Waldorf Early Childhood Courses at WCI

Waldorf Early Childhood Educator Training Auditing

September—October, 2025

We are opening some of our Waldorf Early Childhood Educator Training courses to auditors. Courses are open to Waldorf educators and those interested in anthroposophy. Course participants will join our teacher training program and are asked to pay an auditing fee of $25 per class. Auditors must commit to, and pay for, all classes within a course.

All courses below will be held online via Zoom; all times are Pacific Time.

Birth to Three & Parent Child Programs

with Anjum Mir
11:00 am to 12:30 pm on Saturdays, Sept. 6, Sept. 13, Sept. 27, Oct. 4, Oct 18
(5 classes, $125 total)

This course concentrates on the young child from birth to three within the early childhood setting from a three-fold approach. In Waldorf early childhood education there is the understanding that the Etheric, Soul or Astral and Ego Sheaths are supported by the child’s relationship to healthy rhythms, sleep, attention to the environment and purposeful activity. We will discuss the foundation of early childhood caregiving in the context of sensitivity, warmth and the authenticity of respectful relationships with parents, children and colleagues. Through an exploration of experiential, hands-on activities we will reflect on our thoughts, attitudes and feelings about the young child.

Care & Development of the 12 Senses

with Nancy Blanning
12:30 to 2:00 pm on Sundays, Sept. 7, Sept. 14, Sept. 28, Oct. 5, Oct 19
(5 classes, $125 total)

Rudolf Steiner spoke of the young child as being ‘wholly sense organ’, receiving in many diverse ways the impressions of the world around him. In other contexts, he described twelve senses of the human being, and the importance of their cultivation, care and development. The twelve senses are gateways between the self and the world, informing us about our bodies, the world around us, and the inner nature of other human beings. Each sense is a doorway whereby we come to recognize and know our own self and the other person in manifold and profound ways. The twelve senses provide a foundation for knowledge, self-knowledge and moral development. The more we study them, the more committed we can become to providing an environment where the young child’s senses are educated, nourished properly and protected.

Foundations of Human Experience

with Laurie Clark
9:00 to 10:30 am on Saturdays, Sept. 6, Sept. 13, Sept. 27, Oct. 4, Oct 18;
2:30 to 4:00 pm on Sundays, Sept. 7, Sept. 14, Sept. 28, Oct. 5, Oct 19
(10 classes, $250 total)

This essential pedagogical course will be based on the text indicated below, and the student needs to have read this text beforehand. It provides a wholly spiritual basis for understanding the unique educational task of the teacher today, and it was one of the three basic courses given by Rudolf Steiner to the original teachers of the Waldorf School, in 1919. The descriptions of the interaction of the various systems of thinking, feeling and willing and the relation of these phenomena to the soul of the child, and also to the connection it has with past, present and future, will be discussed. This course will be an introduction to what, over time, will be a source of ongoing strength for the teacher in his/her daily work.

Required text for Foundations of Human Experience:
Study of Man (also translated as The Foundations of Human Experience) by Rudolf Steiner