Question: If my child doesn't have their times tables memorized, should I hold him/her back until they do?

Answer: No. In Waldorf, there really is no concept of holding children back like there would be in public school. Of course we always talk about the history & language arts material fitting the child's age, but what about math? I have found that some children pick up math quickly and others are a little poky about it. I firmly stand behind Waldorf math and the way it is laid out and the concepts are introduced. We wrote our math book based on those concepts - all Steiner.

The thought behind it is mastery, but not in the same way that we would in a public school setting.  There are no timed tests. We allow the children to make a times table sheet and we give them the space they need to learn them. Some children are in 4th grade, others in 7th! They will get tired of looking them up and commit them to memory. I have watched it happen with my children at different times....

The topic of “whole to parts” is pretty central to the Waldorf method of teaching – more than just on the math front, as children advance in age the whole to parts theme is evident in their study of zoology and botany as well as other places in the curriculum.  When we teach using whole to parts, it is easy for the children to pick up everything around them as a whole.  For instance the number 12 doesn't stand alone, many things come together to make up 12, and 12 is also a component of many other larger parts.  12 can be 6 X 2, it can be 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2, it can be 4 X 3 - in our story we are looking at 12 as part of 48.  I hope you will enjoy how it comes together.

Today we are focusing on the introduction of math to a child in grade one.  I like to start the introduction with Roman numerals during the tail end of the letter introduction block via the container story I wrote for the grade, and then do a combination...