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Curriculum Overview

Below is a brief outline of what is covered in each grade.  This may vary slightly from year to year.  At the beginning of each school year, class teachers provide details of the planned lesson block rotation.  French Language is introduced in Grade One and is taught through all grades.

Kindergarten

​Our Kindergarten is a homelike environment that nurtures and protects the young child's sense of wonder and imagination. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, said that play is the work of children. Our age appropriate Kindergarten honours that belief. Open-ended toys and activities encourage children to exercise their imaginations. Here, children learn by doing- helping to prepare snacks, baking bread, housekeeping and free play. Story time, handcraft and art activities along with active participation in the daily life of the class all helps to foster the growing abilities of our youngest children. Our Kindergarten starts for children who will turn four by December 31 in the year they are enrolled.

Elementary School

The school day begins with a two-hour long, uninterrupted morning lesson, as children are freshest for academic work in the morning.

Morning Lesson topics include language arts, science, math, history or geography and are taught in blocks of three to five weeks. This integrated morning lesson allows the teacher to develop a wide variety of activities around the subject at hand.  Class teachers weave together rigorous academics and the arts, enhancing students' learning through experiential teaching methods.

In the younger grades, lively rhythmic activities get the circulation going and bring children together as a group; they recite poems connected with the main lesson, practice tongue twisters to limber up their speech, and work with concentration exercises using body movements.

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After the day’s morning lesson, students record what they learned in their lesson books.

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Following recess, teachers present shorter lessons, including foreign languages, drama, art, gardening, poetry, movement, music and Eurythmy. Knitting, crocheting, needlework, weaving, sewing and other handcrafts are introduced in an exciting progression as the childrens’ abilities develop. Thus the day has a rhythm that helps overcome fatigue and enhances balanced learning.

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All students participate in all these subjects regardless of their special aptitudes. The purpose of studying a subject is to awaken and educate capacities that every human being needs. Each subject studied should contribute to the development of a well-balanced individual.

Middle School

The Waldorf middle school curriculum is designed to foster the student's exploration of themselves, their learning style, and their world.  We support the healthy development of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making - an essential foundation for life.

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The middle school years are often a tumultuous time for students.  As they enter the early years of teenage-hood there are very specific needs to meet their development. 

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Hands-on teaching in all subjects provides a meaningful experience for our students.  In addition to academic rigor, middle school students study a richly diverse arts curriculum that includes music, theatre, craft, and visual arts.  

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In addition to the school day, middle school students have extra-curricular opportunities, from Track and Field or our DIY Circus Club, to School Dances and overnight field trips.

Grade One

  • Pictorial, experimental, and phonetic introduction to letters.

  • The qualities of numbers, counting to 100, Roman and Arabic numerals, and introduction to the four processes.

  • Mental arithmetic through experience

  • Form drawing as preparation for writing and later geometry

  • Speech, drama and recall

  • Fairy and folk tales and nature stories

  • Making needles and beginning to knit

  • Singing and introduction to recorder

  • Nature study

  • Painting, Beeswax Modelling, Crayon Drawing

Grade Two

  • Introduction to reading and grammar

  • Fables from around the world, saints stories

  • Arithmetic with larger numbers, place value

  • Form drawing: running forms leading to cursive writing

  • Nature legends and animal fables

  • Folk heroes, saints, and trickster tales

  • Place value and arithmetic with larger numbers

  • Reading, writing, and elements of grammar

  • Purling, shaping and gauge in knitting, basic crochet

  • Nature study

  • Singing and recorder

  • Crochet and knitting

  • Painting and modelling

French Language 

Starting in Grade 1, French is integral to the curriculum, using songs, rhymes, stories and puppet shows. Elementary grades learn a basic vocabulary through oral repetition. In the upper grades our French program builds on this foundation through the introduction of music, drama and art. The French Teacher works in close collaboration with the class teachers to bring French in a meaningful way.

Grade Three

  • Study of practical life: farming and gardening, housebuilding, fibres and clothing, trade and the development of currency

  • Reading, spelling, writing original compositions, cursive writing

  • Grammar, punctuation, structured word inquiry, and parts of speech, cursive writing

  • Arithmetic: higher multiplication tables, time, temperature, weight and volume, linear measurement, and money

  • Spinning and weaving

  • Cultural Studies: Hebrew myths and Jewish festivals

  • Drama and painting

  • Singing in rounds and playing recorder

  • Sports

Grade Four

  • Norse mythology and sagas, tall tales

  • Tenses and grammar

  • Composition of personal narrative, letter writing

  • Local history, geography, and map making, landforms and water features

  • Mi’kmaq history, stories and ways of knowing

  • Comparative study of zoology and the human being

  • Introduction to fractions

  • Form drawing celtic knots

  • Singing two-part songs, recorder

  • Embroidery, Cross Stitch, and Sewing

  • Painting

  • Sports

Music Program

According to Rudolf Steiner, Music represents one of the purest art forms in terms of integrating the feeling, will and soul life of a child. While singing develops the feeling life, learning a musical instrument develops the will as children learn to listen and adjust the sound they are creating. Playing and singing music in ensembles teaches a child to stay in rhythm and harmonize with others, which strengthens social awareness and sensitivity. 

Grade Five

  • Study of Ancient Cultures and Civilizations

  • India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece

  • North American geography and biomes

  • Composition with reports and self-expressed opinion

  • Grammar, spelling, reading

  • Decimals, ratio and proportion, freehand geometry

  • Botany

  • Four-needle knitting, woodworking

  • Singing, recorder and orchestra

  • Pentathalon

  • Painting

Grade Six

  • The transition from ancient to modern history

  • Greek history, the decline of Greece, the rise and fall of Rome, and the effects of these cultures on civilization up through the Middle Ages

  • World Geography (continents, oceans, flags of the world)

  • Geology, Mineralogy, Physics (acoustic, magnetism, optics and heat), Astronomy

  • Composition, grammar, spelling, biographies

  • Business math, interest, percentage, formulas, graphing, geometric drawing with tools

  • Embroidery of slippers, stuffed animals, puppets, dolls and clothes for dolls

  • Woodworking, Painting

  • Singing and Orchestra

  • Reading, writing, and grammar

  • Sports

Grade Seven

  • Speech and drama - romantic poetry,  lyrical ballads, tragedy

  • Creative Writing – Wish Wonder Surprise

  • European History - the Renaissance through Reformation and the Age of Exploration

  • World Geography, African Biomes

  • Physics (mechanics), physiology, inorganic chemistry, combustion, nutrition

  • Negative integers, deriving Pi, geometry, business math, algebra, ratios, square and cube roots

  • Dollmaking, felting, embroidery, woodworking, carving,

  • Perspective drawing, veil painting, black and white shadow studies, clay modelling, painting

  • Singing and Orchestra

  • Sports

Grade Eight

  • History - the Industrial Revolution to the present day

  • Geography as related to World Economics

  • World Religions

  • Physics (Acoustics, Thermodynamics, Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Hydraulics, Aerodynamics), Meteorology, Ecology, Organic Chemistry, Physiology

  • Geometry, measurement of surfaces and volume, practical applications of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, graphing

  • Singing and Orchestra, Elizabethan Music, American Music, Symphonic Form

  • Machine Sewing, Darning, Artistic Hand-Sewing Projects and Embroidery, Soapstone Carvings, Carpentry

  • Poems with contrasting moods, Short Stories, famous speeches, Shakesperean Drama

  • Persuasive Writing, Essays

  • Painting: highlights and shadows in portraits and landscapes

  • Sports

Grade Nine

  • ​The Hero’s Journey- study of story structure and archetypes

  • Rational Numbers, Powers and Exponents, Similarity and Transformations

  • Square Roots and Surface Area, Linear Relations/Graphing, Polynomials, Algebra, Euclidean Geometry, Probability and Statistics

  • Essay Skills, Novel Study, Memoirs, Short Stories, Parts of Speech, Composition

  • Reproduction/Cell Theory, Atoms and Elements, The Periodic Table, Electricity, Geology, Organic Chemistry, Ocean Sciences

  • Modern History WWI and WWII, History through Art History, Canadian History

  • Introduction to forms of government, the Canadian Government, Business laws, citizenship

  • Handwork and Practical Arts: Spinning, Weaving, Basket weaving, Blacksmithing, Woodworking, Bicycle repair, gardening, natural building projects, beekeeping.

  • Leadership/Volunteer work

Grade 9 Independent Studies

Each year the students in the graduating class take on independent projects as the culmination of their educational experience. It is an opportunity for the students to have a truly independent learning experience based on their individual interests and inspirations.

Students combine the academic, artistic, and intellectual capacities fostered by their Waldorf education to research, develop, and present a project of their choosing. The maturity and self-motivation required to accomplish such a project is a prerequisite for moving on to secondary school.

 

The independent project requires the students to find a mentor, research their topic, complete the work, and share this experience with an audience.

They spend many hours, above and beyond their regular academic school work, developing their independent projects over the course of the school year.

If you have questions, come for a visit!

Call 902-624-0874 or email now to book a tour, we would love to show you around and answer questions.

Or complete the online enrolment query now with no obligation >

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