Curriculum Comparison of Waldorf Essentials and Live Education Grade 5 

That’s great news. Thank you for sharing your experience 🙏

Thank you for sharing your experience 🙏

Yep! A long 2 year break and now I'm doing videos while teaching my last child. Just a few years left.

Same! I have four kids and would love to see more about how she just did one main lesson block and added extras to it for the other kids ages.

Yes! I often did one main lesson block at a time and everyone participated. The Waldorf 'higher ups' aren't fond of this approach as the stories for each grade level are intended for the development of the child at that age, but sometimes it's not practical to do multiple main lessons in a day.

Yes! I do think you could for sure. It may otherwise be more challenging with a completely different educational approach, but within one philosophy, I think it's very doable. Of course, i didn't actually do that, so I'm speaking theoretically, but I think it's a sound approach.

You’re welcome! I think I’ve shared recently about our rhythm but I’ll double check.

there are groups on facebook for parents to trade and sell curricula. i'm not sure if there are any specific to this one, but there are also other waldorf inspired curricula out there that can also work. i personally look at bits and pieces on ebay as well, used and older versions can be cheaper and just as good.

thank you for sharing. Some second hand curriculum is easier to come by versus others.

Please don't think that the only way to home educated is the expensive way. You can homeschool (even Waldorf if you want) on a limited budget, but it does take a lot more planning and prep, but there are tons of free resources and libraries out there.

The disappointing thing at the moment is that Waldorf if quite expensive when it's supposed to be accessible. Materials are high quality and used to be readily available. This philosophy was around before the explosion of plastic use which drove up costs of items that used to be more affordable. Now a single playsilk or paint brush is $20! I used to buy one and share with my kids and I policed the use heavily! I bought second hand on ebay and cherished each item. It's been 20+ years, so over time, I've accumulated a lot, but it was sparse in the beginning. However, I would forego a pricy high quality item for a cheaper one if it meant my children were still learning how to knit and watercolor for instance.

My husband lost his job in the beginning of our homeschool career and we still did Waldorf learning without curriculum. We had to use our cheap printer paper we already had and donated crayons (cheap ones not the Waldorf ones we have now). You can make it work. You can build your own blocks based on the same topics for the age range and then use the library for fairytales and legends. That’s how we did it! I would look up the scope for each age range at a local Waldorf school and then do the same topics. Probably totally different by my kids didn’t notice. We had the cheap playsilks until we were able to replace them years later. My eldest is an adult and my second oldest is 17 and they all loved it even though it was basically free/cheap. I had 6 children and, trust me it can be done. 💗

You're welcome 😊 Alhumduillah, I'm glad it's helpful and informative and beautiful :)

Ah yes, thank you for sharing that. Autism and other neuroatypical students will likely follow a modified curriculum schedule depending on their individual needs. Thanks for the reminder.

Thank you, I will try!

I would love to take a look at it and share.

Wa’alaykum Asalam! Yes they are very hard to come by second hand because they ask they we don’t resell them. Other curriculum is easier to find, but live Ed material is hard.

Yes, the price of curriculum is very high compared to say books or workbooks. And at least for books, you can find much of what you need at the library.

Yes! But they would have to send me the curriculum. Do you have a personal connection to the writers of that curriculum?

Thank you for the info Katie, I may try that.