Enrollment Opportunities Available for Green Meadow Waldorf School’s Third and Fourth Grade Cla

May 4, 2011 - PRLog -- Green Meadow Waldorf School’s (http://www.gmws.org/index.aspx) unique take on the traditional elementary school curriculum nurtures young students’ imaginations and preserves their eagerness to learn.
Grade One builds the foundation for reading, writing, arithmetic and, of course, the arts, developing young minds through the majesty of poetry and the magic of numbers. Because Green Meadow understands the importance of being fluent in multiple languages, both Spanish and German are introduced in first grade.

Grade Two builds upon the curriculum of first grade, focusing on the relationship between numbers, sentence construction and the human story through splendor of fables. Second grade students display their compassion each year through the hosting of a coat drive to collect warm clothing for the less fortunate: a lesson learned from a story taught about the life of Saint Martin.

In the third grade, students gain an awareness of themselves as individuals and as inhabitants of the earth. Students are taught how to grow and harvest their own food. In the spring, students take a memorable 5-day trip to Hawthorne Valley Farm in Ghent, N.Y., where they gain their first experience away from home and family, as they also learn to become stewards of the earth.

Building on the students’ farming experience, geography and zoology become the first formal science studies for the fourth grade students. Exploration becomes the capstone of the fourth grade curriculum. Come year’s end, students take a trip to North/South Lake in the Catskills. Here, students gain an understanding of nature through the exploration of the mountains as a class. By grade four, the cultivation of musical abilities is also realized. Students are able to explore their musical talents by playing as a part of an orchestra.
If you would like to register your child for the third or fourth grade for fall 2011, please contact Patricia Owens, Admissions Coordinator, at powens@gmws.org or call 845-356-9715.

Nearly 350 students from 13 counties and almost 90 towns attend the independent Green Meadow Waldorf School. Located about 20 miles north of New York City, Green Meadow serves students from nursery school through grade 12.

Waldorf education is the fastest-growing independent school movement worldwide, with 300 schools in the U.S. and nearly 1,000 around the world. The curriculum is based on the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, who founded the first Waldorf School in Germany in 1919. Green Meadow offers developmentally based, challenging academic coursework infused with the arts.  Students are exposed to diverse disciplines and can choose traditional classes such as modern languages and sciences while also learning practical arts, such as knitting, blacksmithing, and woodworking. The school also limits the use of technology and media for younger students, which is now understood by researchers as essential to the developing brain.  

About Green Meadow School and the Waldorf education: Founded in Germany in 1919 by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf Education now includes schools on every continent. Green Meadow Waldorf School is an accredited full member of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), an association that strengthens and supports Waldorf schools and informs the public of the benefits of Waldorf education.  Green Meadow is also an accredited member of the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS), a voluntary association of more than 140 independent schools in the state of New York.