Given my recent series of posts about the rhythm and components of a main lesson, I was interested to read Christoph Weikert’s recent article on the Waldorf Teachers website about a freer perception of main lesson rhythm.
In practice I find that I am much looser with my main lesson rhythm than what I described here. I find that some days my students need a stronger dose of new content, other days they need more concentrated work. Some subjects make more sense to bring the new content immediately following the recall. Other subjects feel more story-like and finish off the lesson nicely.
I think it is nice to be able to play with the morning in this way, though I have found this year, that having a few solid touchpoints of strong everyday rhythm are invaluable. For us, we start our day with the same couple of songs and verses everyday (including the morning verse). We have a regular rhythm for circle and then we mix it up a bit. There is another moment of everyday rhythm when they get back to their desks and we have a dictation. Having these solid moments of rhythm allow us to mix the rest of main lesson up a bit and still feel like we have a dependable main lesson.
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