Kindergarten Eurythmy
Fall Term
It has been lovely to meet with both new and returning children in the kindergartens this year. Their joy and enthusiasm is inspiring.
The children of the kindergarten began Eurythmy during their first week of school. The Rose and Sweet-Pea classes have Eurythmy on Wednesday mornings and the Marigold class has Eurythmy on Thursday mornings.
The new children were introduced to my little gnome Tip-Tap, while the returning children were happy to see him once again. Tip Tap comes to each kindergarten Eurythmy lesson and loves to watch the children enjoy their work in Eurythmy. At the beginning of each lesson a child is chosen to place Tip Tap somewhere in the room where he can observe the lesson. At the end of the lesson that same child gets Tip Tap and brings him to each child to say goodbye while they are lying down and resting in a "Sun Star." Sometimes Tip Tap will bring a surprise or a little gift to the children that relates to a story we have been working on or to a particular holiday or festival. Each year, at the end of the story"The Pancake," Tip Tap brings a giant pancake that he has made for all the children to share at snack time.
In kindergarten, the Eurythmy lessons consist of stories, rhyming songs and verses that correspond to the current season or festival. The aim in kindergarten Eurythmy is to gently guide the children, using their natural inclination for joyful movement, and have them imitate activities that are done in our daily lives or that take place in nature. We alternately stretch our limbs in large gestures and then make smaller, finer movements with fingers, toes, feet and hands so that all parts of the body become penetrated with the child's will.
In Eurythmy, there is a gesture that corresponds to each sound of speech and doing Eurythmy sound gestures contributes to the healthy formation of a young child's body.
The first kindergarten Eurythmy circle began with a French song about autumn, which includes this verse:
The earth is sure beneath my feet
And see how tall I stand
The heavens arc above my head
My friends are here, from side to side at hand.
We also performed many kinds of movements to several verses about squirrels or mice and a rhyming story about a cobbler and a mouse. At the end of this circle, the children delighted in playing a guessing game about a cobbler and his/her customers.
As the days became shorter and the winter holidays drew near, the last story of the fall term reflected the quiet joy and reverence of the season.
When we returned to school in the New Year the Kindergarten children had enormous fun in Eurythmy creating movement to the story of "The Three Bears."
It is a pleasure to be working with these wonderful children and EC teachers. I hope in the spring there may be an opportunity for me to share some of this work with the Early Childhood parents in a parent education evening.
I am including here, a summary of the lecture
" Brilliant Child, Whole Child" by Joseph Chilton Pierce.
Albert Einstein was once asked, "What makes a brilliant child?" His answer was, "Tell him fairy tales." The next question was, "What will make him a really brilliant child? The reply was, "Tell him more fairy tales."
Medical research has shown that we all draw on the same fields of intelligence for math, language, etc., but it is the transfer of this information, assisted by the development of the imagery and metaphor, which affects how well we use this intelligence.
When we tell a child a story, a wave vibration (word) stimulates the brain to activate imagery to match the flow of words. Sound and image-making become tied together in the brain.
When the story is repeated (and don't all children request stories over and over?), a process called myelination occurs. Myelin, a fatty coating on the neurons of the brain (at the dendrite-axis connection) is produced in repetition. The coating acts as a "super-conductor" of brain energy and is impervious to brain chemicals which are secreted to destroy excess (unused) areas.
When a story is acted out, the internal images go into the external world. This reverse flow teaches the child to take an internal product and affect the external world with it, and this makes the external consistent with the internal.
A new story forges a new pathway, and the process is repeated. More and more stories create more and more connections within the brain. Telling stories also allow those involved to share the same images and leads to new levels of human bonding and communication.
A study was done with four homogeneous groups of children. At age four, one group had playtime only; another was told stories; and the third had stories and acted them out. Tested four years later, the "play group" children did no better than the control group; the "story group" scored 20 points higher; and the "stories and acting-out group" scored 40 points higher on academic tests.
Children without imagination (that is, the ability to create images not present to the physical system) are more prone to violence. Children without imagination are only subject to the impact of images of their physical world (the reptilian brain). A child with imagination can think of a thousand alternatives and can change the external world.
The lecture, summarized by Carol-Jean Swanson, was given at the Waldorf School of Minnesota. The summary is from "Brilliant Child, Whole Child" reprinted with permission from The Mirror, a monthly publication of the Waldorf School of Minnesota.