Specialty Subjects
City of Fountains strives to offer a wide variety of specialty classes to students in the grades program. These specialty classes are essential to a well-balanced education of the whole child, engaging all aspects of intelligence through the head, heart and hands. Some classes are offered daily, while others are offered in rotating blocks.
Foreign Language
Educators and parents alike understand the clear benefit of language study. Our dedicated Foreign Language Program offers Grades students the opportunity to take weekly lessons focused on a sole language. Currently, students receive an immersive Spanish experience in line with Waldorf pedagogy. The intention of our program is to develop a positive attitude toward people of other languages, cultures and countries and to encourage the development of human understanding. The goal of our program at this time is not to ensure language fluency.
Handwork
In Handwork classes, students are taught a variety of skills including how to knit, crochet, hand sew, wool felt, and weave. Older students gain experience in woodworking, machine sewing and embroidery. The curriculum cultivates manual dexterity and fine motor movement, thereby furthering cognitive development and strengthening the soul life. These skills are integrated at all grades levels.
Movement
Moving and playing games together enables students to move fully, know who they are and enter into a more healthy relationship with the world and its requirements. As the body moves becoming stronger and more agile, so does the mind reflexively become more creative and flexible, able to form stronger mental images.
Movement and games classes are joyful and fun. They engage students in a variety of modalities of movement that build a greater awareness of and intentionality with their body and self. They encourage a deeper connection to the realm of outer-awareness to others and the world at large.
In class, students participate in activities such as Zoo exercises, bean bag and racquetball games, jump rope, hand claps, cooperative and competitive group games, pentathlon training, folk dance, and improvisation.
Music
Singing together is an integral aspect of Waldorf education. Teachers sing with students throughout the school day, from morning to main lesson to music specialty classes. Music nourishes the developing emotional and soul life of middle childhood and strengthen capacities that stretch into academics such as listening, identifying tone/mood, rhythm, mathematical patterns, and more. Along with singing, students learn to play pentatonic and diatonic flutes, recorder and stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello) through the span of 1st through 8th grades
Outdoor/Nature
Coming to understand our interbeing with all that surrounds us requires open and intimate interaction with the natural world. This reverential relationship is a pillar of Waldorf Education that reaches within the confines of the classroom and our outside environment, both at school and in the local community. In order to draw students into a more focused realm of observation and interaction with nature, lead teachers also engage their classes in gardening, and outdoor school projects/lessons as part of a main lesson block, or take the occasional field trip.
During seven Outdoor Days each year, students are given a full school day to freely play with their peers at one of several local nature reserves or city parks. Curriculum is not on the agenda these days, rather the focus is on allowing time for exploration that invites wonder, curiosity and interest in nature.
Art
For younger grades, artistic activities take place as part of the main lesson experience. For upper grades, art also becomes a rotating specialty block taught by either the lead teacher or a specialty subject teacher. Through these art experiences, students will learn skills in wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry watercolor painting, form drawing, a variety of drawing techniques, beeswax and clay modeling, and printmaking.
Cyber Civics (Middle School only)
The Cyber Civics specialty class is a rotating block that is offered in grades 5 through 8. The program is designed to teach students about responsible and ethical behavior in the digital world. The curriculum is designed to help develop skills and understanding of various aspects of digital citizenship, online safety, information literacy, and the responsible use of technology. The goal of Cyber Civics is to empower students to become responsible, informed, and ethical digital citizens.
