First Grade Readiness and Assessment

Cedarwood School has selected June 1 as its cut-off birth date to be considered for a grade 1 class entry. For children in our school, the kindergarten teachers will prepare the child for first grade and will conduct ongoing observation and informal assessment of the child's readiness to enter grade 1. Throughout the year, the kindergarten teachers will assess the children's development in the physical, cognitive, social and emotional areas.

In the late spring, a team of teachers from the kindergartens and grades will conduct an assessment. This is an evaluation of the child as a whole, based both on the teacher's observations of the child's developmental changes throughout the year and of a series of exercises. Children enjoy this assessment time with the teacher team, seeing it as a grand series of games to play.

All parents will be interviewed to discuss their child and the process of entering the grade 1 class. Children and their parents interested in the 1st. Grade who are from outside of Cedarwood School will be asked to visit for an assessment by the teacher team, and to have an interview with the teacher team to discuss Waldorf education. School records may be requested for review prior to acceptance.

fter the teacher team has interviewed and assessed all the potential children for the new Grade one, a meeting to examine all the records will be held and the new class announced. A small but important ceremony is held at the end of the school year for the new grade one class, and again on the first day of the new school year, to recognize the new members of the grade school.

Each child of every class at Cedarwood School is a valued member of our community and is fully supported in the individual development of skills, talents, needs, strengths, and challenges. Each first grade class is a unique community within the school organization, and we recognize their important role in our healthy social body as they begin their important eight-year journey at our school.

Waldorf Education in The Grades

In Waldorf education, teaching is regarded as an art as well as a science. This means that there must be freedom for the teacher to adapt both the form and the content of instruction to time and place in general, to the capacity of the particular children involved and to the qualitative needs of each moment. In this sense, the Waldorf curriculum is created freshly all the time to meet the appropriate developmental stages in a child's life. The Curriculum is designed to teach all the academic skills while strengthening the child's moral purpose and artistic sense. The following is an abbreviated curriculum outline.

Special Subjects
Spanish, Japanese, music, choir, eurythmy, handwork, games, woodwork, physical education, and dramatization of a fairy tale, fable or legend

Grade One

* Fairy tales, folk tales, nature stories
* Pictorial and phonetic introduction to letters, form drawing, reading approached through writing
* Qualities of numbers, introduction of the four processes in arithmetic, lower multiplication tables

Grade Two

* Legends and animal fables
* Reading, spelling, writing, elements of grammar
* Arithmetic, multiplication tables, further work with the processes

Grade Three

* Old Testament stories that introduce history and creation
* Study of practical life, farming, house building and clothing
* Reading, writing, original compositions, grammar, punctuation and parts of speech, cursive writing
* Higher multiplication tables, weights and measures, time and money

Grade Four

* Grammar, letter writing, spelling, composition
* Arithmetic, fractions
* Local geography and history
* Study of humans and animals
* Telling of Norse myths and sagas

Grade Five

* Composition, grammar, spelling
* Decimals, ratio and proportion
* Botany
* History of ancient civilization through greek myths
* American geography related to vegetation, agriculture and economics

Grade Six

* Grammar, composition, spelling, biographies, literature
* Introduction to Algebra, Geometry
* Physics: acousitics, magnetism, optics and heat
* Astronomy
* Mineralogy
* European and African geography
* Roman and Medieval history

Grade Seven

* Composition, spelling, grammar, literature and poetry
* Business math
* Inorganic chemistry
* Physics: electricity, mechanics
* Astronomy
* Physiology
* World geography
* Arthurian legends, voyages of discovery, the Renaissance

Grade Eight

* Literature, Shakespeare, short stories, plays
* Algebra, geometry
* World economic geography
* Meteorology and climatology
* American history
* Physics: hydraulics, organic chemistry, physiology

Note: Curriculum may change due to the fact that it is created freshly all the time to meet the appropriate developmental stages in a child's life.