Overview of Year, Grades 1-8 at Waldorf School of the Peninsula 2011-2012

By Anastasia Zaikine-Sinclair

Curriculum also developed by Carolyn Brown

Grade 1

Grade One brings an introduction to working in the garden; how to use and maintain basic tools, work safely and focus on a task. Grade One has an emphasis on local flora and fauna, or the “home surroundings”. Grade One began the year learning about the lifecycle of plants through stories. Harvest time brought seed saving, grain threshing and ventures into good nutrition through delicious fruit and vegetable treats; the class enjoyed the raw vegetables in the garden and ate several heads of colorful broccoli and cauliflower together. Students practiced their handwork, garden and building skills by making flower fairies and building fairy houses. The class also made lovely autumn paper lanterns hung on willow branches and handmade paper seed hearts to plant in the garden for Valentines day. The students worked with their senses, and searched for plants with different smells and tastes as well as for plants composing the colors of the rainbow. First grade began work with composting and learned about worms and beneficial insects. The students prepared for winter compost by raking up leaf piles, and studied the different shapes of leaves by creating artistic leaf rubbings. The class began to learn weaving skills with hand died yarn in the winter and spring. Students learned about homesteading and hiked up to Shadow’s end farm to visit the goats and chickens several times.

Grade 2

Grade Two students learn about their home surroundings and the flora and fauna which inhabit the local area. The students studied the lifecycle of plants in the garden including seed saving, and collected many flower seeds for replanting. The class made hand drawn seed packets, harvested, shelled and sorted beans and threshed grains. Students learned about seasons through planting times and planted potatoes and bulbs. The year included much physical work and digging to practice using tools. Students dug madder root to make natural dyes, deep weedy willow roots, bulbs to plant at the new campus, and even a lost water pipe! The class practiced their craft skills by building fairy houses and created autumn paper lanterns. Students enjoyed a fall field trip to the middle school to harvest apples with Grade 7, as well as hiking trip to Shadow’s End farm to visit the goats and chickens. Students worked in the garden throughout the year maintaining the compost. Grade two brings a focus on good deeds and the class spent time raking the yard and picking and making flower bouquets for the other classes and office.

Grade 3

The Grade Three curriculum brings farming and building to the forefront and the garden curriculum is very complementary to this. While students were learning about different cereal crops in main lesson, they were harvesting, threshing, winnowing and milling these grains in gardening class. Students learned how to use the milled flour to bake pizza in the garden brick oven, topped by pesto which they had made from harvested basil. Students studied traditional methods of threshing the rye and wheat by hand (and foot), using the stone grain mill, and attending the oven fires. Students learned how to harvest and prepare garden salad, roasted garden vegetables and squash. They also made apple crisp, apple juice fresh from the press. The Main lesson building blocks were supported by building fairy and gnome houses in the garden. During the winter months students made their own looms out of pine wood and nails and created individual weavings, complimenting the textiles Main Lesson block. They dyed their own wool yarn for the weavings with natural plants which they harvested from the garden. The weaving block culminated in the students working together to create a large woven tapestry for the school’s annual fundraising auction. The end of the year brought the Grade 3 building project, and with the support of parents, the students built a large circular wooden bench out of reclaimed redwood to give to the new middle and high school site.

Grade 4

Grade Four curriculum is an introduction to geography, beginning with the home surroundings. In gardening class, the students study local watersheds, native and traditional food sources and support local wildlife. The class began the year by visiting Shadow’s End farm to visit the goats and harvest blue tortilla corn. They dried, shucked and milled the corn, and celebrated by dining on blue cornbread with apple jam and honey! The students also tried new foods, including native bay nuts roasted in the brick oven. A special guest gardening teacher came to class and hosted a grain threshing/winnowing workshop; students then milled the oats, rye and wheat in a stone hand mill to make flour. Students helped maintain the garden through the year by planting, weeding, preparing the garden beds, and composting. During the winter months each student took on the task of building a birdhouse for a home garden. Students measured, cut, sanded and nailed a house for blue birds with great dedication. Through this activity, Grade Four applied math skills, particularly fractions. The students learned tool safety, advanced their building skills and also learned to apply focus and perseverance on an extended project.

Grade 5

The garden curriculum supported the Grade Five botany Main Lesson blocks with a year long study of trees, hands on experience growing monocots and dicots and a special study on the geometry of plants. The class learned about healing herbs and made salves from garden plants in the garden brick oven for sale at the winter fair. Students harvested, planted, weeded, saved seeds and worked with the compost. The pond near the Grade Five classroom was the site for a pond study of the “aquatic macro-invertebrates” living in the water and the students did a pollution survey on the pond life. The class also worked together to muck out the pond. Several field trips were taken to Shadow’s End farm to learn about amending soil with cover cropping. The class also had special craft projects which included making paper valentine hearts with flower seeds and willow stirring sticks for compost tea such as Biodynamic preparations. They also worked hard to build a beautiful woven willow fence in the garden.

Grade 6

Grade Six was introduced to the design, layout and building of the new garden at the middle school site. The class dug out the paths, laid down the mulch, cultivated the garden beds and dug the deep holes for the 20 new fruit trees. Students applied math skills and spatial awareness in laying out the garden in circles on a grid. Through basic soil science, student’s studies in mineralogy were supported. The class inoculated and planted nitrogen fixing cover crop in the winter, studied the effects it had on the soil and insect life and tilled it into the ground in the spring. Crop rotation was introduced and students will observe the metamorphosis of soil and plants through the next two years of middle school.

Grade 7

Grade 7 brings an emphasis on service work and community service. This year the class worked weekly in the garden with the Morgan center students, who are developmentally disabled young adults. Grade 7 students also harvested apples with second grade and hosted visiting teachers. Through the year, students worked with independent garden design concepts and helped to develop a new garden at the middle school site. The class studied the foundations of plant reproduction in conjunction with their human biology curriculum. They inoculated and planted nitrogen fixing cover crop in the winter, studied the effects it had on the soil and insect life and tilled it into the ground in the spring. The class worked extensively creating and applying compost and building the soil for the new garden, and also planted fruit trees, perennials and annual vegetable crops.

Grade 8

Grade Eight played an integral role in creating the new garden at the middle school site this year; they were involved with the design, layout and building process. Students began the year by doing research and design on the fallow land, and also worked hard to eradicate weeds and brush. Once the garden design was in place, they laid out a grid on the garden to transfer the plan, applying math and basic survey skills. The class then laid out the paths and garden beds. Students conducted soil PH tests and studied the results of the lab tests. The class was engaged with discussions on solutions to the soil imbalances and the applications of these solutions. They prepared the ground and planted over 20 varieties of fruit trees, learning about chill hour requirements, grafting, pruning and pollination. The students researched rare and unusual edible plants and learned how to prepare meals out of some of the varieties. They also studied different methods of farming from conventional to Biodynamic and cultural and political implications of these methods. Students in Grade 8 also do meteorological observations through the year in the garden by keeping logs of the weather, changes in barometric pressure, measurements of rainfall and temperature.