Madrona School Alphabet (M)

Our celebration of what makes a Madrona School Waldorf education unique continues with… M for music!

Music in its most basic rhythmic form surrounds us from our earliest days -- heartbeat and breath, and eventually those sweet, simple lullabies from our parents and caregivers. There are many books and articles to explain different ways our brains benefit from music, its relationship with math, with memory, and on and on. Music infuses our curriculum at Madrona School too. There are songs for all the work and transitions in our early childhood classes, and during circles throughout the grades. We sing as classes and at assemblies, we play flutes and recorders, and 4th graders choose a stringed instrument, playing and reading music together through 8th grade. Music helps our students practice pattern recognition (good for reading and math!), creativity of expression, and collaboration through ensemble work, not to mention improvement through the discipline of a daily practice. Music offers an expression of joyful organization and speaks to us on so many levels; its daily integration in the curriculum is truly something to treasure!

—adapted from our weekly email newsletter

Bainbridge Island Circumnavigation Complete!

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Our 8th graders finished up the low-tide circumnavigation of Bainbridge Island they began in 5th grade today. They celebrated with popsicles at the Point White dock. If you ask them now, their feet felt every rocky and sandy step of the 53-mile long hike. With time, perhaps they’ll tell us about all the wildlife and geology sightings, and remember the silly stories?!

May Day 2019

We really enjoy our school-wide festivals as an opportunity to gather together for seasonal fun. May Day is particularly beloved as a celebration of spring and the re-awakening of the natural world around us. It is particularly photogenic too, with flowers and brightly colored ribbons. Our school traditions include making flower crowns, a cake walk, bubbles, lemon peppermints (a peppermint “straw” inserted into a whole lemon), a community picnic and dancing around a maypole.

Madrona School Alphabet (L)

Next up in our alphabet-based exploration of what makes a Waldorf education unique...L for living education. We've explored this topic in other ways throughout this alphabet, but it bears repeating. Living education happens when you offer learning through experience and discovery, when you have a strong relationship between teachers and students, and when you offer a curriculum that engages all the senses.

As members of the Madrona School community we can all think of the glimpses we have of this education in action. There are the bean bag exercises that combine mental math with rhythm and song, taking practice to perfect. There are the demonstrations of middle school science -- making sound resonance visible with a Chladni plate demonstration or studying mechanics through building simple machines. There are the 1st graders in handwork class, knitting yes, but stopping often to count their rows and look up at the shared pattern posted at the head of the room, mentally calculating and then announcing how many "mountains" remain in their project. There is the sharing of applesauce, sauerkraut and beeswax candles from 3rd grade practical arts lessons, and the understanding of a life cycle as they prepare to plant grains in our new garden space for next year's 3rd grade to harvest and study. There is the focused silence of book work in the 4th grade after an energetic and physical game of energetic sentence diagramming in language arts. Countless examples abound...

In a 2014 interview, Christof Weichert said: [A dynamic lesson] is the essence of Waldorf education. Steiner said that we teach within an artistic process…the experience is that of expansion and contraction. It is shaped by very precise use of oral qualities, visual qualities and interactive qualities, and they have to be in balance. You should always have an eye for what refreshes the children and what tires them. If the children get tired, you change into another mood or another activity so you and the children are in kind of a flow….If you are engaged—and you’ll find that in the third chapter of The Study of Man—if you engage yourself in what you do, you stay alive. You stay fresh.

—adapted from our weekly email newsletter, May 20, 2014



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.