Bible Alphabet
I was thinking about what I would do if called upon to write a Sunday School
curriculum for our church's combined 1st and 2nd grade class. I'd like something less
rigorous than the 3rd/4th/5th grade curriculum but still studying Bible stories,
and dealing with the content in a more Waldorf way.
I came upon the idea
of doing a Bible Alphabet. Although these are traditional school children,
it never hurts to redo the alphabet, especially since there is no guarantee that
the children all know how to read. And, in lieu of fairy tales, stories
from the Bible could be substituted.
Here are some of my ideas..
Material would be covered in a three-day cycle as described in From Nature Studies to Natural Science
by Donna Simmons, page 11:
presentation – sleep
retelling – artistic expression – sleep
going deeper or elaborating
By doing only 13 letters per year (which is enough content for a 39 week school year, extend or shorten lessons
as needed) you have ample time to spend on each letter. I suggest Day One a nature walk, add items to the nature table, and
then the storytelling. Day Two you review the story again through drama, puppetry, music or a handwork
project and
then have the children complete the illustration portion of the main lesson book. Day Three the children tell the story back to you, compose their short texts and add the written
portion of their main lesson book (2 page spread).
I want to stress that Waldorf schools do not teach the alphabet using Bible stories. This is strictly
an idea of my own invention and I give it here merely
a suggestion of a way to use the Waldorf method of introducing the alphabet with children who have already
learned it in a traditional setting.
Main Text: Story of the Bible by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut,
available online FREE at The Baldwin Project
The First Year
The Second Year
Notes: This can be done from A to Z, or by doing the stories in chronological order and slowly filling in the alphabet as you go. In that case, the order would be (for the stories I picked)
The First Year: S, O, T, P, I, N, B, R, V, K, Z, C, L
The Second Year: Q, H, A, M, J, W, F, X, D, G, U, E, Y
See more illustrations from LMNOP -- find E at Santa
Cruz Waldorf School; and F at Nova Natural.
The poem for W can be found at the Mercurius website.
To find a story in Story of the Bible to accompany a specific illustration, just type "baldwin project hurlbut ______" into a Google search box, placing whatever
word you want to search for in the blank.
There is an additional storybook of New Testament Stories which has been recorded as part of the Baldwin Project: When the King Came:
Stories from the Four Gospels by George Hodges.
School Materials
Stockmar Block Beeswax Crayons
Main Lesson Books
Supplemental Booklist
From Nature Stories to Natural Science by Donna Simmons
Drawing with Your Four to Eleven Year Old by Donna Simmons
Putting the Heart Back into Teaching: A Manual for Junior Primary Teachers by Stanford Maher and Yvonne Bleach
Living Alphabet or new and revised edition titled Waldorf Alphabet Book by Famke Zonneveld
L M N O P and All the Letters A to Z by Howard Schrager
A Calendar of Saints by James Bentley
Stories of the Saints by Siegwart Knijpenga
The Nature Corner by M v Leeuwen and J Moeskops
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