About Third Grade
Dear Third Grade Parents,
Welcome everyone to an exciting and busy Third Grade year. We are about to embark upon a year that, for many children, will be dominated by the important developmental stage known as the nine-year/ten-year change. How will the Waldorf curriculum meet the needs of your child as they move through this important stage? During our first Parent meeting this will indeed be our first order of business. Below is a brief primer on what we will discuss. Also included below is a quick rundown of the finer aspects of this year’s curriculum just in case the Block Schedule Rotation sheet that I send home to you is too dry for you.
At some point during their ninth or tenth year, children experience a profound inner shift in development. New capacities for thinking and judgment suddenly emerge and children begin to see themselves, their own egos, much more deeply than ever before, and in consequence look out into the world with newly observant eyes. It is such an exciting and transformative time of a child’s life. Suddenly a child can follow a line of thought behind the events going on around him or her more clearly. Many things dawn on a child that they were not aware of before. The “unity of all things” experience of the younger child gives way to an inner/outer dichotomy and the world begins to be viewed with an entirely new set of eyes. Almost over night a child begins to experience the feelings of “I am here, and the world is out there,” signaling a newly heightened self-consciousness, and often a critical view of ones self and others. Sometimes a child may show renewed interest in her or his birth and toddler-hood. Strong opinions and stronger likes and dislikes begin to emerge as this new “realistic” view of the world suddenly begins to manifest.
In a way it is a second birth. Deeper feelings and emotions begin to creep into the child and the child is often not able to understand these feelings at all, and is certainly not able to intellectualize as an adult might. Yet the feelings are still there, they are real, and the child has no life experiences yet, or reference points, upon which to get their footing. As always, how a child responds to this depends upon the individual. Just as there are a wide variety of ways a woman responds to the challenge of giving birth, some stoic and calm, others emotional and animated, so there is a corresponding variety of ways individual children birth their new selves. In some children this new awakening can lead to a quiet wonder. In others it can show as new emotionality about things that were previously no trouble, huge swings of emotion, and feelings of uncertainty and fear about the world.
Parents and teachers are challenged to continue to meet the children with sensitivity and understanding during this topsy-turvy period. A bridge must be built between the outer and newly felt inner world. Moodiness and the expression of strong feelings are usually best met with a patient, listening ear-- without attempts to analyze or moralize. The child needs to feel the steadiness of a trusted authority; one who won’t “hook in” to his or her own turbulent feelings.
The hands-on experience of the Waldorf Third Grade curriculum includes such practical activities as cooking, building, working with fibers, preparing the soil, planting, tending, and harvesting. Each has a purpose of connecting the child in a very concrete way to the material world. In a sense, the world is “demystified” with a growing knowledge of the “how-to’s” of life. Children learn the basics of taking care of themselves, and how the every-day things around them are built as they care for the school garden, participate in a building project of some kind in service of the school, visit a real-life working farm for their first over-night camping experience together, and take field trips around the local valley which are connected to their learning in school. This year, with your volunteer help, we can work together to help bring these “practical” activities to our third graders.
What is the primary story material or literature shared with the Third Grade? Hebrew and Native American myths. The great scholar Joseph Cambell spoke beautifully of myths as our “guide signs” for life. He wrote, “When you see the stories (myths) in your mind, then you see its relevance to something happening in your own life. It gives you perspective on what’s happening to you… These bits of information from ancient times, which have to do with themes that have supported human life, built civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, have to do with the deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you don’t know what the guide signs are along the way, you have to work it out yourself.” Thus children experience stories that span the breath of human experience, including the creation of the world, the ever present need to find food, shelter and clothing and meaning in the world, and the struggles of mankind to overcome it’s baser nature. Stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Esther and others serve as metaphors for the children’s inner experience of leaving the paradise of early childhood.
As their perception of the world becomes even more objective, 3rd graders have a natural curiosity to quantify and measure. Measurement is introduced as an outgrowth of the human body, i.e. cubit (arm and hand), fathom (tip of fingers to tip of fingers in outstretched arms), etc. Together we measure the size of things around the school and discover the challenges and joys of standardization. In fact in all our practical work, we will continually come back to measurement; from cooking to building to digging to working with money to time telling to moving through the seasons of a garden. We will measure our classroom, our school, our own individual bedrooms, our seasons and ourselves.
We will also begin our six-year journey of geography with our study of shelters and how the surrounding environment led to their design. The children will build mini-shelters, visit different kinds of buildings, learn what it takes to build a house (from the site selection, architectural drawings, legal permits… to moving in) and with a wee bit of parent support, construct a building project of our own in the spring.
Over the course of the year we will review and extend arithmetic skills. We will continue to work on the four processes: “Carrying” in addition, “borrowing” for subtraction, multiplication and division. The mastery of the basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts will be our first order of business. This will help support the introduction of double-digit multiplication and long division.
In our grammar work the simple parts of speech: “doing” (verbs), “naming” (nouns and pronouns) and “describing” (adjectives and adverbs) words will be introduced. Simple punctuation, paragraphing and capitalization will be practiced along with different types of sentences. We will continue to work with phonics: long and short vowels, plurals and compound words, as well as begin to learn basic spelling rules. Vocabulary and spelling words will be drawn from the story content and reflected in the students’ main lesson books. The students will begin to independently compose their writing in the main lesson books as well.
Reading will of course be a major focus this year as well. We will have reading groups and/or individual reading time on a weekly basis. Students will also participate in choral reading, reading in pairs and individually.
As always, music will be an ever-present part of our school day, both vocal and instrumental. This year we will retire our pentatonic recorders and move onto the full soprano recorder (baroque fingering). Along with learning how to play this new instrument the students will also begin learning how to read music as well.
This year promises to be very busy and lots of fun. I will need lots of helping adult hands, so get ready! I appreciate the honor of teaching your wonderful children.
Thirdgradely,
Justin
Welcome everyone to an exciting and busy Third Grade year. We are about to embark upon a year that, for many children, will be dominated by the important developmental stage known as the nine-year/ten-year change. How will the Waldorf curriculum meet the needs of your child as they move through this important stage? During our first Parent meeting this will indeed be our first order of business. Below is a brief primer on what we will discuss. Also included below is a quick rundown of the finer aspects of this year’s curriculum just in case the Block Schedule Rotation sheet that I send home to you is too dry for you.
At some point during their ninth or tenth year, children experience a profound inner shift in development. New capacities for thinking and judgment suddenly emerge and children begin to see themselves, their own egos, much more deeply than ever before, and in consequence look out into the world with newly observant eyes. It is such an exciting and transformative time of a child’s life. Suddenly a child can follow a line of thought behind the events going on around him or her more clearly. Many things dawn on a child that they were not aware of before. The “unity of all things” experience of the younger child gives way to an inner/outer dichotomy and the world begins to be viewed with an entirely new set of eyes. Almost over night a child begins to experience the feelings of “I am here, and the world is out there,” signaling a newly heightened self-consciousness, and often a critical view of ones self and others. Sometimes a child may show renewed interest in her or his birth and toddler-hood. Strong opinions and stronger likes and dislikes begin to emerge as this new “realistic” view of the world suddenly begins to manifest.
In a way it is a second birth. Deeper feelings and emotions begin to creep into the child and the child is often not able to understand these feelings at all, and is certainly not able to intellectualize as an adult might. Yet the feelings are still there, they are real, and the child has no life experiences yet, or reference points, upon which to get their footing. As always, how a child responds to this depends upon the individual. Just as there are a wide variety of ways a woman responds to the challenge of giving birth, some stoic and calm, others emotional and animated, so there is a corresponding variety of ways individual children birth their new selves. In some children this new awakening can lead to a quiet wonder. In others it can show as new emotionality about things that were previously no trouble, huge swings of emotion, and feelings of uncertainty and fear about the world.
Parents and teachers are challenged to continue to meet the children with sensitivity and understanding during this topsy-turvy period. A bridge must be built between the outer and newly felt inner world. Moodiness and the expression of strong feelings are usually best met with a patient, listening ear-- without attempts to analyze or moralize. The child needs to feel the steadiness of a trusted authority; one who won’t “hook in” to his or her own turbulent feelings.
The hands-on experience of the Waldorf Third Grade curriculum includes such practical activities as cooking, building, working with fibers, preparing the soil, planting, tending, and harvesting. Each has a purpose of connecting the child in a very concrete way to the material world. In a sense, the world is “demystified” with a growing knowledge of the “how-to’s” of life. Children learn the basics of taking care of themselves, and how the every-day things around them are built as they care for the school garden, participate in a building project of some kind in service of the school, visit a real-life working farm for their first over-night camping experience together, and take field trips around the local valley which are connected to their learning in school. This year, with your volunteer help, we can work together to help bring these “practical” activities to our third graders.
What is the primary story material or literature shared with the Third Grade? Hebrew and Native American myths. The great scholar Joseph Cambell spoke beautifully of myths as our “guide signs” for life. He wrote, “When you see the stories (myths) in your mind, then you see its relevance to something happening in your own life. It gives you perspective on what’s happening to you… These bits of information from ancient times, which have to do with themes that have supported human life, built civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, have to do with the deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you don’t know what the guide signs are along the way, you have to work it out yourself.” Thus children experience stories that span the breath of human experience, including the creation of the world, the ever present need to find food, shelter and clothing and meaning in the world, and the struggles of mankind to overcome it’s baser nature. Stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Esther and others serve as metaphors for the children’s inner experience of leaving the paradise of early childhood.
As their perception of the world becomes even more objective, 3rd graders have a natural curiosity to quantify and measure. Measurement is introduced as an outgrowth of the human body, i.e. cubit (arm and hand), fathom (tip of fingers to tip of fingers in outstretched arms), etc. Together we measure the size of things around the school and discover the challenges and joys of standardization. In fact in all our practical work, we will continually come back to measurement; from cooking to building to digging to working with money to time telling to moving through the seasons of a garden. We will measure our classroom, our school, our own individual bedrooms, our seasons and ourselves.
We will also begin our six-year journey of geography with our study of shelters and how the surrounding environment led to their design. The children will build mini-shelters, visit different kinds of buildings, learn what it takes to build a house (from the site selection, architectural drawings, legal permits… to moving in) and with a wee bit of parent support, construct a building project of our own in the spring.
Over the course of the year we will review and extend arithmetic skills. We will continue to work on the four processes: “Carrying” in addition, “borrowing” for subtraction, multiplication and division. The mastery of the basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts will be our first order of business. This will help support the introduction of double-digit multiplication and long division.
In our grammar work the simple parts of speech: “doing” (verbs), “naming” (nouns and pronouns) and “describing” (adjectives and adverbs) words will be introduced. Simple punctuation, paragraphing and capitalization will be practiced along with different types of sentences. We will continue to work with phonics: long and short vowels, plurals and compound words, as well as begin to learn basic spelling rules. Vocabulary and spelling words will be drawn from the story content and reflected in the students’ main lesson books. The students will begin to independently compose their writing in the main lesson books as well.
Reading will of course be a major focus this year as well. We will have reading groups and/or individual reading time on a weekly basis. Students will also participate in choral reading, reading in pairs and individually.
As always, music will be an ever-present part of our school day, both vocal and instrumental. This year we will retire our pentatonic recorders and move onto the full soprano recorder (baroque fingering). Along with learning how to play this new instrument the students will also begin learning how to read music as well.
This year promises to be very busy and lots of fun. I will need lots of helping adult hands, so get ready! I appreciate the honor of teaching your wonderful children.
Thirdgradely,
Justin