Navigating Grade Placement in Homeschooling

I recently had a chat with a mom new to Waldorf.  She has older children and was worried about the placement of her daughter in grade six.  She was worried about the fact that she wasn't up to speed with her math or writing, and questioned if her daughter should go back to grade five or even four to get the entire curriculum.

This is a good question and one that I get often.  I assured her that Waldorf education is so different than anything else whether in the homeschool or public school arena.  With Waldorf, you can keep a child at grade level developmentally and work independently on their other skills.  The method of presenting subjects and the sequence of presenting them is directly in line with the development of the each child's being.  A child of 12 years could be studying Rome (grade six) and understanding the concepts and stories while working to strengthen their writing and math skills of previous years.  It is as much a journey for them as it is for us.  We must remember that educating a child in this method is an art, and that as a parent-teacher we are refining and as we refine ourselves the children will come along.  Sometimes we notice that there might be an imbalance in skills so along comes the next main lesson block and a perfect opportunity to strengthen them.  Teaching in lesson blocks allows us to spend concentrated time to grow each area and then let it sleep for a while to work on something else.

There have been many times when I began to get frustrated with the level that one of my children was working at only to meditate and decide that it should go to sleep for a while.  Every time we have encouraged this "sleeping" it has paid off.  They always come back with renewed strength to dig back in.

After about grade four, it is appropriate to do daily math practice (outside of a math main lesson) via 5-10 math problems per day - not new material, just problems that keep their skills active.

There is no substitution for prayer, meditation and planning when it comes to homeschooling with Waldorf or any method.  Take the time, you will be glad you did.