Variety may be the spice of life but rhythm and routine are its bread and butter. This is so true for the holistic development of children and is embodied at Cedar Waldorf Valley School. A healthy and natural daily rhythm supports a child’s education as much as a caring and nurturing teacher. At Cedar Waldorf Valley School students get the benefits of both.

Each morning every child is personally welcomed at the entrance to their classroom by the teacher who shakes their hand, looks in their eyes and says their name. This triple connection through touch, sight and sound allows a momentary assessment of each child and is just one example of the many subtle ways Waldorf Education engages child and teacher.

Next there is a short session of movement and music that help the child fully awaken into their bodies and get more settled into the beginning of a new school day.

Morning is the time for the main lesson, over two full hours devoted to in depth exploration and practise of major subjects like mathematics, language arts, sciences, and history. A class will stay with one subject in the main lesson every day for 4 to 6 weeks to be totally immersed in it. They see themselves making real progress and gaining new insights and discoveries, then they leave the subject and move on to the next block letting the subconscious mind finish absorbing and digesting what has been learned before coming back to it again later in the year and taking it to a new level.

A hot lunch is shared with the whole school at noon and afternoons are filled with learning two additional languages, music, outdoor education, gardening, handwork and woodwork which lets the child learn with their hands and their hearts as well as their heads.