The new Education Catalog for Parents, Teachers, and Children is now available and has been sent to those on our mailing list. As always, we have lots of great new resources for teachers and parents, as well as great new books that children will enjoy.

We are especially happy to bring our readers two new book for parents and teachers. The first, What Is a Waldorf Kindergarten? is a collection compiled and introduced by Sharifa Oppenheimer, author of the bestselling Heaven on Earth, a guidebook for parents of young children.

The second book is a very unique teaching resource, Soul Development through Handwriting: The Waldorf Approach to the Vimala Alphabet. It is certain to become an indispensable tool for many Waldorf teachers and home schoolers.

In addition to the many new books, we also have included a great assortment of articles and extras.

First article is by Jon McAlice, "How Waldorf Schools Began." McAlice has worked in the international Waldorf school movement for many years as a teacher and lecturer. He has been involved in teacher training institutes throughout Europe and in the United States, focusing primarily on questions of human development and the psychology of learning. This article is the perfect introduction for those who are curious about the origin of this fast-growing educational movement.


Next is the introduction to our latest addition to The Foundations of Waldorf Education series, Balance in Teaching. This excellent essay is by Douglas Gerwin, Ph.D., who has an impressive list of credentials in the Waldorf world: Amherst, Massachusetts, he is Director for Anthroposophy, Chair of its Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program, and Co-director of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education. A Waldorf graduate himself, Dr. Gerwin has taught for more than twenty-five years at university and high school levels in subjects ranging from biology and history to German and music. He is editor of For the Love of Literature: A Celebration of Language and Imagination; Genesis of a Waldorf High School; The Andover Proceeding: Tapping the Wellsprings of Health in Adolescence; and Who Shall Teach the Teachers: The Christ Impulse in Waldorf Education, as well as author of various articles on adolescence and the Waldorf curriculum. He is also coauthor the Survey of Waldorf Graduates, the first comprehensive look at how North American Waldorf graduates fare in college and beyond.

“A Deeper Understanding of the Waldorf Kindergarten: The Developing Child” is the next article, written by Sharifa Oppenheimeer, author of Heaven on Earth: A Handbook for Parents of Young Children, and editor of What Is a Waldorf Kindergarten? Many of us who are familiar with the Waldorf approach to early childhood education recognize that it is perhaps the most important period of a child's education. Waldorf kindergarten teachers are noted for their protection of the children's innate innocence, which allows them to help continue the work of the angels in those young souls who are still in the process of incarnating on Earth.

Jennifer Crebbin, a Life Coach and Certified Handwriting Consultant, teaches a writing style that prepares individuals to be powerful contributors in the world. After completely reshaping her own handwriting, she has devoted her career to sharing this work. With more than twenty years in Waldorf Education. Jennifer blends her understanding of Waldorf pedagogy with the Vimala Alphabet to help parents, educators, and children more completely express their True Selves. As mentioned, an exciting new teacher resource is Soul Development through Handwriting: The Waldorf Approach to the Vimala Alphabet. This issue of our education catalog features an informative excerpt from that book, along with a sample of the alphabet itself.

Our next author is Catherine Read, who holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from UCLA. She is a research scholar at Rutgers University and an editor of Evolving Explanations of Development (1997). Using the Waldorf curriculum, she has home schooled her two daughters from kindergarten through ninth grade. As a result of her experience, she has led workshops on a variety of topics useful for parents who are home schooling their children. Catherine is on the faculty of the Dorian School of Music Therapy and is currently engaged in Waldorf School teacher training through the Center for Anthroposophy in Wilton, New Hampshire. Her article is titled The Class Play as Fever, taken from a forthcoming book on school at home with the Waldorf curriculum.

Joyce Gallardo is the director of Los Amiguitos (Little Friends), a home-based Waldorf Nursery/Kindergarten in Harlemville, New York, where she has also taught kindergarten, high school Spanish, and calligraphy at the Hawthorne Valley School. She is in her third year of Spatial Dynamics training. She provided an article titled “The Care of the Very Young Child: The Work of Rudolf Steiner and Emmi Pikler.” In case you’re not familiar with the name, Dr. Emmi Pikler was a family pediatrician during the l930s and 1940s in Budapest, Hungary. Devoted to the very young children in her care, Dr. Pikler would make daily home visits for the first ten days after a baby’s birth, and weekly visits for the next few months. She gave guidance and support to new parents based on observations she made during her regular and carefully evaluated visits, during which she observed the growth and movement of the children with great attention to detail. The author tells us that the “insights of Emmi Pikler and Rudolf Steiner and the work that they have inspired are abundant sources of guidance for those of us who work with very young children.”

Next is an excerpt from Raising Waldorf: The Building of the Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork, A Teacher’s View of the Handwork Curriculum: “A Teacher’s View of the Handwork Curriculum” by Jill Sher. This is an important field of work for her; as she writes at the beginning of her article,

The hands are the primary instruments that growing children use to inform themselves about the world. What the hands feel, the brain knows. Handwork has been part of the Waldorf curriculum since its inception because it plays such an important function in establishing and activating pathways in the brain, in developing the will of the child, and in fostering self-esteem and an appreciation for beauty.

And, finally, we have included two recipes from The Waldorf Book of Breads: Tal’s Brown Oatmeal Rolls and Kindergarten Classroom Bread.

All of this is will be in the mail soon. If you simply cannot wait, you can download the catalog right now. Click on the link below to begin downloading yours. (You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader).

2007 Education Catalog for Parents, Teachers, and Children (8 MB)

If you are not on our mailing list or wish to order additional copies of this or other catalogs for you or your friends, please send email to friends@steinerbooks.org. Please be sure to include your mailing address and specify the catalog(s) you wish to receive.

Happy reading!