Professional development for Waldorf teachers and homeschool parents

This course offers you an invaluable opportunity to focus entirely on your upcoming first grade school year in five days filled with discussions, presentations, practical activities, and the arts. Under the guidance of an experienced class teacher, you’ll discover ways to enliven your teaching and learn how to approach the blocks so that they may meet the first grader in a lively and meaningful way. With the insights of anthroposophy, gleaned through a daily look at child development focusing on your class’s age group, you will get to know the first grader as he or she crosses the bridge into elementary school. There will be time and space to consider and hone your skills in such practical matters as main lesson books, block planning, projects and activities, and classroom management.

Your course will include such key first grade topics as:

• Finding and telling the right fairy tales and nature stories for your class
• Introducing the first steps of literacy
• Qualities of numbers and the four processes in arithmetic
• Teaching form drawing, painting, drawing, modeling, and singing

In addition to inspiration and guidance which will support your teaching throughout the year, you’ll gain many invaluable opportunities for building connections among a community of parallel colleagues from across the country, to carry with you into your teaching.

Useful grade-specific resource materials, including poems, songs, stories, and main lesson book ideas, will be provided to you when you arrive on campus.

This course is taught with the expectation that you have a background in Waldorf Education. 

You may also be interested in Numeracy in the Early Grades or Techniques and Skills for Creating Beautiful Drawings in the Grades, our weekend workshops taking place Friday evening, July 13–Sunday afternoon, July 15 (immediately following your course).

Instructor

Tommi Morgan has been a class and blocks teacher at the Whidbey Island Waldorf School since 1997. She is also on the faculty of Sunbridge’s and Sound Circle’s teacher education programs, and formerly directed the Waldorf teacher training program in Xi’an, China. An educator since 1985, Tommi has worked as a class teacher, subject teacher, and block teacher for grades K-8 and, prior to pursuing Waldorf Education, taught kindergarten and first grade in the public school system. She travels widely, teaching main lesson blocks, mentoring teachers, and stepping in as a long-term substitute to help Waldorf schools through times of transition. Tommi received a BA in English and an MA in education from the University of Washington and did her Waldorf teacher training at Rudolf Steiner College. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, traveling, painting, and spending time with her grandchild.

Your course also includes music with Patti Regan of the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School, numeracy with Calisa Tucker of the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, and eurythmy with Brigida Baldszun.

Course Schedule
Sunday, July 8: Optional campus tour 5:30-6pm; Registration 6-7pm; First session runs from 7-9pm
Monday, July 9-Thursday, July 12: Classes begin each day  8-8:30am and run through 5:30-6pm, with an hour for lunch and short mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks.
Friday, July 13: Classes begin 8-8:30am and end between 12-1pm, with a mid-morning break.

Course Fee
$825 (includes all materials and non-refundable $75 registration fee).

Discount Options

10% discounts on subsequent registrations (of equal or lesser value) automatically appear on your registration form when selecting more than one title. (Exception: Waldorf Weekend, which offers an $80 discount when selected as a subsequent registration.)

Currently enrolled Sunbridge program students receive a 30% discount and Sunbridge program graduates receive a 15% discount (not to be combined with any other offering). Discount instructions will appear on the registration form after you answer questions about your Sunbridge background in the Participant Profile section. (Account must be in good standing.) 

Schools making 11 registrations for any combination of 2, 3 and/or 5-day offerings will be rebated one tuition of the least expensive offering. (Rebate to be issued in August.)

Questions?
Please contact Penelope-Myles Voss, Admissions, Alumni, and Summer Coordinator, at [email protected] or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration for for refund policy.