Page Hero Image

Blog

Waldorf Apple Story

A Traditional Waldorf Story for Fall....

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, the world only had one apple tree.

It was just a baby apple tree, a seedling with small roots and no branches to speak of.

One night, the little apple sprout looked up into the night sky and admired the beautiful stars. The little apple sprout wanted so badly to reach up and touch them, so it stretched and stretched and stretched… until it was a great apple tree.

But as much as the great apple tree stretched, it still could not reach the stars.

A Peek into a Day in Forest K

It’s the first day of school and a brand new class of kindergarteners are seeing the Waldorf School of Baltimore’s newest classroom for the first time. Fourteen sets of wide, wonder-filled eyes take in the newly constructed space as they are warmly welcomed by their teachers, Ms. Lida Lawrence and Ms. Haley Snyder. In this classroom, students find a beautiful play kitchen (built by a loving grandparent), open ended play materials, child-sized stools, and new wooden tables ready for snack time and art projects. No one can deny this is a beautiful space to learn.

Why do Waldorf Schools Celebrate the Festival of Courage?

Watercolor Dragon, Waldorf Festival Courage

This September, Waldorf students throughout the world will breathe a fiery collective outbreath and come together with their communities in celebration of the powerful themes of strength, courage and bravery. At the Waldorf School of Baltimore, we too will take up this task, though as you may expect, it will look a little different than it has in years past.

Waves, Wiggles and Wonder

Form drawing, or Dynamic Drawing, as it was originally termed by Waldorf Education’s founder, Rudolf Steiner, is an interesting and integral part of the Waldorf Curriculum. Starting with the simplest of forms in first grade as a type of pre-writing exercise, WSB students advance to complicated geometric drawings by their middle school years. A recent visit to Ms. Angelie Guilbaud’ s first grade main lesson block finds us at the very beginning of that exciting trajectory with an exploration of straight and curved lines.

Handwork Highlight

Handwork is an important part of the Waldorf curriculum -- for good reason. Far from frivolous, the Waldorf School of Baltimore’s fiber arts program instills powerful personal lessons. Children build confidence as they develop a gradual mastery of skills, learn to problem solve and correct mistakes, and engage in critical thinking and spatial conceptualization.

Green Dragon Bytes: First Grade Foraging

Check out a nature studies blog where Ms. Jung takes the first grade class onto a Nature Studies trek through the forest.

First graders have been very interested in foraging edible plants. We have learned how to find some common ones in the woods, and have talked about how you can eat them. We learned about a list of plants that tells you if you can pick an edible plant or not.

Eighth Grade Self Portraits Part II

After weeks of working with Ms. Emmet on an individual exploration, the second half of the eighth grade class presented their self-portrait projects to the community on Thursday, May 13. The other half presented in part one the previous evening.

Ms. Emmet started the second night of presentations off with gratitude and by recalling some of her first meetings with some of the children:

Brood X Cicadas Emerge on Campus

As the Brood X cicadas begin to emerge, our kids are learning about them and being inspired by them. Take a look at how we're using this rare moment for experiential learning.

Eighth Grade Self Portraits Part I

After weeks of working with Ms. Emmet on an individual exploration, half of the eighth grade class presented their self-portrait projects to the community on Wednesday, May 12. The other half presented in part two the next evening.

Ms. Emmet started this project 20 years ago and the thought of it was born as she was walking in the snow in New Hampshire. Read her introduction to the project:

Eighth Grade Play 2021: Inherit the Wind

Each year the eighth grade performs a play in the spring prior to graduation. Due to the global pandemic, the class came up with a creative way to have a performance without an in-person audience.

 With the help of another WSB alumni, Jessie Hughes and Elias Schutzman—now an actor, musician, teacher, and sound expert— Mr. Ciofalo's eighth grade class was able to host a live zoom performance of a radio play. The class set up one camera in the Eurythmy Room and several state-of-the-art microphones for the live performance on  April 18.