Madrona School Alphabet (Q)

At Madrona School, ‘Q’ stands for quesadillas…and peppermint tea in enamel mugs, good rain pants and boots, and a healthy dose of fresh air. Everything that makes outdoor kindergarten a pure joy! Children need time outdoors -- time to explore, problem solve, work hard, get dirty, lay quietly watching bugs or clouds, run, yell, chase, climb…. Each day, our kindergarteners do just that and more, at school and in nearby parks and beaches around the island. And, Friday’s class also enjoys an additional day out hiking and exploring on “adventure Fridays”. Experiencing the outdoors is an integral part of our curriculum, and represents a whole and healthy childhood. Rosy cheeks and the muddy boots are wonderful things! In our society at large, today's children spend an average of over seven hours (!) each day engaging with media of some sort, according to one study by the Kaiser Family Foundation -- and this was after data collection three separate years showed steady growth in that time. The National Wildlife Federation offers a list of recent research studies, many of them concluding that children's outdoor time is shrinking, and stands at well under an hour a day. Follow the link here to download their report entitled "Whole Child Report: Developing Mind, Body and Spirit Through Outdoor Play". Sound familiar? It's an excellent read. What a gift we give our youngest students, who can prepare for grade school with a healthy dose of movement and imaginative, nature-rich play. Engaging the whole child is a basic principle of Waldorf education, and one that ideally prepares our children to be resilient, hardy contributors to the world around them, and to find pleasure in the "great outdoors". We believe a Waldorf kindergarten education is beneficial to your children, your family, and to the wider world!

— adapted from our school newsletter

Madrona School Alphabet (P)

We’ve reached the letter ‘P’ in our 26-part series on what makes a Madrona School education unique, and P is for painting. Art infuses our curriculum, and a basic tenet of Waldorf education confirms artistic expression as elemental to our humanity. Every one of us is an artist, a creative being. In addition to drawing in main lesson and other specialty periods at Madrona, we include watercolor painting as a weekly activity in our early childhood classes, as well as a specialty class throughout the grade school. Our students learn techniques around wet-on-wet painting, applying watercolors to wet paper. This technique demonstrates the fluidity of color and requires time to learn, so the children build on what they know as they move through the grades. And, as with much of our curriculum, the full flowering of painting technique reveals itself in the middle school years. In kindergarten and 1st grade, students learn to work with color, experiencing colors both separately and blended, and they also begin to acquire brush control. As they develop skills, paintings reflect current main lesson blocks, and augment main lesson drawings and essays, becoming more detailed and skilled as they master techniques. We invite you to walk through the school building every so often - the teachers hang art in the halls on a regular basis. It's inspiring!

— adapted from our school newsletter

Madrona School Alphabet (O)

Hand drawn world maps by our 2019 8th graders — done as a part of their economic geography block.

We’re into the second half of our alphabet highlighting what makes a Madrona School education unique! ‘O’ celebrates Waldorf education as a part of our larger world. Madrona School, as a developing Waldorf school, is a member of a worldwide and growing independent education movement celebrating 100 years in 2019. According to the latest figures, there are more than 1,100 Waldorf schools in more than 60 countries; if you look specifically at early childhood programs, there are more than 2,000 on five continents. 

Waldorf education originated in Germany in 1919, when a factory owner asked Rudolf Steiner to develop a school for his workers' children. The original co-educational school, open to all and administered by teachers, was a direct outgrowth of Germany's social renewal efforts following World War I. And, even though the Waldorf education movement began in one place at a specific time, it continues to grow and evolve, seeking always to educate the whole child, recognizing a child reaches his or her full potential when education addresses not only the mind, but the body and spirit as well. Today, each Waldorf school is independently run, and each school reflects local culture and practice -- just as we make use of all the natural beauty in our local woods and beaches and incorporate our region's history and culture into our curriculum, the same is true for schools around the world. At the same time there are elements of Waldorf education that are recognizable and translate across cultures, as each and every school strives to educate and develop each student's awakening capacities, and graduate creative thinkers who feel themselves a part of not only their culture, but of a common humanity.

Postcards received as a part of the global postcard exchange between Waldorf schools in 2018-2019.

Postcards received as a part of the global postcard exchange between Waldorf schools in 2018-2019.

If you are interested in reading more, please investigate the information on the AWSNA (Association of Waldorf Schools of North America) website, or all of the work that the German organization, Friends of Waldorf, highlights on their webpages. And, for a visual trip around the world, check out the Waldorf100 videos: Learn to Change the World, and the early childhood focused, Becoming. It is so interesting to see snippets of so many schools in so many different cultures! 

In the day to day work of educating our students, we don't often think of our little school on Bainbridge Island with global connections, but indeed they are there!

—adapted from our school newsletter

What does a games and movement teacher do to celebrate the Waldorf 100 Anniversary?

Why... Run 100 miles in a school year of course!

Tracking our progress…

This year, to celebrate the Waldorf 100 year anniversary, the Madrona School 2nd through 8th grades, will be cumulatively running 100 miles during games classes. That's 33 miles for the fall, 33 miles for the winter, and 34 miles in the spring. Surprisingly to most of the students, we reached our fall goal early just this week, with the 2nd grade running the last mile and a half to complete the first 33 miles. Over all, the 2nd and 3rd grades put in a lot of running time and came out on top with 6 miles each towards the goal. All of the classes have put forth an amazing effort!

Planning the next run at the start of a class…

Along with all of the enthusiasm around reaching this goal, I have had a great chance to talk about the importance of hydration. Several of the students call me "Ms. Do you have your water bottle?" Quite a few of the students have realized how much better they feel after fueling up before, during and after our time together. Additionally, proper footwear has come into play. Nothing like trudging along in your fancy school shoes, to remind yourself to bring running shoes for the next class.

Make sure to be on the lookout after Thanksgiving break, when the Madrona Waldorf 100 Running Club will be back in action piling up those miles running around town, and in Moritani Park working towards our collective goal of 100 miles!

— From our games and movement teacher, Jamie Villella

Madrona School is a non-profit, tax exempt public charity organization incorporated in the State of Washington. Madrona School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender expression or identity, national and ethnic origin, sexual orientation, or religion in any of its programs, classes or activities.