Singing Together in a Waldorf-Inspired Co-op: Gathering Songs, Rounds and the Festival Year

The simplest way to bring singing into a co-op is to give one parent the songs for a term. That parent chooses a gathering song, a tidy-up song, a snack blessing and a goodbye song, and the group sings them the same way every week. Two or three seasonal songs go into circle, and each festival gets a song of its own. Teach the songs by singing them, not by explaining them. Keep rounds for the older children. If singing isn't your thing, lead the verse or the movement instead.

Singing at home, and how to find your own voice, is in Waldorf singing at home. This piece is about a room full of families.

Songs that hold the morning together

In a co-op, songs do a job that a parent's voice calling across a room does badly. A gathering song brings twelve children in from play without anyone shouting. A tidy-up song puts the blocks away. A goodbye song tells everyone the morning is over.

Emily Milikow, writing on The Wonder of Childhood, describes singing as a way to guide young children through the day without commands. She sang to lead a group away from a playground, and the children followed her "like ducklings." The same thing can happen at co-op, as long as the song is the same every time and the adult singing is there with the children, not half-watching the door.

Choose four to start, and keep them all year:

When	Song	Who starts it
End of free play	Gathering or tidy-up song	Setting-up parent
Before snack	A blessing, sung or said	Snack parent
End of handwork or painting	A short song as work goes away	Art parent
End of the morning	Goodbye song	Circle parent

Marina Unger closes her mixed-age handwork sessions with a song, to bring the group's breathing back into rhythm after a stretch of concentration. For blessing ideas, see Waldorf mealtime and blessings.

Seasonal songs in circle

Morning circle is where most of the co-op's singing happens. It often opens with a verse (see what is the Waldorf morning verse?), then moves into two or three songs of the season with some movement. The sample co-op day schedule shows where circle sits in the morning, and circle time at co-op covers the rest of it.

In a group, fewer songs sung more often works better than a new song every week. Keep the same circle for three or four weeks. The first week, the children mostly listen. By the third, many of them sing along, and the younger ones who have been quiet may suddenly join in.

Andrea Lyman of the Association for Waldorf Music Education describes grade 1 songs about nature and the seasons. For a co-op, that means songs about what the children can see on the walk in: falling leaves in autumn, frost and stars in winter, seeds and birds in spring.

A simple way to plan the term's songs:

1. Pick two seasonal songs for the first half of the term and two for the second.
2. Add one song for each festival that falls in the term.
3. Write the list in the co-op's shared notes, with where each song comes from.
4. The song parent sings them through at a planning meeting, so the other adults know the tunes too.

A sample first term shows where the festivals fall in an autumn term.

Teaching a song to a group

Don't teach a song line by line, the way you'd teach a poem to older children. Young children learn by imitation, as the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America puts it, taking in not only what adults do but their moods and gestures. So sing the whole song, with movement if it has any, and sing it again. Children join in when they're ready.

A few things help in a room:

• Sing a little lower and slower than you would alone. Small voices follow more easily.
• Keep your hands doing the gestures, so the children who aren't singing yet can still take part.
• Don't stop to correct words. Next week you'll sing it again.
• If the song needs a starting note, a children's lyre or a pentatonic glockenspiel can give it.

Waldorf early childhood songbooks save a lot of searching. WECAN publishes Let Us Form a Ring, a collection of daily songs, circle plays and singing games for the seasons, birthdays and mealtimes.

Rounds in a mixed-age group

Rounds are satisfying, and older children often love them. They also ask a lot. The Association for Waldorf Music Education's grade-by-grade outline places simple rounds and canons in grade 4, around age 9 or 10, once children have been prepared for part-singing. In grade 3 the preparation is call-and-response, drones and repeating patterns sung under a tune.

That gives a co-op an order to follow:

1. Everyone: the tune together, in unison. This is where the under-7s and first graders stay.
2. About 8 and up: call-and-response, where an adult sings a line and the children answer. Or a drone: the older children hold one note while everyone else sings the tune.
3. About 9 and up: a simple round in two parts, with an adult singing in each group.

Keep the little ones singing the tune while the older children add a part over it. Nobody is left out, and nobody is asked to hold a line they can't yet hold. Lyman describes how hard it can be to hold your own part while listening to the others, which is why rounds wait.

A parent who doesn't sing

In a co-op, not every parent has to lead the singing. The song parent is one job among several, like snack or setting up (see homeschool co-op parent jobs). Give it to someone who enjoys it.

A parent who doesn't sing can still lead circle. They can say the morning verse, lead a clapping or stepping game, or tell the story, and let another adult start the songs. They can also sing along inside the group, where one voice among fifteen feels a lot less exposed. The Association for Waldorf Music Education says an adult who feels they can't sing in tune is rarely tone deaf. More often, they missed the practice as a child. A term of the same songs, sung every week, can go a long way.

What matters most is that nobody is made to sing alone. Keep the singing warm and a little loose, and let children and adults join as they're ready.

Singing at festivals

The festivals are where a co-op's singing comes into its own, with whole families there. At Martinmas, children walk with lanterns and sing lantern songs. Learn the song in circle two or three weeks before, so that on the night the children lead and the parents follow. The festivals calendar sets out the whole year. If you'd like a program that brings the stories, crafts and festivals for each term, running a co-op on Starpath is free.

A song list to copy

	This term
Song parent
Gathering song
Tidy-up song
Snack blessing
Goodbye song
Seasonal songs, first half
Seasonal songs, second half
Festival songs
Round for the older children

Sing the same songs for the whole term, and change only the seasonal ones halfway.