Lightsong Waldorf Outdoor School

The third grade is often experienced as a turning point in childhood.  Children approaching the age of nine and ten feel themselves growing into a new relationship with the world. They feel themselves in a new way as being separate from their family and from the world, independent, alone.  This comes with an increased impulse toward autonomy and a pull to be safe as they begin to feel themselves questioning everything they used to take for granted.  There is an increased interest in the practical matters of the material world. “How is a house built?” “Where does my food come from?” “ How do I cook?”  We look at and explore these questions as our work in the 3rd grade. 

The stories brought to meet children during this stage of development are pulled from the Hebrew Bible, Native American ( north, central and south), and African stories. These stories are rich with people’s first struggles to live on earth, to make shelters and to work the land. 

We learn to count measure and mix and weigh. We learn our times tables to organize space and items more quickly. We chop and cook and bake.  We garden. We investigate types of homes and then build both life-size and model shelters. In handwork, we even build a house for our head by knitting hats. The grammar is introduced by dramatically becoming the parts of speech, we act them out and then begin to recognize them in our writing and reading work.