Early childhood (pre-k and k)

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Kindergarten activities include:

• creative free play time (indoors and out)
• circle time for festival and seasonal celebrations
• storytelling, puppetry;
• singing, eurythmy (movement);
• games and finger plays;
• painting, drawing and beeswax modeling;
• life skills such as tidying up, dishwashing, sweeping, wood stacking
• baking and cooking;
• gardening, nature walks and outdoor play.

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A Waldorf kindergarten classroom is created in a beautiful, loving way. Soft, warm colors create a dreamy effect. Warm natural materials such as wood, wool and cotton are used for flooring, furniture and decoration. Because young children are in such a dreamy state as they fully incarnate into their physical bodies, this provides a comforting, warm environment in which to play, as do soft drapes of airy silk and gauzy cotton over windows and hanging from ceilings. Using wooden playstands, children use smaller silk and cotton cloths in soft shades to create homes or other structures during free play time. Children are drawn to creating homes during this early childhood phase as the home represents the body, again reflecting this time of incarnating into their bodies.

The warm colors and textures of the natural materials in the classroom promote warmth to their sense of touch. Rudolf Steiner, who initiated the Waldorf education movement, felt that providing warmth was one of the most important things for healthy early childhood development because "warmth supports life." The classroom has an overall home-like atmosphere with areas to play "kitchen" or tea time, or put babies to bed, or construct a home or boat or train, or tend to plants, or the myriad activities that go on in a home.

In the Waldorf kindergarten, the adults (teachers, assistants) are there first and foremost for the children. A teacher usually spends the first part of her morning, before the children arrive, meditating on each child, on what each child needs for the coming day. The adults are also there for the parents, other teachers, the entire school and of course for their own enrichment and development as individuals.
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Rhythm is a vital part of the Waldorf kindergarten classroom experience. Healthy external rhythms promote healthy internal rhythms during these critical years of physical growth and brain development. In Rudolf Steiner's view, the human body completely reforms/renews itself every seven years and this early childhood phase is the time when a child's formative forces were meant to be focused on incarnating into her body and for healthy growth of the body. Children's play is rhythmic in a Waldorf classroom with the morning unfolding in the same way each day, one activity flowing into the next in such a way that the children know what to expect. This provides comfort and security to them, eliminating much need for discipline which typically arises out of a child's sense of uncertainty and fear of "what's coming next." Telling them what's coming next is not nearly as comforting as singing a familiar song that is always sung as tidying up begins. The song and the expectation it evokes allows their whole body to respond positively as they know that tidying up is an activity that then leads to washing up for snack and snack time leads to outdoor play, for example.
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Large play objects such as stumps foster cooperative play

Rudolf Steiner observed, "The essence of play is free." Young children need freedom in their play, to allow their imagination, brain and whole body to really be engaged. This freedom requires time and requires appropriate space. Our culture has never before spent more money on toys and "classes" for children. The interesting thing is, all that money could be saved and children would arguably be far better off. Children do not need lots of toys. Too many toys only fosters unappreciation because there are so many. It then does not matter if the toys are taken care of or not, or if things break. Children really only need a few simple toys that stimulate their imaginative brain development, and love and appreciation for those few things. Fewer toys also promotes ability to care for the objects, with adults being the role model in this endeavor, and also promotes tidying up in a satisfactory way. A huge toy bin in which toys are thrown in a big jumble is not nearly so thoughtful as placing a few beloved objects carefully on a shelf in the same way each time they are played with.
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Toys provided in the Waldorf kindergarten are typically very simple and of natural materials. Because this is the developmental stage in which the imaginative, creative brain is rapidly growing, toys children play with during this time should stimulate and enhance this imaginative, creative growth. Open-ended toys are those that are minimally formed so that the child's imagination "completes" the object in whatever way her play needs it to be. A long-time Waldorf kindergarten teacher, Nancy Foster, points out: "A curved piece of wood, for example, may be used as a bridge, or as a telephone, a boat, a cradle, a delivery truck, a fish, merchandise for a store, and so on." And of course a younger child simply may use it as a piece of wood to build a play fire with - whatever the child's imaginative play needs it to be. Jack Petrash, author of Understanding Waldorf Education, wrote, "Children who are encouraged to play with the same object in a number of different ways develop...flexible thinking that can consider a problem from a number of different perspectives." This is called divergent thinking, as opposed to convergent thinking which only seeks a single answer to a single problem. Divergent thinking looks for a multiplicity of solutions, a capacity that is essential in later stages of learning and life for problem-solving.

Toys in a Waldorf kindergarten include objects found in nature - pine cones, stones and crystals, feathers, blocks made from cut and sanded tree branches, stumps, a large sandbox (indoor and outdoor) and digging tools, shells, etc. Teachers make many toys such as knitted animals, soft dolls, felted puppets and carved wooden items. There are also home items, typically made from wood, such as kitchen tools, brooms to tidy up with, baby cradles. And there are building materials - large wooden stacking cubes, boards, wooden playstands, building cloths of silk and cotton to attach and drape over playstands and cubes to make homes, forts, a store, etc. These simple objects made from natural materials foster creative, imaginative play as well as a love for nature.

The presence of the television and videos in a child's life is often clearly seen in the Kindergarten. The strong influence it has upon little children is visible in many ways. The child may speak in the tone of a certain character or machine, where speech can be reduced to the sound of robots or mechanical noises. The child may seem "stuck" in creative play, unable to play anything but a super hero, transformer or "emergency." Other children seem to lose their imagination and can't "think" of anything to play. Subtle changes may be noted in a child who cannot sit still during a story, making is a distressing time instead of a time of wonderment and delight.

There are other noticeable effects of the television on children: uneasiness, lack of attention span or perseverance. TV/videos before bedtime is very disturbing to a child's sleep life. Perhaps the greatest loss is the dimming effect it has on the child's wonderful imagination. It is this imagination which provides the foundation for learning and growth. There are alternatives to television; examples may be found in any domestic work (big favorites are washing dishes, folding laundry, gardening, carpentry, polishing shoes or tables). Drawing or beeswax modeling are good alternative activities. The books listed in the GWS's Media Policy give myriad ideas as well.

Also click on Parenting Articles and read the article ''Strangers in Our Home: TV and our Children's Minds.''