldorf School Third Grade Curriculum
Old Testament Stories, Farming, Building, Math, Reading, and Writing
Apr 18, 2009
Children typically begin third grade in a Waldorf school at about age nine. In the Waldorf view of child development, this is the age when a child who has been slowly coming down to earth since birth finally lands in the physical world for good – often with a painful bump.
The Waldorf third-grade curriculum meets children at this point of awakening with a year of learning about the physical world. Practical work – gardening, cooking, and building – plays a vital role in the third-grade curriculum.
Mathematics: Measurements of Time, Space, Weight, Money
Third-grade math classes typically include a review of second-grade math: place value, carrying and borrowing, and times tables up to 12 x 12. The year's main focus is on measurements:
- Time. Third graders study how humans have measured time through history. They learn how the cycles of sun and moon led to modern-day measurements of days, months, and years, and often build their own sundial and water clock. They learn to read both analog and digital clocks. One of the year’s major projects is making and illustrating a 12-month calendar.
- Space. Starting by measuring their own bodies, the children then learn how to work with inches and feet or centimeters and meters.
- Liquids and weights. In cooking class, third graders learn the measurements needed for simple cooking projects such as baking a cake or making lemonade.
- Money. The children learn how money developed, and how to count and use the various coins and bills in circulation in their country today.
Language Arts: Old Testament Stories, Grammar, Reading and Writing
Old Testament stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, and others serve as metaphors for the children’s inner experience of leaving the imaginative paradise of early childhood. Other key subjects include:
- Grammar. Third graders learn about nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. They regularly practice spelling, cursive writing and reading out loud. Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder [HarperCollins, 1994], is a popular third-grade reader.
- Writing. The children write their own short compositions in their main lesson books and copy paragraphs the teacher writes on the board.
Building: Human Dwellings Through History, Building Project
Third graders learn about the different kinds of houses people have built and lived in around the world at different times in history. If possible, the children build something themselves, often something that will be used at the school, such as a chicken coop, a wood-burning masonry oven, or a tool shed.
Gardening: Farming, Crops, and Domestic Animals
Third graders study the staple grains from different regions of the world, such as rice in Asia and corn in North and South America. They learn how plants and animals provide the fibers used to make cloth. They discover how much humans depend on plants and animals, and develop a deeper respect for the natural world. In many third grades, the year culminates with a week-long visit to a farm, where the children help the farmers take care of their crops and animals.
Foreign Languages: Pronunciation, Games, Songs
The children continue studying the foreign languages they began in first grade. The foreign language curriculum at this age emphasizes learning through games, songs, and stories. Writing and formal grammar aren’t usually introduced until fourth grade.
Music: Diatonic Scale, Musical Notation, Singing in Rounds, Recorder
In first and second grade, the children learned to play musical instruments that used the six-note pentatonic scale. Now they begin to use the full eight-note diatonic scale. They sing rounds with separate parts. They begin to read notes. They may also start to play the recorder. Music classes occur several times a week. Third graders also sing regularly at the beginning of the school day and often as part of their class play.
Art and Handwork: Drawing, Watercolor Painting, Knitting, Crochet, Sewing
Third graders draw with beeswax crayons, have regular painting lessons with the Waldorf wet-on-wet watercolor method, and model small sculptures with beeswax during story time. One of the year’s largest art projects is illustrating the 12-month calendar they create as part of their study of time.
In third grade handwork, the children knit, crochet, and begin to learn simple hand sewing.
Physical Education: Games, Eurythmy
The children typically have recess twice a day for free play outdoors. They also take regular nature walks to observe the seasonal cycles of the year. In Games class, the children play team games that help them learn to cooperate and be good sports. Competitive sports are not played in third grade in Waldorf schools, and are usually discouraged outside school until the children are older.
Finally, third graders practice eurhythmy, an art of movement developed by Rudolf Steiner which uses gestures and body movements to express the sounds of the spoken language.
Form Drawing: Support for Cursive Writing
Form drawing is a Waldorf technique of drawing geometric shapes to help develop concentration and other helpful qualities in young children. In third grade, the children’s weekly form drawing lessons focus on forms that cross over each other and combine into new and different forms. They create shapes within circles, figure eights, and straight lines that transform into curves. This helps them with their cursive writing practice.
Drama
Waldorf classes typically perform a play every year. In third grade, the play is typically taken from an Old Testament story.
Curriculum that Marries Imagination with Reality
Throughout the third-grade curriculum, Waldorf schools seek to both inspire the child’s imagination and offer practical, real-life work that helps children this age feel at home in the real world.
Learn more about the Waldorf school curriculum:
