Festival Resources for the Season from Waldorfish.com

How can we help you make this season special AND rejuvinating? 

With the holiday season right around the corner, we’re guessing your calendar is filling up with family gatherings, traditions, and special events and activities. It’s a busy time, and can be full of fun and also demanding (can you relate?)

Are you looking for some support in making your holiday season feel a little less stressful, and a little more meaningful?

How does paring down your busy calendar, and making the coming weeks feel restful and restorative sound?

We’ve compiled all of our resources for the season in one convenient place so you can start exploring doable ways to bring more joy into your festival life at home.

We’re here to support, inspire, and celebrate right along with you!

Take a little time to enjoy the simple beauty of the season. 

Simple Season

Looking for some quiet reflection, time to create, and have a desire to try something new this season? Start here.

Designed for caretakers, this course provides an opportunity to create, plan, and reflect! With three watercolor painting lessons, a simple (yet impactful) guiding PDF, and thought-provoking discussion prompts, this mini-course will help you find what’s really meaningful to you around celebrations and holidays.

*Open for enrollment through December 3rd, 2024.

Don’t forget to take time for yourself, and find what brings you joy! 

The Importance of Creativity for Caregivers

One of the most beautiful things about creativity is that it doesn’t just nourish the individual—it nourishes the whole family. When caregivers model creative self-care, it shows children and loved ones that creativity is valuable and worth making time for.

It teaches them that everyone deserves time for their own passions and that creativity can be a source of joy, comfort, and expression. Explore more about this over on our blog.

How can you make your holidays more simple and meaningful? 

Simplifying the Holidays

The holiday season is a time of celebration for many around the world, but it’s also easy for it to become a time of overwhelm!

The push to create the perfect festive experience can overshadow the deeper meaning of the season. No matter which traditions you hold dear, the true magic of the holidays lies in connection, presence, and shared moments with loved ones.

We've got 𝘀𝗶𝘅 ways to return to the heart of the season, create a time of peace, and find joy in togetherness!

Find your balance even in the busiest of seasons. 

In Praise of Balance

It can become easy to slip into thinking that our home-grown festivals and celebrations need to resemble what's happening at Waldorf schools - and if they don't, that we aren’t doing it correctly.

Spend any time on social media and this feeling increases exponentially (especially in this busy time of year!) It's not hard to end up feeling as though our children are missing out on something.

We are all about finding beauty in simplicity, and have a some important questions for you to consider when planning your holidays. Celebrations can be fun, meaningful, and doable all at once (we promise!)

Even in difficult times, we can find joy in celebrating together. 

Festival Life at Home: Making it Work in Trying Times

In these trying times, how can families enliven their festival life at home? It's possible!

Our blog post by guest writer Cristina Havel is the place to find inspiration for meaningful, enriching, and special ways to celebrate even under less than ideal circumstances.

Festivals provide opportunities for new roles, responsibilities, and contributions from your growing teen. 

Festival Life with Teens

Festivals are the heartbeat of Waldorf Education, and bring rhythm, ritual, and connection throughout the year. As a child grows and develops, so does their role in festival life.

So, how can we reach our teens, and incorporate them into festival celebrations in new and engaging ways?

Our guest writer, Cristina Havel, shares her experiences in adjusting her at-home festival life to engage her growing teenager, and how everyone can benefit from changing roles.

Despite these different leanings, our common searching for Light in the darkness of Winter unites us.

Celebrating Advent

The season of Advent begins four Sundays prior to Christmas and culminates on December 24th. Advent it filled with candlelight, reverence, and opportunities to connect with nature and family.

Are you planning to celebrate this year, and looking for some inspiration? We can help!

Learn where advent originates, and gain ideas about how to celebrate it in your own way at home. Enjoy!

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Award-winning, art-infused, secular homeschool curriculum.

Why worry, when you can ask?

A brand new school year is around the corner; we can’t wait to support you!

Very likely, you are dreaming up your plans for the upcoming school year. Good news: we can help! We have a range of courses that are open for enrollment. All our lessons are pre-recorded, which allows you to fit them into your ideal family rhythm.

Additionally, when you buy one of our courses, you have access to all of the lessons for the lifetime of the course - no hurry to finish them in a set period of time!

Our curriculum includes instruction and support from our trained Waldorf teachers, lessons planned out for you for the entire block, supplemental activity suggestions, and detailed supply lists w/ helpful links.

One of our primary goals is to make things simpler for you, so you can focus on all the other moving pieces that this school year is sure to bring.

*Click on the links and images below to learn more about specific courses and what they each offer.

Appropriate for Ages 7 and Up:

An affordable introduction to Waldorf Art.

Waldorf Art for Beginners

A great place for those who are just getting started! This eight lesson course gives the rundown on watercolor painting, beeswax crayon drawing, and chalk drawing. Everything you need in one tidy spot! Perfect for those who are brand new to Waldorf-inspired art and don’t want to spend hours on the internet finding allll the information.

Open for enrollment year-round.

A beautiful pastel drawing from our Weekly Art Foundations course!

Weekly Art Foundations

One of our most popular courses! You’ll get over 33 lessons; one delivered each week- enough for an entire school year! Access them whenever it works for your schedule. You’ll learn how to work with crayon, charcoal, wet-on-wet painting, and other common Waldorf art mediums and techniques. Plus, enjoy instructor support, guidance on working through ‘comparison syndrome,’ and so much more!

Open for enrollment twice a year. Enrollment is open NOW until August 31st, 2024

Artistic works you can find in our Art Bundle #1!

Art Lesson Bundles

Looking for art lessons, but not quite ready for a full course? Start here! Our Art Bundles include four lessons each, and provide a chance to gain experience in various Waldorf art mediums, such as chalk drawing, watercolor painting, and crayon work!

Open for enrollment year-round.

For the Lower Grades Child (Grades 1-4)

A beautiful wet-on-wet painting from our first grade course.

Watercolor Painting for Grades 1, 2 and 3

Created to meet the developing young child’s growth through experience in color, form, and story! Each course provides a full year’s worth of lessons, and include original verses, instructor support and insight, curriculum connections, and more!

Open for enrollment year-round.

Finally get started with form drawing- we’ve got you covered for the school year.

Form Drawing for Grades 1 - 4

We offer four courses that encompass a year’s worth of form drawing curriculum for grades 1-4! With over 30 videos per course, step-by-step tutorials, and instructor support, you’ll have everything you need to bring form drawing to your child’s educational rhythm.

Open for enrollment year-round.

For the Upper Grades (Grades 5-8)

Beautiful forms from our sixth grade geometry course.

Geometry for Grades 5-8

Our four courses for grades 5-8 provide a full year’s worth of geometry curriculum instantly! With each course providing 15 lessons, each is perfect for the Waldorf homeschooling classroom, or for those using other educational methods, is also a perfect artistic supplement!

Open for enrollment year-round.

Exploring the world of fungi through chalk drawing!

Botany

Designed for the growing fifth grader, this course provides over videos that cover a full year’s worth of curriculum. With art lessons, step-by-step guides for main lesson book pages, hands-on demonstrations, and so much more, this course provides everything your student needs to explore the vast world of plants.

Open for enrollment year-round.

Our science courses show you HOW to set-up and bring these topics to your child.

Waldorf Science: Physics (Grades 6-8) and Chemistry (Grades 7 & 8)

Waldorf science curriculum for homeschool & classroom educators! Built for the educator, each course provides step-by-step demonstrations, how and why to create rhythm in the lessons, and an in-depth exploration into Waldorf teaching methods. Each course provides a full year’s worth of curriculum, detailed supply lists, instructor support, and so much more!

Open for enrollment year-round.

A watercolor painting connects to the Waldorf fifth grade curriculum of exploring Ancient Egypt.

Weekly Art Diving Deeper

For students who have completed our Weekly Art Foundations course (see above), this course is built for those who are ready to enhance their artistic skills. This course includes in-depth instruction in Perspective Drawing, Figure & Portrait Drawing, charcoal, chalk drawing, watercolor and so much more!

Open for enrollment year-round.

Ready to learn how to paint with acrylics? Start here!

Weekly Art…and Beyond!

Weekly Art…and Beyond is the next step in our Weekly Art series - for those who have completed our Weekly Art Diving Deeper course, and/or for high schoolers ready to stretch their artistic skills! With over 30 lessons, this course explores familiar skills such as chalk and charcoal drawing, and introduces brand new mediums such as ink work, acrylic painting, and so much more!

Open for enrollment year-round.

For Adults

Simple Season

Designed for caretakers, this course provides an opportunity to create, plan, and reflect! With three watercolor painting lessons, a simple (yet impactful!) guiding PDF, and thought-provoking discussion prompts, this mini-course will help you find what’s really meaningful to you around celebrations and holidays.

Open for enrollment through December 2024.

We’d love to teach for you this year!

Questions? Let us know how we can help —> Click here!

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Waldorf Art: How is Art Incorporated into the Waldorf Middle Grades, 5-8?

Q: How is art incorporated into the Waldorf middle grades, 5 through 8?

(This post is part of a series in which we answer the most common questions we receive in our inbox re: homeschooling, Waldorf curriculum/pedagogy, and whatever else comes our way! Click here to read more from the series!)

A: Art is woven into every aspect of the Waldorf upper grades curriculum, no matter the subject!

(And just so we’re all on the same page, we’re using ‘middle grades’ and ‘upper grades’ interchangeably to refer to the grades 5-8.)

Whether in history, science, or math, the upper grades student is continuously learning through artistic skills and expression. 

It is common in today’s world to think of art as its own stand-alone subject; many students experience “art class” where there is a specific time in a student’s school day for art, and otherwise, they are focusing on non-art subjects like math or science. 

A pencil drawing from a sixth grader’s main lesson book- Roman history coming to life!

But in Waldorf education, art is naturally incorporated into each subject- it is not a separate subject, it is the mechanism used to explore, study, and understand everything!

So, what does this art curriculum really look like in the upper grades?

For example, in seventh grade, students explore the Renaissance and all the discoveries, inventions and artistic movements that arose from that time. Instead of just listening to the biographies of great artists such as Michaelanglo, Raphael, or da Vinci, the students will copy their works of art in detail: a masterclass in figure drawing! Though history may be the focus, students engage with the curriculum through their own artistic endeavors. 

The skills built through seventh grade figure drawing lead directly into the next grade’s curriculum. In eighth grade, students explore the human body in an Anatomy block. They will learn about muscles, the nervous system, how various organs function, and much more.  Skills in figure drawing will grow all the more through this block; drawing a human hand with the knowledge of its skeletal and muscular structure creates a deeper connection to the beauty and function of the human body. It’s artistic work supporting scientific study! 

As well, the upper grade student studies Physics from sixth through eighth grade, which includes exploring light and all its properties. The perfect art medium to deepen one’s study of light is charcoal. Drawing with charcoal encourages a student to really observe light and how it travels, reflects, bounces, and highlights an object, and how the lack of light creates shadow and depth. Drawing light and darkness in an accurate, beautiful way requires the understanding of light itself- once again, art and science working as one!

Stunning charcoal drawings from a seventh grade Waldorf classroom- we especially love how each has their own style and personality.

The actual outcome of the final piece of art is of secondary importance to the process of creating and exploring connections. The act of creating the art is a process which supports their learning.

Truly, art is woven throughout the upper grades; here are some examples:

• Pencil Drawings- Found in geometry forms, nature sketching, physiology and anatomy diagrams, mathematical proof work, astronomy observational notes and more! Pencil drawings are also the predominant art medium used in creating main lesson books.  

• Perspective Drawing- A skill learned most often in seventh grade, sometimes in its own short block. The process of perspective drawing to show depth and distance is used in studying the Renaissance, architecture, geological landscapes, astronomy illustrations and observations, and more. 

• Charcoal Drawing- Commonly introduced in sixth grade, this artistic medium is used throughout the upper grades, especially to study and illustrate the properties of light in physics and chemistry blocks. As well, charcoal drawing is used for portrait drawing or historical figures, detailed human anatomical studies, art-history inspired works, and more!

• Watercolor Painting- Though this art medium is done more often in the lower grades, middle school students will continue to engage with watercolor painting on a regular basis! From botany paintings of flowers, to a colorful volcanic eruption of red and oranges, painting connects to nearly every aspect of the curriculum. 

• Clay Work- Working with clay is a powerful, sensory experience for the middle school student. It encourages the student to build and create from a new, 3D perspective, which is very different from many of the art mediums they have become familiar with thus far!  Students may sculpt the bones of a human leg, a Roman aqueduct, an example of layers of sedimentary rock, a bust of a historical figure, and more. 

Students often work with clay in the eighth grade as they study the Platonic Solids, and elsewhere in the upper grades too!

The list could go on and on! Truly, there are no bounds around how art can be used as a tool for learning in the upper grades.

Art is in everything, and an essential cornerstone to all the curriculum studies of the upper grades student.

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Looking to bring Waldorf upper grades art curriculum into your homeschooling routine?

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About the Authors

Robyn Beaufoy is Waldorfish’s CEO, and a course instructor for two of our courses - Waldorf Art for Beginners and Weekly Art Foundations. You’ll find her intuitive touches and influences throughout everything Waldorfish offers! Robyn has been in the world of education for almost 30 years, with an MA in Education and a certification in Waldorf teaching - she also homeschooled both of her children. In 2012 Robyn co-founded Waldorfish.com, creating it with the vision of making Waldorf inspired-art and pedagogy more accessible, joyful, and doable to homeschoolers all over the world. 

Caitlin Amajor is Waldorfish’s course instructor for Geometry grades 5 & 6, and Botany, as well as our Administrative Assistant. From a young age, Caitlin has been immersed in Waldorf education, attending a Waldorf school from K-8. After receiving a BA in History, Caitlin gained her certification in Waldorf teaching, and spent seven years as a Waldorf class teacher in the upper grades. With a special fondness for watercolor painting and geometry, Caitlin loves bringing Waldorf education to her students all over the world, and seeing their own individuality and style bloom from the curriculum! 

What We Offer - Fall 2020!

What kind of support do you need for your homeschooling journey?

It's feeling very Wild Wild West out there right now, as families around the world are sorting out their Plan B for this coming school year.

Many are preparing to enter a brand new school paradigm for their children; and it’s hard to say how it’ll look, and how it’ll work! Remote learning? Home schooling? A little of both? Where to begin?

The good news: we can help! We have a range of courses that are ready to go right now-minimal planning on your part required!

When you buy one of our courses, you have access to all of the lessons forever- that’s right, unlimited access! Included is instruction and support from Waldorf trained and experienced teachers, a supply list, and a wealth of information, activities, and support to make the courses work for you and your child. And the best part? You can work with our courses at your pace- no pressure, no rush!

We’re all about making things simpler for you, so you can focus on all the other moving pieces that this school year is sure to bring!

Ready to learn more?

Click on the link or images to learn more about specific courses and what they offer: who the intended audience is (*child or instructor), how many lessons you’ll receive, and what you can expect. Read on for a summary of what we offer!

Appropriate for Ages 7 and Up:

Explore everything you need to know about block crayons, and more!

Waldorf Art for Beginners: A great place for those who are just getting started! This eight lesson course gives the rundown on watercolor painting, crayon, and chalkboard drawing. Perfect for those who are brand new to Waldorf-inspired art. Available now!

A beautiful pastel drawing from our Weekly Art Foundations course!

Weekly Art Foundations: One of our most popular courses! You’ll get 36 lessons total; one delivered each week. Access them whenever it works for your schedule! You’ll learn how to work with crayon, charcoal, wet-on-wet, and more!

Enrollment for this course closes September 11- don’t miss it!

For the Lower Grades Child (Grades 1-4)

Grade one painting is all about exploring color!

Grade One Painting: Created to meet the first grader’s development through the soothing activity of watercolor painting! Our instructor Amanda Mercer provides original verses, step-by-step instructions, and everything you need to make painting with your first grader a doable and joyous experience! Available now!

Finding forms in color!

Grade Two Painting: Our brand new offering from our instructor Amanda Mercer! This course continues the journey of watercolor painting for the developing second grader. Step by step instructions, original verses, and practical activities are all included! Available now!

Get started with form drawing- we’ve got you covered for the school year!

Form Drawing: We offer four courses that encompass a year’s worth of form drawing curriculum for grades 1-4! Our instructor Rev Bowen shares his decades of teaching experience with over 30 videos per course, step-by-step tutorials, and so much more. All 4 courses available now!

For the Upper Grades (Grades 5-8)

Beautiful forms from our sixth grade geometry course.

Geometry: Our four courses for grades 5-8 provide a block’s of geometry curriculum instantly! With each course providing 15 lessons, each is perfect for the Waldorf homeschooling classroom, or for those using other educational methods, is a perfect artistic supplement! All 4 courses are available now.

Bring Waldorf Physics to your homeschooling routine!

Science: A Waldorf science curriculum for homeschool & classroom educators! Built for the educator, each course provides step-by-step demonstrations, how and why to create rhythm in the lessons, and so much more! Currently, we offer Physics for grades 6-8 with instant access to a year’s worth of planning curriculum! Available now!

Curriculum and art working together! 

Weekly Art Diving Deeper: For students who have completed our Weekly Art Foundations course, this course is built for those who are ready to enhance their artistic skills. This course includes in-depth instruction in Perspective Drawing, Figure & Portrait Drawing, charcoal, chalk drawing, watercolor and so much more!

We’d love to help you make this unique year work for you and your family. You’ve got this!

Questions? Click here!