Needle Felted Valentine Heart Tutorial

All elementary and middle school students take Handwork class at Waldorf School of Cape Cod. As you can imagine, handmade Valentine's are a part of our culture. This tradition starts with our preschool students and follows through into the grades.

Finger knitting and hand sewing are introduced in our Kindergarten classroom. In First grade students start the process of knitting a scarf. Each day, students continue their work on this project until they have a full knitted scarf, instilling a sustained focus and the will to complete a project.

As children get into the upper grades and middle school, the handwork projects get more advanced. They knit socks, learn to crochet, and start woodworking projects with hand tools.

Needle felting is a craft often seen in Waldorf school upper grades and many Waldorf parents enjoy learning needle felting during parent & child classes. This needle felted valentine heart project is one that an older child can make or something adults can make for their young child for Valentine's Day.

Instructions:

Step One: Needle felt white wool onto heart shaped felt cut-out.

Step Two: Needle felt red colored wool in a pattern covering the white wool. Use the felting needle to attach it securely.

Step Three: Use an embroidery needle to attach the thread. Tie in a loop at the top.

Click here to download and print the PDF Instructions.

How We Inspire Students to Appreciate Diversity

“We went to Cape Abilities farm for a field trip with the sixth grade. Ronald inspires me because he taught me that anything is possible if you try.”

- K.T. Fifth grade student at WSCC

In Waldorf schools, every child is gifted and talented and the curriculum is designed to bring his or her talent to light. Waldorf curriculum exposes children to a wide variety of subjects and encourages them to develop in a well-balanced way. 

Girls and boys take woodwork and learn to knit, and everyone plays a musical instrument. These diverse experiences help children to discover and develop their own talents while noticing that each person’s gifts are different. This approach encourages the appreciation of many types of skills in addition to academic skills.

Our sixth grade class is reading Sharon Draper’s book, Out of My Mind, which is the story of an intelligent 11-year old girl who cannot speak, talk, or write and her journey through these challenges. The class teachers brought both the fifth and sixth grade classes to Cape Abilities farm to broaden their real world experience while reading this story.

The students visited Cape Abilities Farm just before the holidays to be immersed into the daily happenings at the farm. The children helped unwrap trees, decorate kissing balls, and pick tomatoes alongside the farm staff. One student reflected:

“My field trip to Cape Abilities farm was great. I found the trip very inspiring… Two workers really touched my heart, their names were Ronald and Henry, both of them were so nice and they both loved their jobs.”

- J.D. WSCC Fifth grade student.

Waldorf educators believe that the curriculum brings to light each child’s unique talents while developing appreciation for other’s gifts and talents that may be different from their own. The goal is to send forth into the world children who appreciate the diversity and myriad of talents that human beings share.

The Most Important Subject Our First Graders Learn

By Caitlin Costello, Class 1 Teacher

On the very first day of school, our first grade children were presented with the polarity of two kinds of lines - straight lines and curves. Throughout the year they will see the infinite variety of forms that can be created out of these simple elements.

In some respects, Form Drawing is the most important subject that the children will study in first grade, for it provides a good foundation for the letter recognition that is so central to reading, as well as numerical and spatial relationships that are so essential in arithmetic.  The drawings themselves could not be any simpler. All year we work with only two elements of drawing - straight lines and curves. 

Form Drawing  awakens several capacities in the first grader:

1. Concentration: this elusive quality flourishes in Form Drawing. The forms we draw cannot be done well unless each child is focused and quiet.
2. Eye/hand coordination: the “model” drawing on the board must be copied onto the child’s paper, and, as the year goes on, most children learn to trust their eye’s guidance. This ability to trust in one’s own capacities helps instill confidence that in turn shows itself in other subjects, as well.
3. Understanding the relationship of the part to the whole: the harmonious nature of the form drawings we will do helps both the scattered child, who is drawn too far into the “whole,” and the overly-contracted child, who lives too strongly in the “parts.”
4. Understanding forms that relate to numbers: the simple “geometrical drawings” the children encounter will help with numerical relationships and a whole range of geometrical concepts.
5. Neatness and balance: a Form Drawing cannot be beautiful unless it is placed in just the right way on the paper!

The straight and curved lines that are the backbone of Form Drawing are also the basic elements of our letters. By learning first in Form Drawing the difference between a curve that “faces” right and one that faces left, or where a curve ends and a straight line begins, a child becomes better able to perceive and recollect the forms of the letters. This is how reading and writing begin in Waldorf Education.