Thursday, October 30, 2014

Children at the Lakota Waldorf School are participating in the Teaching Artist Program Residency where local artist Sheena Meyers.  On October 28th, 2014 the children ventured out to a place called Yellow Bear Damn on the Pine Ridge Reservation.  At the beginning of the trip, they offered water and corn back to mother earth as a gift in return for the gifts they were about to receive.       



During their adventure with nature they collected a variety of plants to utilize as natural paint. They were so excited and focused on what they were looking for.  They found buffalo hair, wild raspberries, red cedar, golden rod, verbanium, cat tails, and elk or deer droppings.  The Lakota Waldorf School will utilize these different plants in a Lakota cultural project called a winter count. We extend a big thank you to Sheena and to Leslie Henry who helped us in finding the plants we needed.
 
 

Children who have experienced wonder and reverence in childhood can have the basis for gifts of spirituality, universality and love of the earth and its peoples as adults.
 
 
 
~Nurturing Love and Reverence for Nature~

 

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

 
 
The Lakota Waldorf School strives to initiate the educational process while maintaining the Lakota Language and Culture.
Our goal is to empower our Lakota children so they will create positive active futures for themselves and their community.
~Mission Statement~
 
 
 
First Graders eager to learn!

 
 
Receive the Child in reverence, educate the child in love, send him forth in freedom...
 ~  Rudolf Steiner                                   


Tuesday, October 14, 2014

 
Waldorf teachers introduce the letters, beginning with the consonants in first grade by deriving them from pictures. We introduce the children to certain visual language forms. We have them draw simple round and angular shapes for the sake of the forms.  Through that we are able to introduce the children to writing.  Here is the first grade learning this style in Language Arts. 

 


 First graders hear stories, draw pictures, and discover the letter in the gesture of the picture.  One of our students spells the word "gum" and has been working on three letter words, sounding them out and is very happy that she feels that she can read and write just about anything. 


“Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book. We should not learn to teach out of any book other than the one lying open before us and consisting of the children themselves.”
Rudolf Steiner, Rhythms of Learning

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

 
On October 3, 2014 Lakota Waldorf School 1st graders ventured out into the garden to see what they could find.  After the first frost, we still have tomatoes and green peppers.  Gardening provides an avenue for reconnection as well as an opportunity for meaningful work, healthful exercise, and extremely fresh and nutritious food.
 
 
October 3, 2014 was also
"PIZZA DAY!!"
On pizza day, the children have the daily activity of helping with lunch.  Incorporating food – growing, preparing and eating – in the curriculum from the earliest ages is one way that students’ heads, hands and hearts become engaged.
 
 
“In the universe we have not to do with repetitions, each time that a cycle is passed, something new is added to the world's evolution and too at its human stage of development”
Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy in Everyday Life



Thursday, October 2, 2014

In Canwahpe Gi Win - September
Lakota Waldorf Students worked on grinding canpha (choke cherries) and made them into patties that they will be using for the fall and winter months ahead as wojapi (pudding) with their lunch meal. The making of these patties is part of their Lakota Cultural life way in making preparations for the winter months.  They did a wonderful job and as you see enjoyed their daily activity.
 
 
 
The kindergarten students also enjoy their daily activity of painting. Wet-on-wet watercolor painting is a technique taught in Waldorf schools. It’s a satisfying artistic experience with beautiful results.  Because the wet paint is laid on wet paper, the colors flow, blending into one another in beautiful and unexpected ways. Here they are enjoying the colors of blue and yellow.
 

Children who live in an atmosphere of love and warmth, and who have around them truly good examples to imitate, are living in their proper element.
            —Rudolf Steiner, The Education of the Child