
Summer Weeks 2025
Our summer weeks are open to everyone!
The summer weeks are part of our full programs, and they can each be taken separately. These weeks/modules can serve as a renewal, an introduction to, or part of our full program. The best experience and the speediest pathway to become a certified Waldorf teacher is still when you enroll in the full program.
Waldorf Practical Arts
June 23 - 28. Module 7 Location: Waldorf School of Orange County
Woodwork, Handworks, Foundations: With Jack Bryant - Mona Lewis - Terra Malmstrom
Hard crafts: Exploring 7th-12th grade curriculum possibilities beginning with two days of metal smithing, followed by four days of carving a Bas-Relief using Linden Wood. Soft crafts: Learning to use the American patchwork technique to create a Log Cabin pillow cover from scraps of fabric. The goal is to foster precision for 7th graders. Anthroposophy: Studying Core Principle # 7: School leadership and governance are guided by collaboration and shared responsibility.
Price: Varies depending on personal choices - more info in Sign-up
Grades 1-8
The Power of Literacy in grades 1-4
June 30 - July 4 - Grades Week. San Diego Campus
Teaching as an Art: With Clare Knauss - Shivani Burrows Goodwill - Michael Knauss -Johanna Laurelin - Nicole Martinez. In grades 1-4 Waldorf education lays a holistic foundation for a lifelong love of language through a variety of learning modalities to enhance language skills, imagination and creative expression. Oral storytelling and dramatic presentations engage children and foster language development. Writing is encouraged early, with an emphasis on drawing and handwriting, where children explore letter formation and sound relationships, leading to simple compositions, grammar and spelling. Physical activities, crucial for brain development and learning, allow the children to embody phonemic awareness with a focus on sounds of words and their representation, using movement, rhymes, poetry and song. We will explore ways to establish a sound basis in phonics using the imagination, while developing comprehension and expressive writing capacities to uncover the joy of literacy.
Price: $775
The Power of Literacy in Grades 5-8
July 7-11 - Grades Week. Los Angeles Campus
Teaching as an Art: With Brenan Yack & Tomasa Mendoza. In grades 5-8 Waldorf education, literacy development is approached holistically, nurturing the intellectual and spiritual growth of the young person’s evolving capacity for critical thinking. Students engage deeply with literature and poetry, cultivating empathy, imagination, and discernment. Through discussions and creative projects, they explore the moral and emotional dimensions of stories while refining their understanding of grammar and language as living expressions of thought. Writing becomes a soulful practice, ranging from vivid storytelling to reflective essays, and public speaking is approached as an art form that strengthens confidence and clarity. Oral presentations and research projects integrated with history, science, technological literacy, and the humanities, foster confidence, interdisciplinary thinking, and meaningful engagement.
Price: $775
Early Childhood
Accompanying Children with Anxieties and Trauma.
July 14-18 -Early Childhood Week San Diego Campus
With Laurie Clark, Tom Clark & Johanna Laurelin Enkindling forces of Resilience and Support for the Young Child: From the Chrysalis to the Butterfly: Reading the child’s developmental phases through their drawings. Including movement to integrate and mature the child’s sensory system, the art of enhancing essential competencies through the Waldorf Curriculum, rethinking child contemplation as a path of support, art as creative process for the teacher’s well-being, water color painting with children and Eurythmy practice.
Price: $775
Building a Strong Foundation for Literacy in the First 7 years.
July 21-25 -Early Childhood Week Los Angeles Campus
With Holly Koteen-Soulé, Holly Richards, Dana Williams & Christine Burke Living Language: We will explore how the wide range of movement activities, sensory experiences and the rich oral environment of Waldorf Early Childhood programs support the development of capacities that allow our children to step eagerly into the world of literacy in Grade One. We will also explore the role of puppets in early childhood and how they enhance the storytelling activities for children of all ages, in parent and child classes, nursery and the mixed-age kindergarten. Art of Speech creating and using simple puppets, and Eurythmy.
Price: $775
Emergency and Trauma Pedagogy
July 24-28 Rudolf Steiner Community Center, Pasadena CA
with Reinaldo Nascimento
Training to be a second responder when emergency situations occur at home or in the wider world. This is an important part of disaster preparedness and at the same time it helps build up the network of global crisis intervention teams.
You will learn to help traumatized children and young people to process their experiences, so they don’t result in long term trauma.
This week will be focussed on Module 4, 8 & 11. The modules do not have to be taken in order.
Price: $625
Honoring Human Dignity and Diversity
July 28-30 Online
Honoring Human Dignity. 9am-12pm each three days online, via zoom.
Exploring human dignity and diversity from three perspectives. Speakers: Dr. Linda Williams, Shivani Burrows-Goodwill in conversation, and local native American community Elder Allan Salazar.
Dr. Linda Williams: The Social Question. Awakening Community in Regard to Steiner. The Anthroposophical Response to DEI.
Shivani Burrows Goodwill in conversation with Ivan Hernandez: Cultural Humility for Social Resistance.
Price: $360