The foundation for which Class Two mathematics is built upon was laid last year with fairy tale images that introduced the four math processes. Now, the 2nd Graders strengthen their skills throughout the year with Saintly/Hero images and mischievous animal characters. These types of images are beneficial to the children's consciousness, at this age, because the children are starting to realize the duality within themselves. They will be observing saintliness and mischievousness in themselves and in others. The legends of saints and heroes appeal to the child’s moral sense of what is right and good and magical. While on the other hand, the fables give the child an external view of our animal nature.Our shortcomings are played out in fables. Children are able to reflect upon them without judgement of themselves. This space allows them to exercise their own will with the possibility of their actions being guided by their saintly self. These math blocks use the heroic images of Robin Hood and his Band of Merry Men & Merry Women to appeal to the children’s Saintly self. The Robin Hood ballads have been told many ways throughout history. This two part story is an original creation of these tales. The children will be participating in a living way with Robin Hood through the story. The mathematical topics covered in the two part Robin Hood story are: * Continued Practice of the Four Processes with reduced use of manipulatives. * Introduce and understand Time. * Introduce and understand Coins. * Memorizing simple Addition facts up to 24. * Become proficient with Addition and Subtraction of two digit numbers. * Practice memorization of Multiplication and Division tables through 12. * Introduce and develop an understanding of place value. * Introduce and develop carrying and borrowing. * Experience through movement and art how geometric patterns and numbers relate. * Develop a love of math through games and puzzles. * Cultivate a greater capacity for mental math. * Understand the importance of form and organization of written practice of math problems. Upon purchase you will receive all the material you will need to design two complete 2nd grade math blocks. These two math blocks include: * A two part Robin Hood story * Main Lesson book work suggestions * Word problems * Math games * Art lessons that are relevant to the story * Skills Practice section with kinesthetic learning exercises * Songs and poetry suggestions * Practice Book ideas * Weekly suggested rhythm * Blank weekly rhythm forms to design this block to meet your families needs and meet the children right where they are academically and spiritually. It is 60 pages of math curriculum that provides everything you need to teach math to Class Two students. It is two complete Waldorf Math Blocks. This is the downloadable version, meaning you will receive a 60 page PDF that can either be printed by you (and bound if you prefer) or used right from your computer. Since this is a download, I am unable to do refunds as there is no way for you to return it. However, I am always very happy to answer questions or offer support along the way at ancientpathhomestead [!at] gmail.com

This year I’ve made a commitment to myself (and my readers) to make every effort to share my curriculum materials as soon as possible. Waldorf Math You see, my curriculum guides come straight from my lesson planner. When I sit down to put them all together in a final polished document for all of you, […]

I have a fascination with Waldorf math, in particular the geometric designs based upon the times tables. Being extremely visual it makes math come alive for me. Hence, you can imagine my reaction to seeing this multiplication clock. So pretty....

Are you teaching the Waldorf first grade Quality of Numbers block? I took a bunch of photos of my main lesson book. What a great block!

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Create your own homeschool curriculum plan for main lessons with this outline of the traditional Waldorf block rotation for homeschoolers.

I have been gearing up for math with Logan. He is ready for the concept introduction, but I wanted to do it in a super gentle, fun way so h...

Miss One and Two, Jump Three and Four, Turn around swiftly And sit upon the floor. Clap One and Two, Nod Three and Four, Jump up again quickly And be ready for more! Thus began our first Maths Block: Quality of Numbers. I pulled from some amazing sources and slept on it for a time before we started maths: ~ Eric Fairman's "Path of Discovery" ~Kristie Burns' Earthschooling "Sixth Sense & Holistic Math: Using the Six Senses & Whole Body to Learn Math" ebook ~Marsha Johnson's "The Quality of Numbers" file in her Yahoo Group ~Barbara Dewey's "Mathematics for Waldorf Homeschoolers Grades 1-3" ~A Little Garden Flower's "A Journey Through Waldorf Math" The night before we started, I took some paper and some glitter glues that we had in our crafting basket and I drew out the Arabic and Roman numerals from 1 - 10 (see picture above). The glitter goes beautifully with the story we are working with and we have gold, silver, rubies, and emeralds alternating in our numbers... Then, I created a story inspired by Eric Fairman and Marsha Johnson with some tweaking to make it our own. I set up the scene on our table and covered sections with a blue silk that I would pull back as the characters moved further and further along. It began with a young boy and girl who were romping through the lush evergreen forest one day when they spotted a frisky little hare. They decided to follow him. Every few feet the little hare stopped and turned to them, as if he was waiting for the children to follow. They went deeper and deeper into the forest when they came upon a single oak tree in an endless forest of pines. How unusual, they thought. They watched as the hare nestled close to the trunk of the beautiful old oak tree when it suddenly seemed to disappear! The children couldn't believe their eyes and went closer to the oak to inspect it. The little boy noticed some beautiful carvings in the trunk of the oak and ran his fingers over them. He was startled when he pushed against the bark and a hole opened abruptly. The little boy fell head first into the tree and the girl had no choice but to jump in after him. They tumbled down into the darkness. And when they finally landed, they were in a mysterious land they had never seen before. There were strange boulders and rocks and a forest of brown pine cones. The children were a little unsure, until they spotted their friend, the little hare, who was sitting on a rock, waiting for them. Boy were they glad to see him! They approached and the hare continued to lead them through this strange and mysterious land. The hare climbed up a mountain. The children were not far behind. When they neared the top, they could no longer see the rabbit. But the view was breathtaking. When they finally reached the summit, they saw two green glowing eyes in the face of the mountain and out stepped an Old Crone. She had been expecting the children. Beside her was the hare and a beautiful sea shell. The children were lost and wanted to find their way home. The Old Crone told them that the only way back to their home was through the cave behind her. However, the door to the cavern was sealed shut and no amount of pushing could open it. The children began to cry. The Old Crone hushed them and told them a secret. If they could but learn the forgotten magic symbols to open the door of the cave, it would lead to a marvelous land where they would find their way home. The children were eager to learn and thus began the riddles... As straight as a spear I stand, To reach for the sky with both my hands. My shape reveals how many "I am". ~ The Upright Human Being At this point, I got out the magical sandscape where I had placed our first number sheet and covered it with sand. The girls each got some nature gifts (a stick, some seashells, etc) and began to move the sand to reveal their first symbol. When they saw it, they oohed with glee and then wrote the symbols in their own sandscapes. We discussed "What is One?" and decided to draw a picture of the sun in our Main Lesson Books. While they were drawing, I read to them the stories from Earthschoolings "Sixth Sense & Holistic Math" ebook. I have found Kristie's guide to be indispensable for our Maths Block. She offers so many ways to incorporate it into the senses and really has brought to the table the absorption of math into the whole child, rather than just a concrete understanding of each number. We are seeing math and numbers in everything now! At the end of the lesson, I asked them the next riddle: For me and you, we each have two It's not our feet or hands to eat. Our legs are strong, but that too is wrong. Our arms are bold, but this we can not hold. With these you see with so much glee... What am I? ~the eyes/number II I asked them to think about "What is Two?" They slept on it and that concluded the day. We continued this way for the rest of the week into this week and here are some shots of II, III, and IIII. After the girls hear more of the story with the crone, they get a new riddle to solve. I use the ones in "A Journey to Waldorf Math" at the end of our lesson time for the number we will do the following day. I end the lesson with the question of "What is ___?". After they sleep on it, we discuss their ideas and find things outside and around the house representing that number. When the Crone appears to tell more of the story, she offers a riddle from Eric Fairman's "Path of Discovery Volume One: Grade One" and once it is solved, the girls brush off the sand to reveal the next magic symbol... Alone I cannot feel myself, But with the one I can feel the other, You have them both, but What am I and what is my sign? ~ Our Two Hands II : Twins! III: Three Kings Charley was so proud of her Kings...she loved their colors... IIII: Four Seasons They are first learning to write Roman Numeral four with the "four legs" that Steiner recommended, but we will also learn the symbol that was used by the Romans more often since writing four I's just seemed too time consuming :D They received the next riddle today: If you counted us all you would have ten From your hands we do extend On one hand you have just five Like worms who know that they're ALIVE! Who are we? (~Five Fingers and V) I also need to note here that this block has been so much fun. After the first day, Charley said to me, "I thought we were going to do math today!" That was all the validation I needed to know we were doing something right!

In the first grade, the child still feels connected to the world of fairy tales with their inherent archetypes of good, evil, kindness, humility, rewards, punishments and transformation. Those who have been good and kind or have been transformed, live happily ever after. The seven-year-old child, is nurtured within these images - finding that all is right with the world, in the end. These stories are also interweaved into another tale, one of four children from four corners of the world that hav

The end of our first year homeschooling, and what a year we had! Happy to say we fared well. Here, our weather tree is a symbol of our journey. We started in September with a bare tree on a very clean blackboard, which you can see on this blog post. Leaves were placed on this ...

Waldorf inspired multiplication crafts. Multiplication circles, multiplication flowers and weaving.

Practice identifying fractions with this FUN fraction BINGO! Free Printable hands-on fraction activity for kids of all ages.

Download free addition math crosswords to reinforce math skills. These crossword puzzles will help develop problem-solving abilities in grade 1 and 2 kids.

This past week, we continued with our four week Maths Block on the Four Processes and Quantities of Numbers. Here is a summary of some of what we did this week. We began with an introduction to three new characters in our story. The first two arrived together when the children heard an old, quiet grumbling coming their way. They could barely make out the words, sounding like an apology. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose them..." And then a second voice was heard, that of a young boy. "Don't worry. We'll find them. We've just got to!" Gnome Share turned to the children and said, "Why that sounds like Gnome Minus Takeaway! He's always losing things. It sounds like he needs our help." They approached the two new characters and introduced themselves. We learned that the Shepherd Boy had been watching his grandfather's flock of sheep in the meadow when he ran into the sweet and loving Gnome Minus Takeaway. Gnome M.T. loves animals and was smitten by the sheep and asked to play with them. He had forgotten that he was supposed to be collecting gems for the Gnome King and got swept away in the excitement of looking after the sheep. The Shepherd Boy happily agreed to let Gnome M.T. play with them while he ate his lunch and before long, the silly Gnome M.T. lost track of the entire flock. And the two were looking in earnest. Luckily the Ancient Wolf, the guide and protector, knew just whom to call upon. He gave a great, thunderous howl and moments later, help arrived! "This is Kaimi, the Seeker. He will track down your flock," said the Ancient Wolf. And this is how the girls were introduced to the subtraction gnome. I wanted to find a way to weave animals into our tale since the girls just love them :D I got out their baskets and gave them each seven blue gems. We headed outside with our gems and some silk scarves to blindfold the girls. I think I got this idea from Marsha Johnson, but the girls pretended to be Gnome Minus Takeaway and dropped some of the gems until I said, "Stop!" and then they felt in the basket how many were left and how many they each had to find to make 7 again. They then had to find the missing gems on the ground, using their feet :D and pick them up again. After this, we brought the story back and rotated with a game of hide and seek. One person would hide all 14 gems and the two seekers (like Kaimi) would find 7 gems for each basket. This game we played over and over and over again. They loved it! Here's Elena, waiting for Charley to finish hiding the gems. While we were waiting, we discovered lots of snails crawling through our yard and on our fence. The girls were introduced to the sign of Minus Takeaway Gnome and we wrote it with sidewalk chalk and had fun again with the sandscapes. We ate some blueberries to celebrate Gnome Minus Takeaway's color. We looked for blue everywhere. We did lots of work in our Main Lesson Book. I had found a lovely blog post about the Four Processes from Littlest Birds blog and liked how she altered Dorothy Harrer's original math gnomes poem for Gnome Minus from the word "careless" to "silly" because as we all, young children included big time, lose things from time to time and I didn't want to focus on negative labels. Be sure to check out the gorgeous presentation she did for the Quality of Numbers introduction - very inspiring! It can be seen here. Here is some of our MLB work from the past week. Charley's work above...with some problems with stories taken from Ron Jarman's "Teaching Mathematics in Rudolf Steiner Schools". I made up stories about each problem and the girls embellished with drawings of the animals. They also need more practice writing numbers as we write them backwards every so often. My MLB's - with the first one finally finished from our previous week's lesson. Elena's work. Something else we got out this week was a game I mentioned to another Momma recently that we enjoy. It's call Sum Swamp and this game would be very easy to make on your own with your child. We swap out the plastic characters with some Ostheimers and use the wooden dice I made with my wood burning tool so they could continue practicing their Roman and Arabic numerals (the dice are available at my shop for those who don't have time to make their own). We also have the glass gems available for them to use, but I can see they are starting to need to use them less and less already. Sum Swamp also helps identify odd and even numbers, higher and lower numbers (as you are to always place the highest die rolled first, with the process next, then the 2nd number die to find your total). Finally, the number stories we read this week are: Seven: "The Seven Ravens" by Bros. Grimm Eight: "How Stories Came to Earth" ~ An Ashanti Legend about Anansi the spider. Nine: A retelling in my own words of the "2nd labor of Hercules", when he subdues the hydra with nine heads. You can see summaries of Hercules here. Otherwise, if you haven't told "The Gnome" yet by the Bros. Grimm, it is about a 9 headed dragon. We used it in a previous block. This coming week, we meet the final gnome and wrap up this block! And here is Pee Wee! Getting bigger and doing well thus far!

The first math main lesson block of first grade is completely unique to Waldorf. Unless you went to a Waldorf school yourself, this is new and unfamiliar territory for you! In this post I’ll walk you through the Quality of Numbers block and give you some ideas for how to teach it

Dear Parents,

form drawing, 2 week block august 24/september 3rd resources: main lessons: Form Drawing for Grades 1-4, Ernst Schuberth & Laura Embry-Stine (i used some of the basic grade one forms and created a 'container story' for this first block) monday, august 24th: main lesson: tell story part 1, explore form Crenelated Running Form *for grade one the forms are simple & used to help the child get ready for writing. our basement is concrete & so perfect for drawing the forms large in sidewalk chalk. we also draw them smaller & trace them with both hands & both feet & we trace them on each other's backs. sometimes we make lacing cards & sew the forms on using yarn. in the past we've also done prints with potatoes, painted the forms, used sticks to mark them out...drawing them in sand on a baking sheet is a good one as well. form drawing story, part #1: once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a king and a queen. the king & queen lived in a grand castle with servants to care for their every need, and noblemen to see to their every hearts desire. and yet, they were not happy, something was missing...a child. then one day the queen was blessed, and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. this child would one day grow up to be queen. the king & queen were so excited about the princess's birth that they decided to throw a magnificent ball to celebrate. they invited the entire kingdom. when everything was ready for the celebration, the king climbed up to the steep steps, to the very tallest tower and looked out between the parapets. he leaned against those great stone walls, watching as the guests arrived in their finest clothes. lesson b: nature study challenge #1Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock & http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com/2008/02/green-hour-challenge-1-lets-get-started.html tuesday, august 25th main lesson: recall story, part #1 tell story part #2, explore form Straight Line Symmetry form drawing story, part #2: on the outskirts of the kingdom, in the dark forest, there lived an evil witch who was not at all pleased with the princess's birth. she wanted to be queen! and so, she disguised herself as on of the queen's servants and attended the grand ball. when the queen went to lay her daughter down for bed that night, the witch followed her. she was careful to hide in the shadows so that no one would see her. and once the queen had gone back to join the celebration-- the evil witch snuck into the princess's nursery & stole her away. she took the princess to a cave far, far away from the kingdom-- a cave guarded be a dragon...a cave where no one would ever find her. the king & queen, and everyone else in the kingdom were greatly saddened by this princess's disappearance. they vowed never to stop looking until she was found. the king sent for his three best knights, three brothers. if anyone could find the princess, it would be them. lesson b: handwork, exploring where wool comes from (as as introduction to knitting) read One Little Lamb by Elaine Greenstein *with waldorf everything is taught from the whole to its parts. so, normally you would begin with visiting sheep on a farm or at least at a petting zoo, and then follow it up with washing a fleece. but as i work with loads of wool, the boys have been exposed to this since they were little. i have no raw fleece on hand, and we have neighbors with sheep, so we see them on (almost) daily basis. aydin has been asking to try his hand at needle felting & so we needle felted sheep & a little patch of field for them to graze. wednesday, august, 26th main lesson: recall story, part #2 tell story part #3, explore form (will add photo later) form drawing story, part #3: the three knights were eager to be of service, to find the princess and to bring her home safely. they searched for clues all over the castle and soon realized how things had come to pass. they knew that the evil witch had kidnapped the princess out of jealousy. the king & queen gave the brave knights everything they needed for their quest. it would be a very long and treacherous journey, but the knights were courageous and honorable. they promised to rescue the princess. and with that, their journey began. they headed first towards the black sea. there were caves there guarded by creatures of the deep. lesson b: baking, clover leaf rolls (or joy of cooking, p. 610) thursday, august 27th main lesson: recall story part #3. tell story part #4, explore form (will add photo later) form drawing story, part #4: but there was no sign of the prince or the dark witch. so they rode on, towards the steep cliffs, and the misty mountains. they climbed up to the tallest peaks, searching everywhere along the way. they nearly perished a good many times, losing their footing on the crumbly mountainside. the mountain sides were quite steep and had no paths for the knights to follow aside form those made by the sheep & goats that grazed there. once they were sure that no nook or cranny had been overlooked, they headed towards the valleys in the east. we have been having a lot of rain this week. so after practicing our forms in the basement, we opted for watercolors rainbows to add a splash of colors to our day in lieu of a painting as our final form. lesson b: handwork, more exploration with wool read Pelle's New Suit by Elsa Beskow card fleece with carding combs, try hand at spinning the carded wool into yarn via a drop spindle

Are you teaching the Waldorf first grade Quality of Numbers block? I took a bunch of photos of my main lesson book. What a great block!

My son is a big fan of games, so we make a lot of math board games. I have a wonderful book called Games for Math by Peggy Kaye. I first became aware of this book from the Rudolf Steiner Library in…

Do your students need extra practice with 3-digit subtraction and addition with regrouping? Grab this 2nd-grade math worksheet freebie today!

Math….the nemesis of many a homeschool mom. I’m certainly no exception. I've found that keeping math fun is a must! These first grade math games definitely

Fraction art is a fun way for students to practice fractions as part of a whole. For this activity, students use the Fraction Art activity page (freebie below) and create their own design by using multiple colors. Once students complete their design, they simply count up the fraction for each color used, and record it […]