What is Waldorf Early Childhood Education?

Is there a Waldorf early childhood “curriculum?” Are there specific activities — perhaps puppet plays or watercolor painting, for example-that are required in a Waldorf program? Are there certain materials and furnishings-lazured, soft-colored walls, handmade playthings, natural materials, beeswax crayons—that are essential ingredients of a Waldorf setting? What is it that makes Waldorf early childhood education “Waldorf?” Rudolf Steiner spoke on a number of occasions about the essentials of education and of early childhood education. His words shed light on what he considered fundamental… “Letting the Children Be Children”.

Every education is self-education, and as teachers we can only provide the environment for children’s self-education. We have to provide the most favorable conditions where, through our agency, children can educate themselves according to their own destinies. This is the attitude that teachers should have toward children, and such an attitude can be developed only through an ever-growing awareness of this fact.

— Rudolf Steiner, The Child’s Changing Consciousness