Group of children posing on stage in costume

Curriculum Overview

“When children relate what they learn to their own experience, they are interested and alive, and what they learn becomes their own. Waldorf schools are designed to foster this kind of learning.”

—Henry Barnes, a longtime Waldorf teacher and former AWSNA Board Chair

“While one could make a case for its excellent arts and superb academics, in essence, CLWS simply creates more interesting, well-rounded people.”

- CLWS Alum

Waldorf’s rich and varied curriculum includes rigorous academic work as well as rich artistic experiences, all of which are appropriate to the age of the child. This fully integrated approach to education engages the child’s head, heart and hands. Waldorf schools invest in human development, not simply brain development.

The question behind the teaching methods of most schools is: How can the child accumulate the most information possible at the earliest age possible? Waldorf does not come from this mindset.

All children grow through predictable developmental phases and Waldorf works with these natural phases, maximizing the learning process at every step.

We invite you to follow this healthy unfolding of childhood, grade by grade, year by year in our Waldorf School.

CLWS Grades 1-8 Curriculum Guide

GRADES 1-3 GRADES 4-5 GRADES 6-8
Pictorial introduction to the alphabet, writing, reading, spelling, poetry and drama. Writing, reading, spelling, grammar, syntax, poetry and drama. Creative writing, reading, spelling, grammar, poetry, and drama.
Folk and fairy tales, fables, legends, Old Testament stories. Norse sagas, histories and tales of ancient civilizations, culminating in Greek history and culture. Roman civilization, Medieval history, Renaissance, Age of Discovery, American history, biography.
Numbers, the basic mathematical processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Review the four mathematical processes, fractions (common and decimal), percentages, and geometry. Algebra, geometry, business math, graphing, ratio and proportion, number bases.
Nature stories, house building, farming and trades. Local and North American geography, comparative zoology, botany. World geography, physics, chemistry, astronomy, physiology, geology and mineralogy.