Festivals & Traditions
The Waldorf festival year at home: Michaelmas, Martinmas, Advent and more, with the nature table and seasonal crafts.
Get a reminder 2 weeks before each festival
What to make and get ready, with time to gather the beeswax or the lantern paper. One email per festival, and you can stop them any time.
The whole festival year, month by monthHow to Make a Martinmas Lantern With Children: A Jar Lantern and a Paper Window Lantern
With young children, cover a glass jar with torn tissue paper, brushed on with 1 part glue to 2 parts water. Add a wire handle once it's dry. With older children, cut 2 windows in thick colored paper and back them with tracing paper. Your child fills them with tissue, then you glue it into a tube on a cheese-box lid. Light either one with a battery tea light.
Read answerThe Story of St Martin for Children, and How to Tell It
St Martin was a young Roman soldier who met a poor man with nothing to wear at the gate of Amiens in a hard winter. Everyone else walked past. Martin had nothing but his sword and his cloak, so he cut the cloak in two and gave the man half. That night he dreamed of Christ wearing the half he gave away. It's the story told at Martinmas, November 11.
Read answerWaldorf Seasonal Crafts Through the Year, by Season and Festival
Waldorf seasonal crafts follow what's happening outside and the next festival. Autumn brings leaf pictures, felted pumpkins and Martinmas lanterns. Winter brings Advent yarn stars, window stars and beeswax candles. Spring brings dyed eggs and flower crowns, and summer brings midsummer wreaths and suncatchers. Choose one craft a week, and let the finished pieces go on the nature table.
Read answerHow to Make Waldorf Window Stars From Kite Paper
A simple Waldorf window star is 8 small squares of kite paper, each folded into a long point and glued around a shared center. Fold every corner to the middle, fold two edges in to make a kite shape, repeat 8 times, then glue the points in a ring. Tape it to a window. Many families fold them in Advent and keep them up through the dark months.
Read answerHow to Make a Waldorf Nature Table, Season by Season
Choose a low shelf, windowsill or small table your child can reach. Lay a cloth in the color of the season, add a few things you found outside together, raise some on a stone or block, and add one or two figures. Change it with each season or festival, keep a candle or root all year, and let your child bring in new finds and tend what's there.
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