Middle School: Grades 6-8

The Waldorf Middle School is a dynamic place filled with the energy of engaged and enthusiatic students.

The curriculum achieves an integrated balance between the sciences, the humanities, and the arts, as it leads the child through the basic branches of knowledge through the main lesson system.

As part of their Language Arts curriculum, eighth graders write, illustrate and bind a story book for a first grade student.  The opportunity to consider a younger child with this thoughtfulness is rarely provided to adolescent children.

The main lesson is a two hour period at the beginning of each day saturated in one subject area for three to four weeks at a time. This continuity allows for each subject to be approached with greater depth, utilizing all modalities of learning. During main lesson, the students create their own text books, expressing the subject matter in writing and illustration. This process allows for true understanding and retention of the lesson.

In addition to the class teacher, the Middle School Student is supported in Math and Language Arts track classes, as well as special subject classes in Foreign Language, Physical Education, Music, Fine Arts, Hawaiiana, Gardening, and Handcrafts.

The Middle School Curriculum includes:

Grade Six
  • Transition from Grecian world to Roman
  • Ancient Rome: the Kings, the Republic, the Empire, the Middle Ages
  • Business math: percentages, banking, currency and simple interest geometry
  • Language arts: grammar (subjunctive mood and the conditional), spelling composition, literature
  • Physics: introduction to light and color, heat, sound, magnetism, and electricity
  • Astronomy: geocentric and phenomenological, including the influence of stars and planets on various aspects of Hawaiian life
  • Knitting in the round with four needles
  • Geography: climatic zones and oceanography
  • Recorder and ukulele music, Hawaiiana stories, hula and crafts
  • Spanish language
  • Movement education  
Grade Seven
  • Middle Ages to the Renaissance: Joan of Arc to the Elizabethan Age
  • Age of discovery and the conquistadors
  • Astronomy: Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, Kepler
  • The reformation
  • Geography of Asia and Europe
  • Introduction to algebra
  • Nutrition and physiology
  • Chemistry
  • Mechanics
  • Peer mediation skills
  • Community service
  • Perspective drawing
  • Articles of clothing sewn by hand
  • Recorder and ukulele music
  • Hawaiiana including stories, hula and crafts
  • Spanish language
  • Movement education  
Grade Eight
  • The Age of Revolution - French Revolution, American Revolution, Civil War and Industrial Revolution
  • American history
  • World geography
  • Physics: practical applications of electricity, steam engines, thermodynamics, hydraulics
  • Physiology: eye, ear, larynx, skeleton
  • Organic chemistry
  • World history: Napoleon to WWI and WWII to the present time
  • Community service
  • Algebra
  • Recorder and ukulele music
  • Hawaiian stories, hula and crafts
  • Spanish language
  • Movement education

For more information, please follow this link to our admissions page.