Waldorf First Grade Homeschool Schedule: A Sample Week and Year

A Waldorf first grade homeschool schedule has one main lesson each morning. The main lesson stays on one subject for a block of 2 to 4 weeks: form drawing, then letters through fairy tales, then numbers, and so on through the year. Around it sit a short morning circle and a few minutes of practice. Each afternoon has one set activity, such as painting on Monday and knitting on Tuesday. At home the main lesson runs about 1 to 1.5 hours, and the whole teaching day comes to 2 to 3 hours.

The daily rhythm article walks through a Waldorf day hour by hour. This one is narrower: a grade 1 week you can copy, a sample year of blocks, and what to change when there's a toddler in the house or you work.

How long is a Waldorf first grade main lesson?

In a Waldorf school, the grades begin each morning with a main lesson of about 2 hours (Aurora Waldorf School, The Minnesota Waldorf School). In first grade that 2 hours opens with 20 to 30 minutes of circle: songs, rhymes, movement and a little mental math. Then comes the story, the drawing, and the writing in the main lesson book.

At home you're teaching one child, not twenty-five, so the same work takes less time. Lavender's Blue, a Waldorf homeschool publisher, puts a first grade main lesson at 1 to 2 hours. It also notes that an hour or so on three or four mornings a week can carry the whole year (Lavender's Blue).

A good place to start is 15 to 20 minutes of circle and about an hour of main lesson. If your child is still painting happily at the end, let it run. If they're sliding off the chair after 40 minutes, stop there and pick it up tomorrow. For what happens inside that hour, see what a main lesson block is.

A sample Waldorf grade 1 week

Here is one week in the middle of a letters block. The times are a guide. Keep the order the same each day and let the clock move to suit your family.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9:00 Circle (15-20 min)	Verse, songs, clapping	Same circle	Same circle	Same circle	Same circle
9:20 Main lesson (60-75 min)	New fairy tale told	Retell it, draw the picture	The letter comes out of the picture	Write the letter, a word or two	Review the week's page, finish drawings
10:30 Snack and play outside
11:00 Practice (10-15 min)	Counting with chestnuts	Skip counting while walking	Counting with chestnuts	Number rhyme with movement	Nature walk instead
Afternoon (30-45 min)	Wet-on-wet painting	Knitting	Form drawing, then baking	Pentatonic flute, singing and movement games	Long walk or time in the garden

A few things to notice:

• The story takes two days. You tell it on Monday, your child retells it and draws it on Tuesday. Waldorf teachers often let a story rest overnight before the child works with it.
• Practice is short and uses old material. While letters are the main lesson, numbers get a few minutes of counting, rhymes and movement so they aren't forgotten.
• Each afternoon has one thing. One painting, not painting and handwork and a craft. Painting on Monday means the paints come out once a week, and your child starts to look forward to it.
• Friday is lighter. Many families keep main lesson to four days and use the fifth for review and a long walk.

San Francisco Waldorf School lists knitting, painting, pentatonic flute, cooperative games and movement among its first grade subject lessons (SF Waldorf School). A school teaches these in separate lessons across the week. At home, giving each one its own afternoon covers the same ground.

How many hours a day is Waldorf homeschool grade 1?

Add up the week above and each day comes to about 2 to 2.5 hours: circle, main lesson, a few minutes of practice and one afternoon activity. On a painting day, when setting up and cleaning the boards takes a while, it might reach 3.

That can feel too little the first time you see it written down. A Waldorf school's first grade day is longer. San Francisco Waldorf School runs 8:30am to 2:30pm most days. But a school day includes recess, lunch and the time it takes to move a whole class from one thing to the next. At home those hours go to play, chores, cooking together and time outdoors, which many Waldorf families count as part of the day's learning too.

Do you do every subject every day?

No. This is the part of a Waldorf schedule that surprises families coming from a school timetable. A first grader doesn't do reading, maths, science and art every day. The main lesson keeps to one subject for the whole block, and when the block ends, that subject rests while another takes its place.

Aurora Waldorf School describes the same pattern. A topic runs for 3 to 5 weeks, then a new block begins. The subjects that need regular repetition in short lessons, such as languages, music and handwork, sit later in the day. A homeschool copies that shape on a smaller scale:

• Every day: circle, the main lesson, a few minutes of practice.
• Once a week: painting, handwork, form drawing, music and a nature day.
• Once or twice a year: each main lesson subject, as its own block.

A sample year of grade 1 blocks

Most Waldorf first grade years follow the same broad plan. Art of Homeschooling, a Waldorf homeschool mentoring program, lists these for grade 1: 2 blocks of letters through fairy tales, 2 of nature stories and 2 or 3 of maths (Art of Homeschooling). Lavender's Blue suggests opening with a form drawing block of about two weeks, then mixing fairy tales, maths and nature through the year.

Here is one way that can look across a school year starting in September:

When	Block	Length
September	Form drawing: the straight line and the curve	2-3 weeks
Late September to October	Letters through fairy tales (1)	4 weeks
October to November	Numbers: what each number is, counting, Roman numerals	3 weeks
November to December	Nature stories for autumn and winter	3 weeks
December	Advent and a break	2-3 weeks
January	Letters through fairy tales (2): more letters, first words	4 weeks
February	Maths: the four processes, told as stories	4 weeks
March	Nature stories for spring	3 weeks
April to May	Letters and reading from your child's own writing	3-4 weeks
May to June	Maths: counting in 2s, 3s and 10s, number patterns	3 weeks

That's about 32 weeks of blocks, with room for festivals, illness and the weeks when life takes over. The order is yours to change. If your child is ready for numbers before letters, swap them. If Michaelmas falls in the middle of a maths block, the dragon story can wait a week. The festivals page has this year's dates.

For what goes inside each of these blocks, see the Waldorf grade 1 curriculum. If you're still deciding whether to start this year at all, read is my child ready for Waldorf first grade?

Starpath's grade 1 blocks run 2 to 4 weeks each. Its free planner lays them out across your year, so you can see which block starts when. You can move one if a festival or a trip gets in the way.

Adapting the schedule for younger siblings

A toddler or a four-year-old doesn't need to be kept out of the room. The shape of the morning can hold them too:

• Circle is for everyone. Songs, clapping and verses suit a three-year-old as well as a six-year-old.
• The story is for everyone. A younger child can listen to the fairy tale on Monday. While the first grader draws, they can play at the table with a lump of beeswax or their own crayons.
• Put the quiet part of main lesson in nap time, if you have a napper. Letter writing and the main lesson book page need your full attention for 20 minutes or so; the story and the drawing don't.
• The nature day and the baking day work for all ages. Plan those as family days.

With more than one child in the grades, the balance shifts again. Waldorf with multiple children has a sample day for three ages.

Adapting the schedule for working parents

A grade 1 schedule can be smaller than the one above and still hold. Choose one of these:

• Three mornings. Run main lesson Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and stretch each block by a week. Lavender's Blue's three or four mornings a week comes from the same idea.
• Early mornings. Circle and main lesson from 7:30 to 8:30 before work, with practice folded into the drive or the walk to the bus.
• Afternoons shifted. Painting, knitting and form drawing move to after work or the weekend. Knitting fits well into the half hour before supper.
• Weekend nature day. A Saturday walk covers the week's nature time.

Whichever you choose, keep the days you do teach in the same order. A child can settle into three mornings a week as easily as five, as long as the three are always the same. Waldorf with two working parents goes further into care arrangements and co-ops.

Making your own first grade schedule

1. Pick your main lesson days: 3, 4 or 5 mornings, and the time you'll start.
2. Write the year of blocks on one page, starting with form drawing.
3. Give each afternoon one activity. Painting on one day, knitting on another.
4. Keep practice to 10 or 15 minutes, on whatever the last block taught.
5. Mark the festivals on the same page, and leave a week around the big ones.
6. Try it for four weeks before changing anything. The first block always feels clumsy.