Form Drawing
updated January 16, 2022

This page has helpful links and LOADS of free resources to help you plan your first grade year. Enjoy!

Pinterest - Renee Schwartz
My curated collection of visuals! Browse sample main lesson book pages, watercolor paintings, chalkboard drawings, etc. for Form Drawing. EXCELLENT source for LOTS of illustrations!

Form Drawing is a little bit of an odd situation, since it's done as the first main lesson block of first grade, but then is done as a weekly special subject for the rest of grade one and onward through grade four.

I've struggled with where to put my form drawing notes for that reason. But since most people need to familiarize themselves with it upon entering first grade, I've decided to collect all of my form drawing resources here.

FREE eBooks at the Online Waldorf Library
Excellent resource! Published Waldorf curriculum books provided here in PDF format for you to download, keep, and read... for free!

Basic Sculptural Modeling: Developing the Will By Working with Pure Forms in the First Three Grades
by Hella Loewe

Sample Lessons and Free Curriculum

Live Education curriculum samples:
Castle Ramparts
from Beginning with Form Drawing

Form Drawing Verse
(Hold up thumb, index and middle fingers of right hand so that arm is straight)

Three companions who always serve
To help me draw straight lines,
To help me draw curves.

Other Helpful Links

Teaching Our Children to Read, Write, and Spell: A Developmental Approach Looking at the Relationship of Children's Foundational Neurological Pathways to their Higher Capacities for Learning - a VERY important article to read... please do NOT skip it!

The Four Temperaments
blog post - Switzerite

There's also a wonderful -- and LONG -- description of each of the four temperaments and how to deal with them in times of conflict in the Introduction to Games Children Play: How Games and Sport Help Children Develop by Kim John Payne (highly recommended).


Form drawing is done with stick -- not block -- beeswax crayons. You want large paper, like newsprint. Tape it up to the wall or the back of a door so that the child is standing and has the full range of motion.





NOTE: When Rudolf Steiner first spoke of form drawing he called it Dynamic Drawing. I love this because it makes it clearer that the line on the page exists merely to capture the motion. The movement is key.

Books to Buy

This is a little tricky, since every one has their favorite, but I am really pleased with the two new books by Angela Lord: Creative Form Drawing with Children Aged 6-10 Years: Workbook 1 and Creative Form Drawing with Children Aged 10-12 Years: Workbook 2.

These full-color books are both beautiful and helpful.

However, if you're doing second grade running forms, another excellent resource is book 1 of The Write Approach: Form Drawing for Better Handwriting by Joen Gladich and Paula A. Sassi. It contains 25 form drawing exercises. Here, I have given a suggested story for each. I've also worked heavily with the Form Drawing book from Live Education's first year curriculum Beginning with Form Drawing and have come up with a list of stories for many of those forms (below).

Remarkably, most parents feel there is a "specific guide" to teach the "mysteries" of form drawing. Initially, it was also translated as Form Designing; the simplicity of the name of this way of drawing is the answer to the mystery. You are simply designing and then drawing forms!

Once that realization is established, it's easy to locate sources.

Here is my collection of notes and links for Form Drawing:

• general Form Drawing notes (PDF)
• list of stories to accompany volume 1 of Form Drawing for Better Handwriting (PDF)
• Form Drawing Resources blog post

Photos from 2021-2022 (in a Waldorf homeschool co-op)

We did a six-week FD block to begin 1st grade. Please note that ALL of the lesson planning notes that go with these photos are included in the First Grade Immersive Experience!
• Classroom Photos from August
• Classroom Photos September - Part I
• Classroom Photos September - Part II

Teaching Notes from 2019-2020 (in a Waldorf homeschool co-op)

• Starting the School Year with Form Drawing
• Landforms & Water Features Week One
• Landforms & Water Features: Week Two

Teaching Notes from 2009 (in a Montessori Lower Elementary classroom)

• August 24, 2009 - straight line and curve, find in the classroom, share examples with a partner, trace on partner's back, nature walk to find straight line and curve outside, whole arm movements in air, finally draw on paper (newsprint) with stick crayon
• August 25, 2009 - read Mirette on the High Wire, resting line (horizontal), trace on ground with foot, trace top of chain link fence in air with finger, finally draw on plexiglass easel with window crayon

  stand straight and tall (vertical line), lie down (horizontal line), how do we draw a line that shows MOTION? diagonal line, leap into air diagonally, Crisscross Tissue Paper Lines activity from Teaching Art with Books Kids Love: Art Elements, Appreciation, and Design with Award-Winning Books

• August 26, 2009 - read The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Lesson 2 from Live Education! book Beginning with Form Drawing:

  all lines stand on an invisible straight horizon line, they are arranged as follows: short line, medium line, tall line, medium line, short line

  the two medium lines must be the same height and the two short lines must be the same height

  the lines are all vertical and are all an equal distance from each other

  this was the Bridge from the story, trace in paper plate of cornmeal, finally draw in chalk on sidewalk

• August 27, 2009 - read The Quiltmaker's Gift, begin running forms, lesson 3 from Live Education! book (resembles mountains)
• August 28, 2009 - read The Legend of the Bluebonnet, lesson 4 from Live Education! book (resembles tipis and sky) in two contrasting colors
• September 1, 2009 - The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales The Frog-King or Iron Henry, page 17, lesson 5 from Live Education! book (resembles ripples in a pond)
• September 2, 2009 - "The Rainbow" story by Dorothy Harrer from Verses and Poems and Stories to Tell, lesson 6 from Live Education! book (resembles rainbow)
• September 3, 2009 - read Little Red-Cap from Favourite Grimm's Tales illustrated by Anastasiya Archipova, lesson 7 from Live Education! book (resembles meandering path), this was Little Red-Cap wandering through the meadows picking flowers
• September 4, 2009 - read The Talking Eggs, lesson 8 from Live Education! book (resembles string of pearls)
• September 8, 2009 - read Grandfather Twilight, figure 6 from FD Grades 1 through 4 (perfect freehand circle), the moon, this story is an especially nice follow-up to the string of pearls last week
• September 9, 2009 - read Seven Blind Mice, figure 7 from FD Grades 1 through 4 (largest to smallest - outside in), this form was hard to find a story for but the idea is that the white mouse could see the big picture and the other mice could only see a smaller view
• September 10, 2009 - read Thumbelina (our version was the complete original text, illus. by Bernadette Watts), figure 7a from FD Grades 1 through 4 (resembles a flower bud opening)
• September 11, 2009 - this I tied in with what I'm required to teach in Science which is the Big Bang but there are other lovely books about galaxies if you want to do this as your spiral (another idea could be a story featuring a shell), read Born With a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story, figure 8 from FD Grades 1 through 4
End of Form Drawing Main Lesson block

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• September 14, 2009 - read All I See Is Part of Me which ties in well with Friday's story, figure 12 from FD Grades 1 through 4 which is called a friendship spiral
• September 22, 2009 - Live Education Lesson 9 to go with "The Fisherman and His Wife" (Grimm's), this was our story for the Capital Letters block, this is a wave running form
• September 28, 2009 - from Barbara Dewey's Form Drawing book, this form accompanied our reading of First Woman and the Strawberry: A Cherokee Legend (Native American Legends), Handwork project associated with this was making jam in the afternoon, read my blog post