How Do You Bring Waldorf Singing Into Your Home?

Waldorf families sing through the ordinary day, with your own voice and no recordings. A short song to wake up, one for washing hands, one for tidying, a blessing before meals and a song at bedtime. Then add one or two seasonal songs a month, and learn the songs for the festivals. Simple pentatonic tunes suit children under about 9. Many Waldorf teachers use songs in the "mood of the fifth." A handful of songs, sung often in an ordinary voice, is plenty.

Why singing matters so much in a Waldorf home

Young children learn by copying. The Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN) writes that a young child has a "deep and irresistible urge to take in and become whatever they perceive," including moods and gestures. When you sing while you work, your child takes in the song and the mood you sang it in.

WECAN adds that "an adult's own invented songs or stories, however rudimentary, are most precious to the child for whom they are created." A made-up tune about putting boots on, sung by a parent, matters more to a 4-year-old than a polished recording.

That's also why Waldorf families tend to skip recorded music for young children. The Association for Waldorf Music Education says Waldorf schools want to bring children "authentic human experiences" and don't rely on technology for them. At home it means you sing, and your child sings with you.

Singing through the day

The easiest way to begin is with the moments that already happen every day. Choose one, and give it the same short song every time.

Waking up. A quiet good-morning song as you open the curtains.

Getting dressed. A song that names each piece of clothing as it goes on.

Washing hands. Long enough for proper washing, short enough to stay cheerful.

Tidying up. Many families find this is where a song helps most. The toys go back in the basket while you sing.

Before meals. A sung blessing or a simple thank-you song, holding hands round the table.

Going outside and coming in. Boots on, coats on, and a song that walks you out the door.

Bedtime. The same song every night, sung softly, perhaps after the evening story.

Emily Milikow homeschools the Waldorf way and writes The Wonder of Childhood blog. She describes songs like these for waking, dressing, eating, leaving the playground and cleaning up. Her experience is that a song works where an instruction often doesn't, because it draws the child to you rather than ordering them. She's also clear that the song only works if you're present with your child, not on your phone or in a hurry.

WECAN describes the same thing from the other side. If you sing "a special song as we wash the dishes," your child takes in the joy of the work, not just the job.

You don't need a written song for every moment. Sing what you're doing to a tune you already know, or to two or three notes. "Now we put the blocks away, blocks away, blocks away" is a perfectly good Waldorf song.

What if I can't sing?

Our guess is that many parents who say this can sing. They just haven't since school, or were once told not to.

The Association for Waldorf Music Education says "every child can learn to sing," some in kindergarten and some not until grade 4 or later, through practice and repetition. The same is usually true of grown-ups. A few things help:

• Sing quietly. It feels less exposed, and young children often lean in to listen.
• Keep to a few notes. Songs that stay close together are easier than wide, dramatic tunes.
• Learn from a real voice first. Some songbooks come with a CD, so you can learn the tune on your own before singing it to your child.
• Sing the same songs for weeks. Your voice gets surer with each repeat, and your child won't mind at all.

If you'd like an instrument to give you the starting note, the Waldorf lyre or a pentatonic glockenspiel can do that. But your voice is enough.

Seasonal songs and the festival year

Once the daily songs are steady, let the season in. Choose one or two new songs a month about what you can see outside: the wind, falling leaves, the first frost, seeds, the summer sun. Sing them in the morning circle and on walks until your child knows them without thinking. The daily rhythm guide shows where the morning circle sits.

The festivals each have their own songs. At Martinmas in November, children walk with paper lanterns and sing lantern songs, like "I Go Outside with My Lantern." Michaelmas at the end of September has its songs of courage and harvest. Learn the song a week or two before the festival, so that by the day itself your child sings it with you. The festivals calendar sets out the whole year, and Waldorf festivals explains what each one is.

Pentatonic songs and the mood of the fifth

Many Waldorf songs for young children use only five notes, the pentatonic scale. With no clashing notes, they sound gentle, and they're easy for small voices.

Waldorf teachers go a step further with songs in the "mood of the fifth": pentatonic tunes that center on A and float rather than coming to a firm end. Andrea Lyman of the Association for Waldorf Music Education describes grade 1 as a year of "singing freely in the 'mood of the fifth.'" Our pentatonic flute guide explains the idea in full.

At home you don't need the theory. If a song uses only a few notes and doesn't end with a big "home" feeling, you're close. Most of the songbooks below have plenty of them.

Singing from kindergarten to grade 3

Kindergarten. Songs are part of play and work, sung while you do things together, not taught. Ten to fifteen minutes of songs, verses and finger games makes a morning circle, as the kindergarten at home guide describes. Songs with movement fit here too, and the movement and bean bag games guide has a few.

Grade 1. Singing opens each morning, often after the morning verse. Lyman describes grade 1 as mood-of-the-fifth singing, and Waldorf Resources says the songs in grades 1 and 2 "should mostly be set" in that mood. The grade 1 curriculum guide shows where music sits in the week, and the best Waldorf homeschool curriculum for grade 1 compares how programs include it.

Grade 2. Lyman writes that mood-of-the-fifth songs are "gradually replaced by more purely pentatonic melodies." The songs are about nature, the seasons, the saints and the characters from the year's stories.

Grade 3. Songs move into major keys. Lyman lists call-and-response, drones and other "steps toward singing in harmony," along with folk songs about household work. Simple rounds at the kitchen table can be a gentle way in. Waldorf Resources puts the first singing in simple harmonies around the time of the nine-year change.

Waldorf songbooks worth owning

You don't need many. Unless we say otherwise, these are all on the association's recommended songbook list.

For the seasons: the Wynstones Press books Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, collected and edited by Jennifer Aulie and Margret Meyerkort. Wynstones says they were "founded out of the Waldorf kindergarten movement." Most songs are in D pentatonic, and each book has an introduction to the mood of the fifth. Gateways in the same series covers morning, evening, birthdays and fairy tales.

With a CD to learn from: Mary Thienes-Schunemann's Sing a Song of Seasons has 48 songs, 12 for each season, for children about 3 to 9, with a CD of every song. It isn't on the association's list, but Waldorf shops such as Paper Scissors Stone sell it, and the CD helps if you don't read music.

In the mood of the fifth: Julius Knierim's Quintenlieder and Peter Oram's One for the Golden Sun.

Circle games and singing games: Let Us Form a Ring, edited by Nancy Foster, is the Acorn Hill anthology of daily songs, circle plays and singing games. It has songs for the seasons, birthdays, mealtimes and bedtime. Its sequel is Dancing as We Sing, and WECAN publishes both.

For babies and toddlers: WECAN's Singing and Speaking the Child into Life, by Susan Weber, Nancy Macalaster and Jane Swain, gathers songs, verses and rhythmic games for the first three years. It is WECAN's own book and is not on the music association's list.

For grades 1 to 3: David Adams's One, Two, Three!, a collection of songs, verses, riddles and stories for these grades.

Where to start this week

Choose one moment in the day that tends to go badly, like tidying up or getting out the door. Give it one short song, and sing it every single time for two weeks. Keep it quiet and keep it the same. When that moment starts to go more easily, add a second song for another part of the day.

Singing is easier with others. Singing in a Waldorf co-op has gathering songs and ideas for a group.