Community Enrichment Evenings
Community Enrichment Evenings are completed for the 2009/2010 school year.
Thank you to Terry Smith for organizing this year's events.
October 21, 2009 6pm-8pm
Eurythmy – Our visiting Eurythmy teacher Sophia Mandragouras will present the role that eurythmy plays within the Waldorf curriculum. “Eurythmy is called visible speech and visible music. That which one would normally hear, in the art of eurythmy, one sees in the movements of the eurythmist. Both language and music are human and find the expression of their qualities within the human being (San Francisco Waldorf School).”
November 18, 2009 6pm-8pm
Eugene Schwartz – Eugene Schwartz will be coming to Pine Forest charter school to provide information and insight into the Waldorf curriculum. In addition to his thirty years of experience as a class teacher, high school teacher, and educator of Waldorf teachers, Eugene has served as a consultant to Waldorf endeavors throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, England, Mexico, Austria, and Italy. Over the past decade, he has worked in this capacity with over one hundred twenty-five schools, including public schools in the New York metropolitan region and Waldorf charter schools in the West (http://www.millennialchild.com).
December 9, 2009 6pm–8pm
Foreign Languages – German teacher Anke Gorman, Spanish teacher Senora Carrie and additional faculty members will present the role that foreign languages play within the Waldorf curriculum. “Language is one of the most important means of communication between human beings. It is also the gateway to understanding a particular folk that has its own genius, its own individuality, its own musicality, and expresses itself in countless manifestations of everyday life (San Francisco Waldorf School).”
January 20, 2010 6pm-8pm
Music, Rhythm and Movement – Music teacher Stephanie Galloway and violin teacher Yuki Oshima will present the role music plays within the Waldorf curriculum. “Music is a vital part of the child's rhythmic-feeling-soul development. In the lower grades each child learns to play a simple instrument, either a wind instrument such as a recorder, or a stringed instrument such as a small lyre. Beginning in the fourth grade, the child becomes part of the class orchestra. Between the seventh year and puberty, the child is really a musical instrument (San Francisco Waldorf School).”
February 17, 2010 6pm-8pm
Manual Arts – Handwork teacher Patricia Laird-Martin and woodwork teacher Arne Kaiser will present the role of manual arts within the role of the Waldorf curriculum. “Children who learn while they are young to make practical things by hand in an artistic way, and for the benefit of others as well as for themselves, will not be strangers to life or to other people when they are older. They will be able to form their lives and their relationships in a social and artistic way, so that their lives are thereby enriched. Out of their ranks can come technicians and artists who will know how to solve the problems and tasks set us (Rudolph Steiner).”
March 24, 2010 6pm-8pm
Movement and Games – Games teacher Wendy Hunter and additional faculty members will present the role of movement and games within the role of the Waldorf curriculum. The character of the games in the first school years is very much determined by imagination; later by the free mobility of the limbs. Practically, this is done through circle games and simple gymnastics based on imaginative pictures for the youngest children. The joy and beauty around the children is felt inwardly as a sense of vitality and of growing strength. Gradually, games and activities of more skill and dimension are introduced by the movement teacher in scheduled games lessons and on the playground. The goal of physical education in the upper grades is to help the children toward mastery of the movements of the body in the surrounding.
April 21, 2009 6pm-8pm
Expeditionary Education and Field Trips- PFS faculty members will present the role of the extended classroom highlighting grade and age specific field trips and the balanced experience children encounter within the role of the Waldorf curriculum. “Curriculum-based field trips are a component of your child’s regularly scheduled class activities and are an enjoyable part of the school experience for students, teachers and parents alike. Each year, teachers schedule developmentally appropriate day trips, as well as multi-day outings for older students. Scheduled throughout the year, these trips provide opportunities for hands-on, experiential learning and reinforcement of material learned in the classroom (PFS Handbook).”
May 19, 2009 6pm-8pm
Indian Cooking Class – Class starts in the one of the Pine Forest kitchens, where you will meet April Cheema and your classmates to discuss the Indian menu and how to prepare it. Then you don aprons and, under April’s watchful eye and with her help, if needed, you will be assisted in preparing a wonderful Indian meal. When you have finished cooking, it’s time to gather around your table for beverages and tasty food cooked by you. Relax with the chef and chat with your classmates. Bon appetite!
