Essential Resources: Pioneers & Influencers - Soft touch

Making toys from sheep’s wool, wood, felt and cotton is just one of the activities that children who attend Steiner Waldorf settings take part in. Sanding and oiling wooden furniture and toys, mending things that break, cleaning windows and raking leaves are others.

As children cultivate the earth and grow, prepare and eat the organic food together, they learn about recycling as they compost the leftovers in order to grow more in the future. These activities foster a deep understanding of sustainability and are as pertinent now as they were in 1919, when the first Waldorf School opened in Stuttgart, Germany.

Austrian educationalist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) had many hats. As well as being an educational reformer, he was an architect and a scientist who founded the biodynamic approach to agriculture, warning farmers that the widespread use of chemical fertilisers would lead to the decline of soil, plant and animal health and the loss of nutrients in food.

He was born in Kraljevec, now Croatia, in 1861. His father was a telegraph operator who worked for the Southern Austria railway, and he spent his early life moving from place to place.

He attended a village school and went on to win an academic scholarship at the Institute of Technology in Vienna. Later, he studied the works of ancient philosophers and slowly began to formulate his own philosophy and publish his work.

Through teaching, he was able to express his progressive ideas such as universal education and freedom in the perspective of the working class. He also taught a path of inner development or spiritual research, which he called ‘anthroposophy’ (wisdom of the human being), leading to his embracing of alternative medicine as well as social reform, making him a controversial figure.

Seven years after Steiner opened his first school, Elisabeth Grunelius, who trained with him, founded the first Waldorf kindergarten in 1926 and went on to translate his approach into an early years curriculum.

Today in the UK, there are 26 schools, all with kindergartens, 12 independent kindergartens and a growing number of Steiner-inspired childminders, as well as parent and child and baby groups, some of which also use elements of the approach of another early years pioneer, Emmi Pikler, such as the respectful care and child-initiated movement. It is the fastest-growing independent school movement in the world.

THE ENVIRONMENT

The Steiner approach believes that young children benefit from a calm, peaceful, predictable, familiar and unhurried environment where they are able to discover the world around them and master social interaction, self-regulation, physical co-ordination, speech, language, and other life skills before formal schooling is introduced at the age of seven.

Janni Nicol, author, consultant, teacher trainer and early childhood representative for the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, defines a Steiner kindergarten as ‘beautiful, good and true’.

She says, ‘It’s an enabling, nurturing environment, which is quiet and calm and it cares for the senses: it’s not overstimulating. There are open-ended natural materials and toys and equipment which can be used in many ways, and which inspire imagination and fantasy and develop creativity. This enables the child to develop spontaneous imaginative play and self-motivated enquiry both indoors and out, in a quiet and calm environment working with rhythm and repetition.’

RESOURCES

Careful consideration is given to the impact of everything in the kindergarten environment in relation to the child’s senses.

Nicol says, ‘There are no hard corners, no strong colours, and all the furniture and toys are made of natural materials, as is some of the equipment, like beeswax crayons and sheep’s fleece.

‘Every kindergarten has a safe, natural outdoor area or the children are taken to a place where they can experience nature. The festivals – seasonal and cultural – are celebrated, and often parents are invited to participate in them and other events.’

Although there is no ‘electronic gadgetry’ or child-facing IT, such as iPads, used in the kindergarten, Nicol says that kindergartens work with ‘warm technology’ in the form of hand-driven grain mills, apple-juice presses, scales, spinning wheels, hand drills, weaving and woodwork equipment.

She says, ‘Warm technology gives the child a true picture of the function of a machine as an extension of their body. It also supports the child’s thinking and physical skills in an age-appropriate way, since thinking in a young child is expressed mainly in physical action as processes are followed through.’

An example of this is the grain grown in the garden, which is harvested and ‘winnowed’ (where the chaff is separated from the grain), ground by hand in a mill, such as a hand coffee grinder, and used to bake bread, which children watch rise in the oven. This is then sliced for snack time; the children add butter or jam that they have made, and they eat it. The crumbs go to the birds.

‘Seeing processes such as grain to table to compost, or sheep’s wool to yarn and weaving, helps embed an appreciation for the life-giving substances from the earth or environment,’ explains Nicol.

SUPPLIERS

• Myriad is a supplier of Steiner Waldorf products. Try the Stockmar Modelling Beeswax – small, £12.50, which develops fine finger control and has a calming and therapeutic effect; the Botanical Bundle Dye Kit, £21.99; the Crayon Roll for 16 Stick and Block Crayons, £35.99; the Choroi Pentatonic Children’s Harp, £349.99; Magic Wood Shire Home, £39.99; and Peruvian Mini Baby Waldorf Doll Dark Skin, £39.99.
• Cosy has a range of Waldorf-inspired resources, such as the Den Playframe, £49.99 and The Arch – Inside, £245. Outdoors, the Multiuse Stem & Den Tyre Stands, £122.95, encourages den-building and imaginative play; and the Outdoor Rocking Boat and Steps, £199, is great for physical skills and role play. The Duo of Climbing Crests, £679, will be sure to test children’s body strength and self-confidence.
• TTS’s Wooden Stacking Pebbles, £14.99; Giant Stack and Build Block, £149.99; Tree Blocks without Bark – 36pcs, £44.99; and Natural Craft and Collage Materials Classroom Pack, £21.99 are perfect for open-ended play. Or try the TTS Outdoor Water Pump Station Table, £575.
• Muddy Faces sells a range of natural resources for investigation. Try the Massive Loose Parts Kit, £1,758.90 and the Giant Nature Blocks Stacking – 40 pieces, £74.99. Or for woodwork, try the Palm Drills – child size, £4.95.
  
  

CASE STUDY: Kindergarten at New School, Canterbury

Each autumn, children in Kindergarten at New School in Kent, a Wardolf Steiner-inspired primary school, enjoy using traditional apple presses to make juice.

Kindergarten teacher Sam Gresham says, ‘Parents collect the apples from a local community orchard and bring them to the kindergarten when they’re ripe. While one group of three- to six-year-olds wash them in a big bucket of water, another group chops the apples with an adult, commenting on the colours, sizes of the different varieties and where they collected the apples from.

‘The next job is to crush the apples, using a clean bucket and a large block of wood. Pounding the wood onto the apples is hard work and requires the children to be persistent and focused. Once the apples are crushed, we load up the apple press, and everyone has a go at turning the handle, which requires some stamina. While doing this, we sing songs about apples, reinforcing the children’s understanding of the seasonal nature of this activity.

‘Almost immediately the juice starts to run out into the jug and the children are fascinated. Some even lie down to get the best view. The juice tastes fantastic and the fact that you need a whole bucket full of apples to produce a small jug of juice enables the children to understand what a precious resource this is. Once all the apples are pressed, we take out all the remains – the pips and the core – to compost, and the children help rinse the apple press and make sure it is clean before it is returned to its owner, who kindly lends it to us.’

FURTHER INFORMATION

• Nicol J (2018) Bringing the Steiner Waldorf Approach to your Early Years Practice (3rd edition). Routledge
• For more on Steiner, Steiner Waldorf education and training in the UK, visit the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship website at: www.steinerwaldorf.org
• For more on Steiner Waldorf early childhood education internationally, visit: www.iaswece.org