Grades 4-5
Grade 4: This Is My Place and Time
In the fourth grade, the children have left early childhood behind, but have not yet begun puberty. The teacher of the fourth grade class increasingly experiences the children as emerging individuals with strong personalities and distinctive gifts and talents, as well as challenges. The children have lingering characteristics of the nine year change as their self consciousness intensifies and their perception of the world continue to sharpen.
Cognitively, the children are more able to form independent mental images and to recall them at will. Though the pictorial element is still strong in their thinking, reasoning begins to emerge in a more objective way since the child can now distinguish between his environment and himself, and between what is past, present and future.
The Waldorf curriculum meets the fourth grade child’s development by bringing forth, from the past, the Norse myths whose gods and goddesses exemplify strong individual characteristics, both for the good and for mischief. Where the children experience life as overwhelming and challenging, they find kindred spirits in the Norse gods and goddesses who met life headlong with courage, compassion, faithfulness, sacrifice and, occasionally, cleverness run amuck.
In present time, the study of local geography helps the children establish their place on this earth. Learning to make maps of their classroom, school and neighborhood and discovering the directions of north, south, east and west as they are manifested by the movement of the sun and planets gives the children a sure way to find themselves in the here and now. This is true in their bodies as well, for by this time the children should have become quite coordinated in the three aspects of space: forward/back, left/right, up/down.
The students also have the opportunity to discover the wondrous versatility of the form of the human being in the Man and Animal, a zoology block. Here the children study the specialized skills and habits of the animals and come to realize how upright posture, the organs of speech and the adaptability of the hands contributes to the uniqueness of the kingdom of the human being. Likewise, the children can see the responsibility that belongs to the human being toward the other kingdoms of nature due to his/her own special abilities.
Just as the world is no longer one whole for the children, the study of fractions enters in the mathematics curriculum. Concrete experiences of making and cutting up pizzas and pies, and anything else the teacher can find to break into parts, becomes the basis for the abstract experience of adding, subtracting, multiplying, reducing and expanding fractions.
The work in the foreign languages can now include simple reading, grammar, and written work. The fine and practical arts will include clay modeling, geometric figures, form drawing, water color painting and cross-stitch embroidery. Music classes continue with singing canons, singing rounds, and using harmonies. Instrumentally, the children continue recorder playing and playing the violin in a group, both of which now require reading from notation. Physical education continues with eurythmy, games involving running and jumping, and rope jumping.
Grade 5 : I Look Into the World
The fifth grade has often been referred to as the heart of childhood. The fifth grade child has established himself/herself solidly in space and time by the fifth grade, and puberty is still a year away for most of the children, making this the most harmonious time in a child’s development. Up until this time, subjects have been introduced in a more personal and pictorial nature, but beginning in fifth grade, students are capable of experiencing temporal concepts emerging from sequences of events. Thus the children begin their formal studies of history and geography as subjects. Human history tells of human striving and deeds in a way that helps the children understand the nature of the human being. Geography, on the other hand, involves them in contemplating the world outside of themselves, in ever widening distances from their homes.
The study of ancient history begins with the cradles of civilization in ancient India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. The tableau of human history reveals the work of human beings in transforming the earth, creating written languages, searching for answers to spiritual riddles, and building great cultures whose contributions have been the foundations for our own civilizations. The children read translations of ancient poetry, study hierolglyphics, recreate the building of the temples and pyramids as models and incorporate ancient art into their own artistic work. Grammar blocks echo the theme of time as verb tenses are introduced in compositions.
By contrast, the children will study Canadian geography, with its varied and vast representations of the earth’s physical features. Geography will take the children away from their immediate surroundings and begin to introduce them to the use of natural resources and economic relationships among people living in various regions. A natural extension of the study of geography is the study of botany, the study of plant life and its relationship to the living earth. The students learn about the relationship of the plants to the earth and sun, how they change in the course of the year, and how they differ around the world, a step into the field of ecology. The whole evolutionary sequence of the plant kingdom from the lower to the higher plants is examined, in much the same way that the animal kingdom was studied in fourth grade.
In the mathematics blocks, the students will review fractions and learn about fractional equivalents, mixed numbers, reciprocals, and improper fractions. They will begin the study of decimals and decimal place. In addition, the children will now be able to begin free-hand geometric drawing as a result of their previous years of form drawing.
In the foreign language program, the children will add to their reading and writing skills, as well as to hold short dialogs and give short talks which include descriptive language. The students may well study a Sanskrit poem and learn to speak and write Greek phrases.
The fine and practical arts program will include clay modeling, carving, knitting a three-dimensional project, such as socks, draw geometric forms and form drawing, and continue their exploration of water color painting. Physical education will include an exciting competition with other schools in the pentathlon sports of discus throwing, javelin throwing, shot put, long jump and running. Eurythmy is continued for the fifth grade. In music, the children now choose an instrument to play in the upper grade orchestra, as well as continuing their study of the recorder and singing.
