Summer is upon us and it is often the most difficult time to maintain a regular daily rhythm. It is natural to become a bit more loose with your daily rhythm when school lets out and the summer sun is calling us to spend more time outside, but don't abandon your rhythmic ways completely. 

This episode is all about rhythm and how to keep it going in a comfortable way throughout the summer.

Ways to Support the Podcast

Join the email list by texting WALDORF to 444999 and get updates about the blog and podcast right in your inbox.

Amazon

Click any of the Amazon links on this site and a small portion of your purchase will end up in my pocket. This is a nice and easy way to support by spending the money you were going to spend anyway. Remember to think of supporting A Waldorf Journey before making your big back-to-school supply purchase.

Patreon

I love the idea behind Patreon. Imagine paying for something you can easily get for free, without anyone even knowing. But it feels good to make the donation and it is much appreciated.

Curriculum Materials and Resources

See if any of the digital documents I've got for offer on the site can help support your Waldorf teaching or homeschooling. 

Sponsorship

This is a brand new program I am launching, inspired by the flood of traffic I have received in recent weeks. If you have a Waldorf-friendly business and want to get connected with my audience, I am offering advertising space on the blog and podcast, as well as sponsored posts for products I think my audience would appreciate. You can get more information about sponsorship opportunities over at my sponsor page.

Shownotes

Types of rhythm

• yearly (the seasons)
• monthly (many things in the financial realm)
• weekly (weekdays/weekends)
• daily (mealtimes, waking and sleeping)

A great article about rhythm at Lavender's Blue Homeschool website.

Rhythm should support:

1. Your family's well-being (meals, self-care, etc.)
2. Your family's culture and values

Rhythm Hacks

1. Start with where you are. Don't do what I did when I suddenly decided to turn my family into morning people. I recognized the value of spending some time outside every day, but it didn't need to happen first thing in the morning.
2. Think of the things that must happen and build around them.
3. Create a rhythm that is unique to your family. Don't look up the activities that happen in a Waldorf kindergarten and build on that. Identify the things that are important to your family and look for ways to strengthen those values.

How to Improve Your Family's Daily Rhythm

1. Start with an observation of a typical day. Write out your activities, especially the key moments -- waking, sleeping, mealtimes, etc. Write down times if you know them. If not, just write out the flow of the day. What stands out and was significant about the day?
2. Was your family's well-being supported by the rhythm you lived out this day? did the meals get made, the dishes washed, the teeth brushed, etc.? Usually these are the first things to be done, so you may feel pretty good about your rhythm when it comes to your family's well-being.
3. What is one aspect of your family's well-being that could have been better supported this day?
4. Change one aspect of your rhythm to better support your family's well-being.
5. Take another look at your summary of your daily rhythm and ask yourself the following question. What family values does this rhythm express?
6. Identify what values your family has that are not expressed in this rhythm. Would someone looking from the outside guess that outside time/reading every day/doing chores together is

I hope you enjoy A Waldorf Journey Podcast, a Waldorf podcast for parents, teachers and people passionate about Waldorf Education. Each week I hope to provide you with interesting and relevant content about Waldorf Education. I hope you’ll subscribe in iTunes and give me a review or a star rating.

If you’re interested in participating by suggesting a topic, asking a question or even being interviewed, don’t hesitate to drop me a note. 

Ways You Can Support the Podcast

Patreon — Make a donation. Per episode, per month, one-time donation — it’s up to you and much appreciated on my end.

Purchasing the resources on my site — Get The Waldorf Home ebook, one of my curriculum guides or my guide to record-keeping and feedback.

One of my most popular guides right now is my 30 Days Till Summer Report-Writing Guide. This guide will walk you through, day by day, and get you in the frame of mind to get your reports done by July 1. I'm sure you'll find it helpful in your efforts to get your reports done, and not wallow away working on them all summer long.

Order my 30 Days Till Summer Report-Writing Guide.

Amazon — Many of the links on this site are Amazon affiliate links. This means that a small percentage of anything you purchase goes towards supporting the work that is happening here at A Waldorf Journey (at no additional cost to you). It’s an easy way to support the podcast and blog with purchases that you were going to make anyway!

My Conversation with Jean Miller of Waldorf Inspired Learning

I had such a great time chatting with Jean and she referred to some pretty useful resources. Here are links to some of the things we talked about.

Alan Whitehead's Spiritual Syllabus -- Most of these resources are out of print, but there are a few still available on Waldorf Books.

Stephen Sagarin's blog -- What is Education

Jean's Taproot Training

Jean's Online Planning Group Plan It Out

Jean's article about the Seven Lively Arts

Contact Jean.

Ways You Can Support the Podcast

Patreon — Make a donation. Per episode, per month, one-time donation — it’s up to you and much appreciated on my end.

Purchasing the resources on my site — Get The Waldorf Home ebook, one of my curriculum guides or my guide to record-keeping and feedback. 

Since you're listening to this podcast about writing your end-of-year reports, you might be interested in my 30 Days Till Summer Report-Writing Guide. This guide will walk you through, day by day, and get you in the frame of mind to get your reports done by July 1. This year I'm spending 6 weeks of the summer on the road, so I'll definitely want to get my reports done. I pulled out this handy document and found all kinds of support, tips and reminders about how to get those reports done in a way that is efficient and enjoyable.

Order my 30 Days Till Summer Report-Writing Guide.

Amazon — Many of the links on this site are Amazon affiliate links. This means that a small percentage of anything you purchase goes towards supporting the work that is happening here at A Waldorf Journey. It’s an easy way to support the podcast and blog with purchases that you were going to make anyway!

The Waldorf End-of-Year Report What parents want

• to know that you know and understand their child.
• an update about how academic skills are progressing.
• confirmation that their child is doing well and that they made a good decision to send their child to a Waldorf school.

What you want

• to reinforce parents' confidence in you as a teacher -- make sure the report is professional, free of spelling or grammar mistakes.
• to document results of assessments, questions and concerns.
• to convey your enthusiasm and pride for the student and everything that he or she has accomplished.
• to give well-wishes for the summer, along with summer reading suggestions, activities, etc.

What the report is NOT for

• Finally expressing the big concern or worry you've never spoken about. There should be nothing in the end-of-year report that the parent has not heard before. No new information. No big surprisees.
• Conveying big concerning information in a more powerful way, hoping that the parents will finally listen this time.

Format

Lower grades -- narrative form, overview of the year that is the same for every child, 1-2 pages about individual child in all of the important areas. Keep in mind thinking, feeling and willing.

Middle grades -- Still narrative but can include rubric. Be careful about going too quantitative. Some parents find it reassuring, others find it scary.

Upper grades -- Collection of block reports with 1-page letter/narrative with warm fuzzy information about individual child, appreciation and anecdote.

Ways You Can Support the Podcast

Patreon -- Make a donation. Per episode, per month, one-time donation -- it's up to you and much appreciated on my end.

Purchasing the resources on this site -- Get The Waldorf Home ebook, one of my curriculum guides or my guide to record-keeping and feedback.

Amazon -- Many of the links on this site are Amazon affiliate links. This means that a small percentage of anything you purchase goes towards supporting the work that is happening here at A Waldorf Journey. It's an easy way to support the podcast and blog with purchases that you were going to make anyway!

As the school year winds to a close, all the teachers at my school are starting to think about next year. We're looking at our new classrooms, making plans for summer trainings and ordering supplies. 

Every year I find the supply ordering to be one of the most challenging tasks. It's just so hard to get in the right frame of mind for the next school year when the current year hasn't yet ended. But there are great discounts to be had if you order your supplies early, so it's a good idea to make an effort to wrap your mind around it and make that order.

This episode is all about helping you figure out the supplies you might want to order to be ready for the next school year. It's hard to cover all of the supplies you'll need for 8 different grades, but I make a pretty good effort here.

I've also written about the topic before. You can check out these posts for more information about supplies.

Note: The links on this page and the pages linked below are mostly Amazon affiliate links. When click through my site and make your purchase Amazon gives me a little bonus. This doesn't cost you anything extra and is a nice, easy way for you to support A Waldorf Journey.

My best resource is the list I put together that I link at the top of the page on the site. I get so many questions about supplies, I decided to put everything together in one place. 

Waldorf Drawing Supplies Your Child Must Have -- I wrote this during the summer before teaching 8th grade. Some of the supplies mentioned are better suited to the upper grades, but they're worth checking out for younger students, too.

Waldorf Supplies for 4th Grade

Handmade School Supplies

Waldorf Supplies -- A Fresh Look

Ordering Supplies -- I wrote this post before my second time through 6th grade. I made some different choices that year than I did the third time through. The main difference was working in large main lesson books. I really liked the larger format but when I came to 6th grade again my new school had a tradition of working on loose paper and binding books together in 6th grade. I ended up liking the flexibility of this approach much more.

Places to Order Supplies

Mercurius

Dick Blick

Amazon

In this episode I go through my process in planning my main lessons and how the two contrasting ideas of form and freedom come into play.

Mentioned resource: The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum

The aspects of my lessons that bring more form:

• The curriculum (the particular block, must-tell stories) -- History blocks tend to be a bit more prescribed than other blocks.
• Resources -- The resources I use certainly form and limit my lessons.
• Skill-building benchmarks -- Some skill-building activities (like reading and writing) are non-negotiable.
• Time limitations -- Time is definitely a limiting factor that makes us pick and choose wisely.

The aspects of my lessons that bring more freedom:

• Teacher interest (with both content and activities)
• Student interest (content and activities)
• The transformation of the content that occurs in the night.

We can't have our lessons be at either end of the spectrum. We couldn't plan out every aspect of our lessons months in advance, without leaving time for any freedom or inspiration.

By the same token, if we don't plan our lessons at all and allow teacher interest, student interest and the whim of the day to dictate where our lessons go, we run the risk of missing out on some of the gifts of the curriculum and the development of certain required skills.

So accomplishing this balance is definitely an art. In the rest of the episode I talk about my experiences navigating this balance.

At the end of the episode I share a listener question about whether Waldorf teachers, especially kindergarten teachers, can wear the color black. I give my opinions and feelings about it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Share in the comments.

Today I'm heading into the list of questions that I've received from listeners in the past few weeks. Hope you enjoy.

Want to subscribe to my email list? Head to A Waldorf Journey or text WALDORF to 444999. You'll receive an email with a link to download my free main lesson review sheet.

Question #1

What do you think about unschooling vs. Waldorf education.

Though I'm no expert when it comes to unschooling, I'm happy to share some of my thoughts about the merits of the Waldorf curriculum, which is a far cry from unschooling. Some of the things I talk about . . . 

• Free-spirited, non-traditionally educated parents finding a home in Waldorf and expecting it to be a bit freer and more alternative than it really is. Waldorf is definitely not unschooling.
• Waldorf as a developmental curriculum. The genius of Waldorf is that it brings just the right content at just the right time for the developmental stage of the child. The child's own interests may not lead them in that direction.
• The importance of will-development. There is value in finding something difficult and pushing through and doing it anyway.
• All education is self-education. I believe in this statement and perhaps this is the place where Waldorf Education and unschooling overlap.

Question #2

Struggles with limiting media due to outside influences (friends and relatives with more media exposure.) Child asks for movies and video games all the time.

The struggle is real! It's not going to go away. There used to be a time you could get rid of your TV and pretend that it just didn't exist. It is a rare family that can manage that these days. This means you have to handle things differently.

• Make media access times as rhythmic as possible. Often this rhythm will solve the problem on its own. But if not . . . 
• Try to view it as an opportunity to for parenting. You get (yet another) opportunity to remind your child that you care enough to set a boundary (as exhausting as it may be.)
• Don't beat yourself up. Don't feel like your child "shouldn't" be asking to use media again. If they're asking, all it means is that you get to answer again. It doesn't mean that you're somehow failing as a Waldorf parent.
• Don't be afraid to use consequences and rewards. If you are really tired of your child asking for access to media again, set a boundary. Maybe asking 3 times outside of the regular media access time means time is reduced.

Finally -- fight the good fight. This is definitely a cause worth getting behind. Reducing media will make a huge difference for your child.

Question #3

Resources?

• Jean's list of resources at Waldorf-Inspired Learning is the best (she's why I haven't created an exhaustive post of my own.)
• If you've got a school in your area, try to make a visit happen. Even if you can't enroll your child yet, you can make connections and find out about educational opportunities.
• If you don't have a school in your area, see about visiting one for a special speaker night.
• See about attending a training course at one of the Waldorf teacher training institutes. I highly recommend Sound Circle Center in Seattle and Rudolf Steiner College in Sacramento. Even their weekend courses for parents are fantastic and a great way for parents with young children at home to access some Waldorf inspiration.
• If you're looking for books, check out my other site -- Waldorf Reviews. I haven't updated in awhile, but there are some good resources there. (I recently found a post I wrote years ago about the resources I used for my anatomy block. It got me going in t

In this episode I address two questions that came to me from the A Waldorf Journey Teacher Tribe Facebook Group. If you'd like to become a member, head on over and send a request and I'll approve you quick as a wink. (I'm pretty careful about spam, though, so if your profile isn't clear that you're an honest-to-goodness hopeful member, send me a message through FB.) The other thing I mention in this podcast is Patreon. Please take a look A Waldorf Journey on Patreon and consider supporting the podcast with a donation. I just love this platform that allows content consumers to support creators with cash donations. Your cash donation will help pay the hosting fees that come along with creating a podcast like this. You can make one time or per episode donations. Every little bit is appreciated.

Student Absences

This is a topic near and dear to my heart. I talk a lot about my philosophy of how to manage student absences, what teachers should be responsible for and how to communicate with parents about it. My basic idea: Waldorf Education is a living, breathing thing that cannot be recreated for absent students. Most often I find that it is just best to let work go, rather than try to help absent students catch up. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it, though, so share your ideas in the comments below or on the Facebook group.

Pre-Teen Struggles

Sort of a two-part question -- I talk about how to cultivate an attitude in yourself that can help you through those challenging, adolescent-attitude moments with your students, and I also talk about how to guide students through struggles that they might have with one another. Two pieces of advice:

• Be ready to resolved struggles, especially after recess.
• Give students a formulaic script to begin difficult conversations and guide them through step-by-step. Starting with a respectful script can get the conversation off on the right foot, even if they need to break from the script to really get at the heart of the matter.

Some resources I've used: I Statements The following script spent a few months at the top of our chalkboard in 4th grade.

I feel ______________ when _______________ because ______________. I would like ________________.

We found that just about any conversation could start out this way, but it took awhile for the students to get the hang of it. We did lots of interactive modeling and working through sample imaginary situations before using it to work through a real one. The format involves the other person first echoing what the person said and then making their own I statement. Talk it Out by Barbara Porro I former colleague recommended this book to me and it is a fantastic one for helping students learn to manage their own conflicts. Please take some time to leave a star rating or review in iTunes or drop me a note ([email protected]) to let me know what you think of the podcast or if there are any topics you'd like to hear me talk about.

I recently put out a call for questions on social media and received some great topic ideas. I thought about plowing through all of the questions in one episode but realized that many of the questions deserve their own episode. This is one of those questions.

In this episode I go through the comments and reactions I get when I tell people I've taught the same group of students for five years. I share my own thoughts about the experience and the various looping models I have seen in place at various Waldorf schools.

What kind of looping arrangement does your school work with? Do you like it? What do you consider to be the biggest benefits of teaching the same students for several years. Drawbacks?

Participate in the conversation by commenting on the website.

In this episode I am happy to address the topic that I hear about the most from Waldorf parents -- media and screen-time. Though the benefits of limiting screen-time are clear, many Waldorf parents struggle with how to make limited media a reality in their homes. 

Some of the things you'll hear about in this episode include . . . 

• My kindergarten parent evening story that brought home the importance of limiting media exposure
• A teacher's perspective on why you should limit media exposure
• Strategies for making it easier to minimize media exposure in your home
• Suggestions for healthy ways to engage with media when you do decide to allow screen-time

It's a complicated and challenging topic that can inspire guilt and shame in parents who don't manage it as well as they would like, and my goal is to minimize those negative feelings by empowering parents to make conscious decisions that work for their own families.

Media Episode Notes

Some of the things I mention in the podcast . . . 

My new ebook The Waldorf Home. Now available for purchase and download

Our Facebook group A Waldorf Journey | Teacher Tribe

The Facebook page A Waldorf Journey

American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations

Are you interested in hearing some thoughts about the challenges of media for older children and teenagers? Social media brings along with it a whole different set of challenges that parents need to think through and carefully guide for their children. Is this a challenge you are facing? Let me know in the comments if this is a relevant topic for you and your family!

Resources

Other media-exposure and screen-free resources

Media Mindfulness from the Denver Waldorf School

Media and Waldorf Education YouTube video from the Marin Waldorf School

Media Philosophy from the Waldorf School of the Peninsula

My students and I had a difficult reaction to the presidential election and the day after turned out to be one of the most difficult days of my teaching career. That day inspired the topic of this episode -- Working with Children When You're Emotional.

There are lots of different ideas out there about whether parents should conceal their emotions from their children or not. In this episode I talk a bit about my thoughts on the matter and share some of my own experiences. 

I apologize for the coughing and my shaky voice -- I'm still recovering from a cold. 

Some of the things I mention in this episode:

My new ebook The Waldorf Home. Please check out the website for more information. It's all about using the power of connection to create a more conscious and intentional homelife. I'd love to hear your questions and stories about creating a Waldorf home. Email me at [email protected]. Your content could be featured in the book!

Check out this Psychology Today article about showing emotion in front of children.

Read the blog post about my post-election lesson plan.

I'd love to hear about your experiences discussing the election, or other upsetting topics with your children. What do you do when you're emotional and you must go on caring for your children? These are the things that challenge us most as parents and teachers. Let's support each other with our ideas.