In the curriculum of the Waldorf schools, much of the education in academic subjects takes place in blocks, generally of 3–5 weeks duration. Each pupil generally writes and illustrates a self-created textbook representing the material learned in the block. These blocks are supported by on-going classes in subjects such as music, art and crafts, and foreign languages that continue throughout the year.
Curricular Approach
In a Waldorf elementary school, the curriculum is presented through extended "main lessons" which focus on one subject in depth. This approach differs from other instructional approaches that allot equal time to every subject. In a Waldorf elementary school, the approximately two-hour-long main lesson "ties one topic to as many disciplines as possible". The main lesson is not taught from a textbook. The teacher will draw one colored chalk drawing on the board to introduce the theme or subject. The structure of the lesson will include activities that "call upon the child's powers of listening, of body movement, of thinking, and of feeling." These activities could include mental math, hand-clapping games and jumping rope, folk dances, poetry recitation, singing, and writing and drawing in unlined "main lesson books". Teachers are free to include whatever activities they feel will work best for the children in the class.
In high school, students are taught by subject specialists rather than a class teacher. However, the "main lesson" structure remains. The entire curriculum, which is often discussed as an ascending spiral - or "spiral curriculum" - has been described in the following way
The year progresses with an in-depth study of, say, mathematics, tying it peripherally each day to allied topics- physics, chemistry, home economics, and consumerism – each of which is studied separately in shorter classes later in the day. After a few weeks, one of the peripheral topics becomes the main topic…The result is that all subjects are studied in relation to all other subjects. Students learn what historic events were occurring as Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, what music Newton might have listened to as he made his discoveries…
The presentation of different subjects may be as follows:
Language, literature, and history
In Waldorf education writing and reading are introduced at age six or seven; Beginning with oral storytelling, a Waldorf child listens to and summarizes oral language. Then, using imaginative pictures of sounds (e.g. a snake shape for the letter "s"), the children gradually learn the abstract letter forms and move on to phonetics, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. The literary themes of the first through fourth grades are: fairy tales, fables and saints stories, Hebrew Testament, and Norse mythology. The fifth grade includes a survey of Classical Hindu, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek mythology, as well as the beginnings of Greek history.
In the middle school years, literary themes are drawn from history. Sixth grade includes Roman history, seventh grade, the history of the Medieval period, Renaissance, and Reformation, as well as the voyages of world discovery, and eighth grade focuses on the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, including the major revolutionary movements.
After recording their own stories and illustrations in personal books, children learn to read from the words they wrote themselves. From fourth grade on, creative writing focuses on descriptive writing, poetry, and, in middle school, themes such as wish, wonder, and surprise. In secondary school, courses examine the development of drama, poetry, and the novel. The secondary curriculum generally includes intensive courses focusing on the works of Shakespeare, Dante's Inferno, the Parsifal saga, Goethe's Faust, and the American transcendentalists.
The middle school curriculum examines the local history, building from studies of traditional life in the immediate environment in fourth grade up through successively larger areas (the locality, country, continent). The high school history curriculum includes courses on early civilizations, medieval culture, and modern history, as well as specialized courses in the history of the country in which the school is located.
Mathematics
Formal instruction in numeracy begins at age 6/7 with the four primary operations of arithmetic. Fractions are introduced at age 9/10, decimal numbers and proportions at age 10/11, percentages and rates of interest at age 11/12, algebra at age 12/13. At the secondary level, topics include algebra, geometry, conics, trigonometry, probability, combinatorics and calculus. Descriptive geometry and projective geometry are introduced at age 15/16 and 16/17, respectively.