What Is Eurythmy, and Can You Do It at Home?

Eurythmy is a movement art that Rudolf Steiner developed in 1912. Children and adults move to poems, stories and live music, so that the sounds and rhythms of speech and music become visible in gesture and walking forms. In Waldorf schools it's a weekly lesson taught by a eurythmist, someone who has trained in it for 4 years or more. So the honest answer is that you can't fully teach eurythmy yourself. But you can do a lot of the groundwork at home with movement stories, verses and simple walking forms. And a trained eurythmist can teach you and your child online.

What is eurythmy in Waldorf education?

Kimberton Waldorf School describes eurythmy as "an art form in which speech and music are made visible." In a eurythmy lesson, a teacher speaks a poem or a pianist plays, and the children move. Their arms make gestures for the sounds of the words. Their feet walk shapes on the floor: a circle, a straight line, a curve, a spiral. Nobody talks while they move.

Steiner developed eurythmy in 1912 as a stage art, and from the first Waldorf school in 1919 he asked that every child have it. Cynthia Hoven, a eurythmist who runs Eurythmy Online, writes that accredited Waldorf schools aim for one or two eurythmy lessons a week for every class, starting in kindergarten. It sits alongside form drawing as one of the few subjects you won't find outside Waldorf education. If you're new to Steiner's work more broadly, who was Rudolf Steiner is a good place to start.

What does eurythmy look like for young children?

It changes a lot between kindergarten and grade 3.

In kindergarten, it's a movement story. Kimberton's eurythmy teacher visits the kindergarten once a week and leads seasonal movement. The children hop like a rabbit, stretch their wings to the top of a tall tree, clip-clop like a pony or curl up in a nest for winter. The children simply copy the teacher.

In grade 1, the Waldorf curriculum site of the Goetheanum describes lessons built on fairy tales, poems and games, told in pictures from start to finish. Children practise the circle and "straight and curved forms," and short verses are spoken over and over, faster and slower, louder and softer. Kimberton adds that children in these years start to move from pure imitation towards picturing things inwardly for themselves.

In grade 2, animal fables and legends take the center of the lesson, the same kinds of stories many children hear in the grade 2 main lesson. Children begin to break away from copying the teacher all the time.

In grade 3, the same source describes a "dramatic change in the character of the lessons." Children experience movement more directly in their own bodies, with seasonal poems and stories about trades and craftspeople.

If you're planning the first school year at home, the grade 1 curriculum guide shows where movement and the arts sit around the main lesson, and the best Waldorf homeschool curriculum for grade 1 notes which programs include eurythmy.

Can you do eurythmy at home?

Not in full, and the people closest to it say so plainly.

The Eurythmy Association of North America's guidelines recommend that schools hire eurythmists who have completed a 4 to 5 year artistic training and hold a diploma recognized by the Goetheanum in Dornach. Hoven writes that "only eurythmists can teach eurythmy" is, in essence, true. She compares it to a karate or ballet class: you wouldn't expect an untrained adult to lead one.

The Parenting Passageway, a long-running Waldorf homeschool blog, makes the same point from the parent's side. Its author worries that parents copying gestures from a book may pass on only the outward shape. She says the gestures for the sounds of speech should come from a trained eurythmist.

That doesn't leave you empty-handed. Both sources go on to say there's a lot a parent can do.

What parents can do at home

These are the groundwork eurythmy builds on. None of them is eurythmy itself, and you don't need to call them that. Choose one to start, and give it a few weeks before adding another.

1. Tell a movement story. This is what kindergarten eurythmy looks like, and it's the easiest place to begin. Make up a short seasonal story and move it with your child: the squirrel gathers nuts, the wind blows the leaves, the bear walks slowly into his cave. Move first, and let your child copy you without explaining. Five minutes is enough.

2. Play with opposites. The Parenting Passageway suggests skipping, stamping, tiptoeing and walking on heels, and working with the pairs of quiet and loud, small and big. Walk like a giant across the room, then like a mouse back again. Clap a verse loudly, then say it in a whisper.

3. Walk the straight line and the curve. Kimberton and the Goetheanum curriculum site both name the straight line and the curve as the basic forms of the early grades. Walk a straight line across the floor together, then a big curve, then a circle. If you're doing form drawing in grade 1, walk the form before your child draws it. It's the same shape, felt with the whole body first.

4. Speak one verse with movement. Take a short verse you already use, such as your morning verse, and add simple gestures of your own. Arms rise with the sun, hands open for the flowers. The Parenting Passageway encourages parents to make their own heartfelt gestures for stories and verses. Say it the same way each morning for a whole season.

5. Keep the beat. Step and clap a rhyme in time, then step it slower, then faster. Toss a beanbag back and forth on the strong beat. In grades 1 to 3, this sits naturally alongside times tables and counting.

For where these fit in your day, Hoven suggests eurythmy exercises during morning circle, or as a break after a stretch of desk work. The daily rhythm guide shows how a morning circle opens the day, and the kindergarten at home guide has more on movement and songs for the youngest.

How long, how often, and what you need

The Eurythmy Association's guidelines say eurythmy from kindergarten to grade 3 traditionally meets once a week, and that nursery and kindergarten lessons usually last 15 to 25 minutes. At home you can follow the same shape: 5 to 10 minutes of movement inside most morning circles, and, if you're using a eurythmist's lessons, one longer session a week.

Hoven's guidelines for homeschooling families are practical:

• Work indoors, where you and your child can focus
• Have room to take at least 6 steps in each direction
• Wear stocking feet or soft gym slippers
• Use a poem you speak, or live music if someone in the house plays, never recorded music
• For rod exercises, buy a copper rod from a hardware store

She also asks parents to practise an exercise alone for several weeks before bringing it to a child, and never to show the child the video. Children should copy a real person.

Where to find eurythmy classes and online programs

A Waldorf school near you. Schools are where most eurythmists work, and the Eurythmy Association's guidelines suggest schools offer eurythmy as a course for parents and the wider community too. The Waldorf Map lists Waldorf schools by area. Call and ask whether they run parent classes, holiday workshops or classes homeschoolers can join.

Eurythmy Online. Cynthia Hoven is a eurythmist based in Switzerland. She sells recorded lessons by grade from preschool to high school, including 4 lessons for preschool and kindergarten, 5 for grade 1 and 6 for grade 2. Buying a grade gives you the lower grades too, and there's a separate set of lessons to help parents learn the movements first.

Earthschooling. Its Eurythmy for Preschool and Kindergarten set uses lessons chosen from Cynthia Hoven's work, with a short video of songs and movements and a guide for the teacher. When we checked on 28 September 2026 it was listed at $25.

Seasons of Seven. It runs live eurythmy classes on Zoom, but its 2025 to 2026 page lists them for grades 5 to 8 and high school only. Keep it in mind for later.

Eurythmy Spring Valley. In Chestnut Ridge, New York, it's one of the North American trainings the Eurythmy Association lists. It runs the full-time training and holds workshops and performances open to the public. If you've never seen eurythmy, watching a performance is the best way to understand it.

A way to begin

Tomorrow morning, before anything else, stand in a circle with your child and tell a movement story for five minutes. The leaves fall, the squirrel hurries, the bear goes to sleep. Then walk one straight line across the room and one big curve back. Do the same story every day this week. If your child asks for it again on Saturday, you've found your family's movement time, and that's the ground eurythmy can grow from later.