Professional development for Waldorf teachers and home school parents. Read all about Summer Series 2024.

Taught remotely in real-time, this course offers you an invaluable opportunity to focus entirely on your upcoming sixth grade school year in five days brimming with presentations, discussions, and practical activities.

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 sixth grader in a meaningful and lively way. With the insights of anthroposophy, gleaned through a study of child development focusing on your class’s age group, you will get to know the sixth grade child in depth as they enter adolescence.

Along with 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 topics for sixth graders—and their teachers—as:

• The gesture of the sixth grade
• Thinking, Feeling and Willing rhythm
• Topics in language arts, including poetry, grammar and research papers
• Multicultural approaches to world history
• Topics in math, including geometric drawing, business math, and practice classes
• Topics in world history, including Rome, origins of Christianity and Islam, and the Global Middle Ages
• Topics in geography
• Introduction to physics, astronomy, and earth science / geology
• Plays, projects, community service, and trips
• Sixth grade assessment
• Parent work and colleagueship

These subjects will be supported by explorations in art and music, giving you practical tools to take into your school year. In addition, you’ll gain many valuable opportunities for building connections among a community of parallel colleagues from across the country to carry with you throughout your teaching.

Grade-specific resource materials useful for your year, including poems, songs, stories, and main lesson book ideas, will be provided to you electronically.

NOTE: This course is taught with the expectation that you have a foundational background in Waldorf education.

Lead Instructor 

Lila Rubio is a member of the core faculty at The Waldorf School of Atlanta, where she currently teaches grade seven and serves as middle school department chair. A native of Puerto Rico, Lila previously was a math tutor for Decatur (GA) High School and a calculus teaching assistant at Georgia Tech. She also spent many years in senior management in the business world before becoming a mother to two daughters, both students at WSA. She has a Bachelor in Textile Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA with a finance concentration from Wake Forest University and received her Waldorf teaching certificate from the Rudolf Steiner Centre in Toronto. Lila loves to travel, camp, ride bikes, cook

Summer Series 2023 Grade Six participants had this to say about their experience with Lila:

• Very knowledgeable, inspiring, organized and well-prepared presenter.
• Lila’s presentations were very clear, comprehensive, and balanced for the modern Waldorf teacher.
• This course exceeded my expectations. I found the lesson planning resources, such as how Lila structures her year and her blocks, down to the daily rhythm, particularly helpful.
• Highlights were the plethora of resources, getting to connect with other Waldorf teachers, and talking about where the 6th graders are at as human beings.
• I think Lila is an excellent educator and she brought the material in an organized and alive way. Even though I have taken two 6th grade classes already, I was able to get a lot from what she brought with new and fresh ideas.
• As a new teacher, I found this course super insightful. It more than met my expectations!
• I love her energy and approach.
• So much experience to share! And she does it in a professional yet friendly manner that feels accessible and stress reducing.
• I found the curriculum as shared by Lila to be super diverse and inclusive of many perspectives. I loved it.
• Lila was so prepared for this week and incredibly enthusiastic. She facilitated the discussions so well and had a great balance of the PowerPoint slides, providing resources, and asking for input. I am so glad she was our instructor!
• Lila is super knowledgeable, relatable, fun, and made room for inclusion.
• The educators that were guiding us through the course are all very kind and helpful.
• Katey was wonderful and is clearly very experienced in Waldorf philosophy. She had many songs prepared for the 6th grade.
• Kelly was so knowledgeable and so grounded in the main lesson subject matter. Her art portal will be invaluable.
• I thought it was wonderful that each course also came with folders of resources and particularly the videos that we can watch later. Getting those videos on the geometry drawings, music recordings, movement, as well as the other resources, are so helpful and I think that it is one of the great advantages to the online course.

Your course also includes sessions in art with Kelly Beekman and music with Katey Dolezal.

Schedule

This course takes place July 14-19 in a synchronous online classroom. ALL TIMES LISTED ARE EASTERN (NY) TIME ZONE.

Sunday evening
6:15 pm-6:25 pm: Log-in for technical check-in and attendance
6:30 pm-8:15 pm: First session

Monday – Thursday
9:45 am-9:55 am: Log-in for technical check-in and attendance
Sessions run from 10:00 am through 4:45-5:00 pm, with time for breaks and lunch

Friday
9:45 am-9:55 am: Log-in for technical check-in and attendance
Sessions run from 10:00 am through 1:30 pm, with a mid-morning break

Note: Participants should be prepared to work on course-related assignments outside of their regularly scheduled instructional sessions (including some that may be assigned in advance). Complete schedules will be sent two weeks before your course start date, along with a list of materials you will need to procure for use during your course.

Cost 
$615 includes all resource materials, pre-recorded music and movement lessons, yearlong access to your Grade Six Google Classroom and Kelly Beekman’s art portal, and a $55 non-refundable registration fee.

25% discount for:

• Students currently enrolled in a Sunbridge teacher education program
• Sunbridge program graduates
• Payments made in Canadian dollars

Accounts must be in good standing and discounts may not be combined. Qualification for discounts will be verified by Sunbridge staff.  

REGISTER HERE

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at [email protected] or 845-425-0055 x20

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