Since 2003, Chrysalis has offered the Class 8 Project. During the course of the year the Class 8 students are asked to prepare an independent learning project for presentation to the school community. This project is traditional in many Steiner schools world-wide and involves many facets of learning appropriate for this age. Students are encouraged to venture into a “new” area of discovery, or take something they are already interested in and investigate it in greater detail. The project involves working with a mentor. The mentor is a resource person that has a great deal of expertise in the field…
Creativity
Class Plays Deepen Learning
By Ben Linstrom Every year, there is a time when each class in grades 1 through 8 stops the regular routine of main lesson blocks and immerses in preparation for a class play. It is an essential part of Waldorf education that we call pedagogical drama, because the plays specifically relate to the content of the Waldorf curriculum through the grades. For students, this is when what they’re learning truly comes to life for them. It may be historical or cultural, and it relates to what they have been learning in the classroom during main lesson. Routine and rhythm are important for our main…
Great family games to play for the holidays and beyond…
Just a reminder there are many great board games and card games that develop your child's numeracy abilities, strategic thinking and are also great fun to play together. Some suggestions include: Younger Primary years Snakes and Ladders Chinese Checkers Bingo Dominoes Yahtzee RushHour Jenga Uno Draughts Cluedo Battleships Card games - Friends of 10, Friends of 20, Snap, Go Fish, Memory Middle Primary years Chinese Checkers RushHour Yahtzee Card Games - Canasta, Snap Jack, Cribbage, 21, Hearts, 500 etc If anyone would like to discuss how to play, please feel free to contact alison.s@chrysalis.nsw.edu.au or via the office. Alison Scheef -…
The Right Brain Develops First: Why Play is the Foundation for Academic Learning
By Vince Gowmon Did you know that the right brain develops first? It does so by the time children are 3-4 years of age. The left brain, on the other hand, doesn’t fully come online until children are approximately seven years old; hence the first seven years being recognized as such a critical period in child development. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” ~ Albert Einstein The left brain’s functionality is one of language, numeracy, literacy, analysis and time. It is the logical, calculating, planning, busy-bee part of us that keeps us anchored in the pragmatic world, and in…
Camp Creative Scholarships Now Open
Camp Creative are generous enough to offer our students the opportunity to win scholarships again this year. It is a wonderful experience and students from our school have been in many courses over the years. The 2020 Camp Creative scholarship program is now open for kids and teens aged five to eighteen, living in the Coffs City, Nambucca and Bellingen Shires. The scholarships offer an opportunity to participate in a week of fun learning in the creative and performing arts. They’ll get five full days of creativity across a range of course options, including music, visual art, singing, drama, dance,…
Woodwork Program at Chrysalis
The woodwork program begins in year 5 and continues to class 8. Along the way students are introduced to the basics of woodwork and woodworking tools and gradually progress with an increase in complexity and difficulty of projects. A major focus of the program is to develop the WILL of the child. Taking a raw piece of wood and turning it into a beautiful object. This takes persistence, dedication and lots and lots of sanding. Along the way students learn the intricacies of wood and how to read its hidden secrets. Some is straight grained and easy to work, some…
Where Are The Textbooks? The Use of Main Lesson Books in Steiner Education
Main Lesson books are unique to Waldorf education. While traditional schooling pairs lecturing with textbook references and worksheets, Waldorf students process and record lectures in notes and illustrations on large, blank pages of high-quality paper. What are these books exactly and why do Waldorf schools use them? What is a Main Lesson Book? The creation of a Main Lesson book is an active, hands-on experience of learning that encourages both intention and creativity. Waldorf students record content of each subject of study, presented during a student’s main lesson class, in a Main Lesson book. These creative, curriculum-rich books become…
Why Steiner Students Knit
Knitting has been gathering a lot of attention lately by crafters and scientists alike. It turns out knitting and handwork provides a host of brain and wellbeing benefits to people of all ages. For students, in particular, knitting provides an essential learning medium. A child who is knitting a hat or a toy kitten sees their will transformed into art. They see their focused, detailed work turn into something beautiful and purpose filled. They experience how the conceptual becomes concrete. This is why Waldorf education founder, Rudolf Steiner, lectured on the importance of handwork for students just under 100 years…
Drawing is the best way to learn, even if you’re no Leonardo da Vinci
By Anne Quito “I just can’t draw.” It’s a refrain most adults say when confronted with a blank piece of paper. Something happens in our teenage years that makes most of us shy away from drawing, fretting that our draftsmanship skills aren’t up to par, and leaving it to the “artists” among us. But we’ve been thinking about drawing all wrong, says the design historian D.B. Dowd. In his illuminating new book, titled Stick Figures: Drawing as a Human Practice, Dowd argues that putting a pencil to paper shouldn’t be about making art at all. “We have misfiled the significance of drawing because…
Music By Youth Project at Bellingen Fine Music Festival
String workshops for local primary school students are a regular feature of the Bellingen Fine Music Festival “Music By Youth” Project. The strings workshop last year with the Acacia Quartet was hugely successful. We are delighted that Acacia is offering the same opportunity for primary school students this year. The workshop will be on Thursday 21 Sep at Bellingen Public School. Students from our school will be attending along with students from Bellingen Public School and Casuarina Steiner School in Coffs Harbour. Classical Busking is also a part of the “Music By Youth” Project. Listen to our students and students…