Steiner education takes a gentle and meaningful approach to teaching reading and writing. From their very beginnings, Glenaeon children start their mornings in the garden, taking time to absorb the sounds, sights, smells and colours communicated by each season. Primary and Preschool children, led by their educators, celebrate Spring’s bright flowers, busy with native bees, and Autumn’s rich harvest leaves, fruits, vegetables and seeds. And amongst all this, the children find scribbles on gum trees, animal scratches on logs, and silvery snail trails through the garden. The children use sticks in the sand to scribble back their own messages and leave their own marks. And so it begins, children give and receive communication from the outside world, and through the body, heart and soul the child’s desire to read and write finds its way to the mind.

Fast forward to our Middle Cove campus where our incredible garden, held under the loving care of our Biodynamic Gardening teacher, Sandra Frain and her dedicated team, puts the language of nature into practice. Over the last few weeks we’ve seen a more literal exploration of art and the written word in our campus garden! Class 3 are really getting excited by their growing numeracy and literary proficiency as well as their growing understanding of time (how do you divide 90 minutes by the number of tasks to do?). Chalk tablets, a perfect tool to plan who, what and how they would use their garden time. These industrious eight and nine year olds used a combination of words and quick sketches to hatch a plan before diving into the tasks at hand.

Having their own visual cues to refer back to, they found division of labour and managing their time became a little easier. At least that was the idea! As always, everything is a work in progress and what we learn through the process is always key. Tasks at hand were: picking ripe guava, weeding, aerating the soil (with thin sticks). Both Class 6 and Class 3 also collected flowers and leaves, pressing them to create imprints on a special-occasion gift card for one of their special educators. A more literal interpretation of communication forms.