What is a Waldorf Main Lesson Block?

In the current day and age, of touching the surface of life, of doing things quickly, and instantly
gratifying ourselves.There is now, more than ever, a need to teach our children in a way that
gives them deeper, more penetrating experiences in their education.

The Waldorf curriculum works with main lesson blocks, which are 3-4 week blocks dedicated to
a particular subject, topic or section of work for the first 2 most productive hours of the day.
The main lesson is the key point of a school day. It is the significant part of the day that gives us
time to immerse the students in a particular subject, delving deeply into it and making real
progress. After a Main lesson block is completed, the child is then given time for the subject
matter to “sleep” so that a process of “forgetting” can happen. In time real education happens
when the teacher guides the child in remembering and recalling.

Enough time is available each day in the main lesson time for lessons to be structured in
meaningful ways. This time ensures the head, the heart and the hands (thinking, feeling and
willing) are met through this careful, conscious structuring by the class teacher. This can be
followed through in a homeschool setting by some families sharing the rhythmical part of a
lesson - this usually constitutes some form of movement for example: clapping exercises,
mental arithmetic, bean bag or juggling exercises, speech, recitation, family walks, co-ordination
exercises, recorder playing among many other ideas. Recall and individual application of work,
introduced the day before,usually follows and is the main component of the lesson. This is
applied in the form of main lesson book work (drawing, writing, recording), beeswax or clay
modelling, practical maths application etc. Thereafter the lesson usually concludes with Story
content or a sharing of images or experiences that constitutes the new work to be followed
through with the next day.

An overarching two day rhythm is thus created. The repetition of such rhythm within the main
lesson each day has a healing effect on the child.

Grades Teacher: Ms. Mandy 
Learn more about our classes HERE