Have you every used or heard of any of these companies? What do you think about them?

Many years ago I purchased the BEarth Institutes earthschooling curriculum - which is a Steiner/Woldorf curricum - I would say it's the most financially viable, especially if you have a large family. When you buy a lifetime package you have access for ever, for as many children as you will ever be teaching - and they are constantly upgrading and you get access to all future upgrades. You print out what you want to use, and there are video lessons for parents. You can either opt to follow their setout program, or just print what you want and create your own program. For me worldorf/steiner is rather cultish and dogmatic, especially their schools - when you look into Steiner himself I tend do believe he would be rolling in his grave at what's being done in his name - his own personal education was more along the lines of unschooling, he wasn't reading or doing sit down lessons until he was around 13.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing! I'm sure this will be super helpful for people looking into this method. It is interesting to know how his method has been changed by people.

@lauramt4454

2 жыл бұрын

That’s interesting if it’s true as I noted in public schools children naturally start getting an interest for academics at around 13. Tho if to stick to what he was/said then earth schooling is loaded on video lessons so that kind of totally clashes with anthroposophy and the no tech idea. Or do you mean that is cultish to raise children screen free?

@tuathadesidhe1530

2 жыл бұрын

@@lauramt4454 the video lessons are not for the children, they are for the parent/teacher, to teach them how to teach in specific ways, how to do the chalk drawing etc with the possible exception of the irridology lessons - though most likely they too were only meant for the parent/teacher, but we all just watched that together - which really helped as we all have blue eyes. I say it's cultish because that's how it, and the people come across - over the years we've had quite a number of people leave, or contemplate leaving the local steiner school and they will come along to our home ed meet up group for a while. They will say things like "there are too many children from "non-steiner" families attending". People get the impression that steiner schooling is "so" artistic - but they are artistic in a very controlled way, and there is no black or brown - whether with paints, crayons or the clothing that children are allowed to wear. They are not allowed to eat onion, garlic, mushrooms and a few other things whether at school or at home, they eat certain things on certain days. Children learn specific things at certain ages... When in reality age has nothing to do with a child's ability or interest, and steiner himself did not learn this way. Ontop of the wait lists, and $3,800 per child per year (its most likely gone up by now) your child goes in on a probationary period, if they can't get your child to conform to their way of learning it can't stay. And this is where our local school is having some issues, as there is a local aboriginal mission with drug and alcohol issues which have spread into the state school in a rather tragic way - "people who let their kids watch tv", and feed them meat, and mushrooms, and let them wear clothes with cartoon characters on them etc, etc, are now sending their kids to the steiner school to avoid the issues at the state school - and the government pay for aboriginal children's education, and some of their parents also don't want them exposed to what's happening in the state school, so the government is paying for some aboriginal kids to attend... And some of these actual steiner families don't want their kids making friends with the kids from the mission. There is the religious stuff I take issue with too.

A few more waldorf curriculums I haven't seen mentioned: - The Beauty of Play: A unit based curriculum, mostly math but they also have botany, geography and some others i think - Jamie York / Making Math Meaningful: Math curriculum going from k-12, it's sold as guide books for elementary, middle, and high school with work books added for middle and high school. - Pepper and Pine: Another unit based curriculum, there are some amazing history and math units.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

9 ай бұрын

Perfect! Thanks for asking to the list!

I can't say enough about Waldorf Essentials! I've used the Early childhood Foundations, K1 and K2. The curriculum is wonderful and beautiful. And been a Thinking Feeling Willing program for a year and a half now and it's SO helpful. The training videos, content, masterclasses, weekly zoom call for Q&A and support are SO very worth it and helpful to me. Just wanted to share my experience so far. Love the curriculum and support and knowledge from Melisa and her team.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing your experience! I’m sure it will be so helpful to people looking into this style of curriculum to hear that.

We have used Oak Meadow since the beginning of our homeschool. We love it. It’s the right amount of main stream and Waldorf for us. We also have Waldorfish for art and have the weekly lessons. They open up for registration twice a year (if I remember correctly) and you get I believe 36 weeks of art lesson videos. They open each one up weekly to you. After the 36 weeks you have access to those videos forever. It’s great as you can use it for your whole family. We love it. And I believe it was less than $250 and as I said you have access to the videos forever so you can use it for years to come and since it’s videos you can use it for your whole family.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for sharing your experience!

@vonab.shodja6888

Жыл бұрын

We use them, too! (Both sources)

I would also add that early years of oak meadow do require quite a bit of parental involvement. Independence is encouraged around fourth grade. Oak meadow does a nice job of laying out for the parent what needs to be accomplished in a week. I'm curious to see how Waldorf essentials compares. Live education IMO is best suited for someone who maybe has more experience with Waldorf education. I know their curriculum is solid but it does really require the parent to know what they're doing and doesn't provide much hand-holding within the actual curriculum.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

Жыл бұрын

Very good to know!

I have tried Oak Meadow and Live Ed. Both did not work for our family. I didn't care for the layout of OM and Live Ed had no support. Earth schooling was too overwhelming for me. Within my co-op I have friends that have used to Christopherus but switched. Waldorf Essentials training, TFW is so helpful and the owner Melisa, personally, will walk side by side and coach on all topics Waldorf, homeschool and parenting. I also like that she wrote the curriculum from Steiner's teachings. It's been the best investment and glad to have found it. I have considered her virtual school Seasons of Seven to help with the older years.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing all your experiences!

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing!

Love and have used Waldorf Essentials for a few years now!

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing!

We used Lavender’s Blue Homeschool Waldorf-inspired curriculum for K-2 and loved it. Kelly has a terrific blog, too.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing! It's always great to get the names of more resources.

@brittney9467

Жыл бұрын

i just stumbled upon her blog !!!

This video is very helpful!

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

19 күн бұрын

Thank you for watching! So glad it is helpful!

Wow, I had no idea there were so many Waldorf options!

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

2 жыл бұрын

I know! I was surprised too.

For OakMeadow, you are a homeschooler even if using distance learning school. You use exact same curriculum. You just submit assignments to a teacher who grades. OM just keeps records. But you are a homeschooler and you do all the teaching. The teacher doesn’t actually do the teaching. It is NOT virtual school.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

4 ай бұрын

Oh… good clarification! Thank you!

Oak Meadow’s enrollment option is NOT actually virtual. The parent still teaches the child as they would for homeschool, but the child is assigned a teacher from the school who receives monthly notes from the parent, offers feedback, and keeps track of official transcripts for the child.

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for adding that information! I really appreciate it!

@vonab.shodja6888

Жыл бұрын

@@CalmintheChaosHomeschool no problem. We currently use the curriculum and have for a few years so I’m happy to answer any questions if you have them. 😁

This was super helpful. Thank you for this video!!!

@CalmintheChaosHomeschool

Жыл бұрын

You're so welcome!