Plays and performance are an integral part of Waldorf education
throughout the grades. They serve many purposes, demonstrating
skills including music, linguistic understanding through
recitation, and the visual arts with sets, props and programs.
But plays and performances are more than just an opportunity to
integrate art into the curriculum. They give the children an
opportunity to meet themselves and each other through the
stories and their social interactions. Class plays also allow
the children to become more integrated as a class. One of the
key foundations of Waldorf education is that it is
“developmentally appropriate.” As such, the curriculum is
carefully designed not only around the skills that the children
are ready to learn, but also around the life lessons that will
resonate with them. Thus, in second grade, right as the children
are beginning to work with their own morality, with questions of
right and wrong, fairness, and being good, we use the stories of
wise and holy people as well as fables