Farming, culminating in a week-long residency at a bio-dynamic farm, orients children in their expanding world.

Third Grade

As children turn nine, they start to see the world differently. No longer are they content to be a part of life without doubts and questions. Before this time, children fundamentally experience little separation between themselves and their environment. As this new consciousness develops, they suddenly begin to realize that they are individuals. Parents may notice their children becoming more critical and beginning to question everything.

The stories of the Old Testament serve as a metaphor for children’s inner experience at this age. Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden of Eden, and third grade students see that they must one day leave the parental nest and make their own way in the world. The curriculum responds to this need to experience how to provide for the basic necessities of life through the study of farming, gardening, food preparation, house building, and clothing.

Children develop an appreciation of the important work of the farmer in nurturing, cultivating, and protecting nature. Experiences may include planting and harvesting, cooking, and—a highlight of the year—a week-long stay at a working farm. House building is studied by learning about many different dwellings that people have built over the course of time and in different parts of the world. Students might each build their own small house in class.

Children learn the ways that we have developed to orient ourselves on the earth through the study of measurement. The class discovers that ancient peoples marked the passage of time by observing the cycles of nature. They relive the invention of various devices to measure time, and may make their own sundial or water clock. This leads naturally to a discussion of how distance was originally measured by time: a day’s journey, etc. Modern units measuring distance are shown to have originated in the human body: the king’s foot became our foot and the king’s thumb width became our inch. Thus third grade children see that “the human being is the measure of all things.”

In third grade, the fundamentals of grammar are introduced. Children learn that there are different kinds of words. Some words (nouns) tell the names of things, while “doing words” (verbs) describe what happens in a sentence. Regular reading practice becomes part of the class rhythm; cursive writing skills are strengthened.

Third grade children are ready to experience the full diatonic scale in music. The pentatonic flute is replaced with the recorder. They assert their new independence by learning to sing separate parts in rounds. It is at this age that they also select a string instrument and begin private music instruction.

Their work in French and German continues with special subject teachers and includes counting, names of animals, family members, parts of the body, foods, seasons, colors, etc. Basic handwork skills in knitting are expanded to include a more challenging crocheted hat project. Physical movement is further cultivated through gym and eurythmy classes.