Who is This For?
This curriculum is for children ages 6-7 who show readiness signs for reading. These signs include; child has lost two top front teeth, the child can skip, when painting the child separates colors as opposed to just swishing colors all together. This series gives both the upper and lower case letter however I suggest introducing only the upper case letter in first grade and then the upper and lower case together in second grade (yes, read this through twice, once in each grade!)
Introduce one letter every other day (roughly) during the school year. Have your student keep all the pictures in a folder or bind them into a book they can keep.
Why This Method?
In the Waldorf method a child should be guided through the stages of human development, the same stages our ancestors have walked through. Just like our ancestors a child learns first through the oral tradition (story telling), the main characters in those stories become shapes (like Egyptian hieroglyphics) and then letters, and then words, which leads to reading.
Typically the Waldorf method introduces letters using fairytales however this Waldorf alphabet curriculum uses tales from the Little House on the Prairie series. These true stories of the pioneering adventures of the Ingalls and Wilder families are beloved American classics. They bring a sense of wonder, history and story telling to your first and second grader. They embody a spirit of independence, self reliance, resiliency and determination. They help your child develop their love of hard work and are a perfect foundation to education.
Once this series is complete I will post a page on the website with a link to each letter.
What supplies do I need?
The collection of all nine Little House on the Prairie books. You can buy them from a place like Amazon or your local book seller, you can purchase them at a thrift shop or your local library should have all the books available there. Youtube also has videos of people reading the chapters aload.
You will also need paper and block crayons. If you cannot afford block crayons you can melt old crayons on the stove top in a pan you don't use for cooking and place the melted wax into an ice cube tray and allow the wax to harden.
How do I teach this?
You begin by reading your child the pages or chapter listed. You have them draw the picture and write the letters as shown in the pictures I provide. Ideally if you have a chalk board you would draw the picture first on the chalk board in colored chalk and the child would copy that image. You may draw the image first on paper as well or if you're in pinch you can have them copy the image I provide from the computer screen.
Let's begin...
A a
Farmer Boy, Late Harvest, pages 240 -242 (but feel free to read the whole chapter)
In this chapter Almanzo and his family harvest apples and onions. They place the apples in the cellar and the onions in the attic. Big A becomes the house with the peak of the house the Attic with the dried onions and the lower part of the A is the cellar with the apples (little a) inside.
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