Braided and Knot Forms in Waldorf Grade 4

Braided and knot forms are the form drawing of Waldorf grade 4. The lines no longer sit side by side or mirror each other. They weave: over at one crossing, under at the next, like the strands of a plait. A knot form closes the braid into a loop so the line never ends. They often come in the same months as the Norse myths. Children use them to border the pages of their main lesson book, much as Viking and Celtic craftsmen put knotwork on brooches and stone crosses.

From mirror forms to woven forms

Form drawing builds year on year. In grade 1, your child drew straight lines and curves. In grade 2 came mirror forms, where one half of a form reflects the other. Grade 3 forms grow more complex and balanced. If you're new to the whole practice, what is form drawing? covers how it works from the start.

In grade 4, the forms start to cross. A Waldorfish article on how form drawing progresses describes fourth graders drawing knots and woven forms, "where the lines criss-cross, go under and over each other". It calls the year a culmination of everything before it: symmetry, mirroring, running forms, straight and curved lines. It also describes grade 4 as the final year of form drawing before children move on to geometry.

That's why knot forms can feel like a big step. A child has to keep a whole form in mind, keep the line flowing, and still decide at every crossing whether this strand goes over or under.

Why the over and under matters

Thomas Wildgruber, writing about form drawing for the Waldorf Resources site, names what braided forms are good for. They let a child practise flowing curves, and they bring what he calls the "wake-up moment" of the under and over at each crossing.

That's a useful picture for a parent. For most of the form, the hand moves in a smooth rhythm. Then, at each crossing, your child has to stop and think. Was the last crossing over? Then this one is under. The rhythm and the waking up alternate all the way round.

A Davis Waldorf School article by Beverly Amico describes the same challenge in Celtic knots: rhythmic over and under lines, a line that flows without stopping, and balanced proportions within the braid. She also notes that loops and braided forms ask a lot of a child's sense of space.

The link to the Norse myths

Grade 4 is the year of the Norse myths in many Waldorf classrooms. The stories run from the worlds made from ice and fire to Odin, Thor and Loki, and on to Ragnarok. Knot forms belong beside them.

Knotwork was everywhere in the art of the Viking age. The Borre style, named after harness mounts found in a ship grave in Vestfold, Norway, was common in Scandinavia from the late 9th to the late 10th century. Its best-known pattern is a "ring-chain": interlaced circles, drawn with a double line, running along a strap or around a brooch. Further west, Celtic knotwork decorated manuscripts like the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels, and carved stone crosses in Ireland and northern Britain.

Amico describes how this comes together in a grade 4 classroom. Fourth graders are hearing the Norse myths, and both Celtic and Nordic cultures used knotwork in their art. So the teacher doesn't announce "And now we do form drawing". The lesson starts with a story or with something from the main lesson, then the teacher draws a knot slowly on the chalkboard. Wildgruber adds that braided forms in class 4 have their origin in northern European, Celtic or Langobardic designs.

In practice, many families use knot forms as borders for their Norse main lesson book. A ring-chain along the bottom of the page about Yggdrasil, or a closed knot at the corner of the page about Thor's hammer, ties the drawing to the story.

Wildgruber also raises a fair question: these forms come from one particular European tradition, with its own meanings, and Waldorf schools now teach in many cultures. If your family has its own heritage of woven or interlaced patterns, from textiles, carving or basketry, those can sit alongside the Celtic and Norse ones.

How to teach a knot form at home

Amico's description of a classroom lesson works well at home, with a few small changes.

Start with a story. It can be a Norse myth you're already telling, or a short tale about a smith who wove a chain with no end. Keep it to a few minutes.

Draw it slowly in front of your child. On a chalkboard or a big sheet of paper, draw the form at an unhurried pace. Your child is watching the care as much as the shape.

Lay it out in yarn. Amico suggests giving children yarn to copy the outline of the knot before drawing it. Yarn is hard to control, which is part of the point. Your child has to physically lift one strand over another at each crossing, and the over and under stops being abstract.

Draw the line lightly. With a soft pencil or a pale crayon, your child draws the whole path of the form, crossings and all, as one continuous line. Don't worry about over and under yet.

Mark the crossings. Now go round again. At each crossing, your child decides which strand is on top and rubs out or leaves a small gap in the one underneath. Over, under, over, under.

Color it. Once the crossings are right, your child goes over the form in color, and may double the line or fill in the strands. Amico mentions teachers having children outline and color the finished knot for the main lesson book.

A simple sequence of forms

You don't need a book of patterns to start. This order moves from easy to harder:

1. A two-strand braid across the page: two wavy lines crossing each other, like a stretched figure 8 repeated.
2. The same braid with the over and under marked at every crossing.
3. A three-strand plait, like the one you'd braid in hair.
4. A closed ring: the two-strand braid bent round into a circle so it joins itself.
5. A simple ring-chain border along the bottom of a page.
6. A small closed knot, such as a four-looped knot in a square.

Stay on each one until it feels easy. Some children move through the list in two weeks. Others spend the whole Norse block on the first three, and that's fine.

Materials

Knot forms need little:

• Large sheets of unlined paper for practice, and the main lesson book for finished work.
• A soft pencil and a good eraser for the first line.
• Colored pencils, or beeswax stick crayons if your child prefers them. Lyra and Stockmar are the brands most Waldorf families know.
• A metre or two of thick, smooth yarn for laying out forms.

When it gets tangled

Knot forms go wrong often, even for adults. Some things that help:

• Make it bigger. Small knots are much harder to keep track of than ones that fill the page.
• Go back to the yarn whenever a crossing gets confusing.
• Trace the path with a finger before drawing it. Say "over, under" out loud at each crossing.
• If a form isn't working, stop and go back to one your child can do well. End on something they're proud of.

Some children love the puzzle of it. Others find it frustrating for a while. Either way, a calm "let's look at that crossing together" tends to help more than praise.

Where knot forms lead

After grade 4, form drawing often turns into freehand geometry, then into geometry with compass and ruler. The steady hand, the sense of balance and the habit of stepping back to check that knot forms build carry straight on. The same year brings fractions, and a knot divided evenly into four or six parts can make a nice bridge between the two.

For an overview of the whole year, read what is the Waldorf grade 4 curriculum?. If you're choosing materials, the best Waldorf homeschool curriculum for grade 4 compares what's available.

A week to try

You'll need yarn, unlined paper, a pencil and colored pencils.

• Monday: tell a Norse story you know. Draw a two-strand braid slowly while your child watches. Stop there.
• Tuesday: lay the braid out in yarn, then draw it lightly in pencil.
• Wednesday: mark the over and under at each crossing, then color it.
• Thursday: bend the braid into a closed ring. Yarn first, then pencil.
• Friday: your child draws a ring-chain border on a page of their Norse main lesson book.