Waldorf in the Home

This year's spring conference for parents and Waldorf home schooling families on "Waldorf in the Home" will be held April 16-17, 2005 at the Sacramento Waldorf School. Join more than 200 families for a weekend of inspiration and renewal. A full brochure will be posted here and secure on-line registration will be available in January, 2005. To request that a PDF file be sent to as soon as it is available, send a request to info@informedfamilylife.org.

Our Waldorf in the Home conference April 16-17, 2005 in Fair Oaks, California
will had 45 workshops relating to Waldorf education, parenting, and Waldorf Home Schooling, and three exciting keynote speakers: Jack Petrash, Linda Knodle and John Cunningham.

Jack Petrash is the founder and director of the Nova Institute and a nationally-known parenting educator. He taught for over 30 years and took three classes of children from grades one to eight at the Washington Waldorf School. He is the author of Covering Home: Lessons on the Art of Fathering from the Game of Baseball, which received the National Parenting Publication's Gold Award in 2001, and Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out. His newest book, Navigating the Terrain of Childhood: A Guidebook for Meaningful Parenting and Heartfelt Discipline, will be available at the conference (or order it along with your conference registration). Jack and his wife Carol have raised three children (31, 27 and 16) and live in Kensington, Maryland.

Linda Knodle is the founder and director of Community Education Toward a Healthy Social Life. She is a trained Waldorf teacher, having taken a class from grades 1-8 at Seattle Waldorf School, and she continues her 17 years as an educator by teaching blocks in many Waldorf middle school classrooms. Linda has parented four sons and a daughter, all grown. She has recently published I Find My Star Curriculum, written by Tamara Slayton, Linda Knodle and Anne-Marie Fryer. Linda facilitates Women's Circles and Mother/Daughter circles, as well as mentoring parents and schools in developing coming of age programs (see www.LindaKnodle.net. She and her husband live in Seattle, Washington.

John Cunningham helped found a pioneer Waldorf school on Orcas Island (WA), completed the Waldorf training at Emerson College in England, and then taught for fourteen years at the Waldorf School of the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon. In 1999 he trained individually with Marshall Rosenberg, the developer of Compassionate Communication (also called Nonviolent Communication, or NVC) and went on to become certified as a trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. Since June 2000, John has been giving trainings in NVC throughout the country as well as consulting to the Waldorf school movement (see www.empathy-conexus.com ) . He also provides NVC trainings within the prison system as a volunteer with the Freedom Project. John has been parenting for the last 28 years with five children now aged 16-35.

Join more than 200 other familis for a weekend of inspiration and renewal at the spring Waldorf in the Home Conference, March 4-5, 2006, at Sacramento Waldorf School. Brochures and online registration will be
available in late December by clicking on the "Conferences" icon on the right. If you would like to receive an e-mail notice when registration materials are posted, please contact us now (see "Contact Rahima and Cynthia," also on the right).

I wanted to let you know that brochures and secure online registration are now available for both fall conferences:

Waldorf in the Home, Fair Oaks, California (near Sacramento)September 23-24, 2006 with keynote speakers David Darcy, Nancy Poer and Cynthia Wand
and
Whole Parent, Whole Family, Boulder, ColoradoOctober 21-22, 2006 with keynote speakers Rachael Kessler, Eugene Schwartz, Dee Joy Coulter and Donna Simmons.

Dates for the Spring Waldorf in the Home conference are April 21-22, 2007 in Fair Oaks, California (near Sacramento).
Keynote speakers include: Joseph Cornell, internationally known author of Sharing Nature with Children; Suzanne Down, master storyteller and puppeteer and founder of Juniper Tree School of Storytelling and Puppetry; Cythia Hoven, Eurythmist and frequent conference presenter on Anthroposophy; and Betty Peck, master kindergarten teacher and gardener, with over 50 years experience working with young children and consulting on children's gardening in the schools.
A full brochure and secure online registration will be available in January, 2007.

Dates for the spring “Waldorf in the Home” conference in Fair Oaks (near Sacramento) are April 21-22, 2007. Keynotes are described below, and a full brochure and online registration will be available in January.

Just in time for holiday giving (to yourself, a sister or friends): all the fall conference recordings from both Fair Oaks and Boulder are now available at www.waldorfinthehome.com. [If you’re still waiting for DVDs you ordered, final shipments will go out next week.] Most of the new topics can be found by skimming down the entries in the main body of the web log, but some go beyond the end of the screen and can only be found by clicking on the “Store” button in the right-hand column.

What are some of my favorites?

• I’m really excited that the DVD on Eurythmy turned out so well—if you’ve never seen or experienced Eurythmy, you won’t want to miss this workshop by David-Michael Monasch on how it is brought to children from preschool through fourth grade.
• Kelly Morrow, who many of you know through her watercolor painting video, has done a workshop on Form Drawing in grades 1-3 that Lisa has put on DVD. A real gold mine if you are home schooling.
• Many of you know Esther Leisher from her writing on family celebrations (do a search on the right, using her name, if you’re not familiar with her wonderful descriptions of the magical world she created for her four--now grown—children). The DVD of her workshop on “Create Your Own Family Celebrations” will help inspire your own efforts.

And I know some of you have favorite presenters from past conferences:

• We have a new CD by Daena Ross on “Anthroposophical Foundations of Waldorf Education.”
• Cynthia Wand’s keynote on “Parenting by H.E.A.R.T.: Resurrecting the Family” is available on CD, along with her workshops on “The Art of Spiritual Companioning” and “Setting Clear Boundaries.” And we have a new DVD of her workshop on “Learning the Language of Virtues.”
• Nancy Poer’s keynote on “Courageous Parenting: Changing Our Families and the World” is the message for our times, and we also have a new CD of her workshop on “Honoring the Spiritual Feminine.”

Keynote Presenters for the Spring Conference, April 21-22 include:

Joseph Cornell, internationally-known author of Sharing Nature with Children; Suzanne Down, master storyteller, puppeteer and founder of Juniper Tree School of Puppetry and Arts; and Betty Peck, who has been a kindergarten teacher and consultant for over fifty years in creating gardens for young children and gardening programs for those in the grades. Plus 45 workshops on all aspects of parenting, Waldorf education and home schooling.

Wishing you and your families a blessed holiday and joyous New Year.

Warmly,
Rahima

The annual fall Waldorf parenting conferences will be happening only in Boulder this year: "Children, Nature and Us" will take place at Shining Mountain Waldorf School Oct. 25-26, 2008.

The next conference in Fair Oaks will be in Spring 2009, and will feature Shea Darian around the themes in her new book Living Passages for the Whole Family (available from our online store at the right). DeAnna L'am will also be doing a keynote presentation relating to welcoming our daughters into womanhood. Both promise to be exciting conferences!