Grade School
Grade 7
The seventh grade students are in the process of experiencing significant physical, emotional, and cognitive changes. While these tendencies are exhibited differently by various students, and experienced differently by boys and girls, some general tendencies can be observed. The physical growth changes often can lead to the experience of clumsiness in bodily movement and self-expression. The emotional changes lend themselves to mood swings and an increasing self-absorption, while the cognitive capacities begin to move toward increasing reflection allowing the students to work with cause and effect and overview with greater facility.
The seventh grade curriculum is designed to meet the student’s physical need for greater accuracy and articulation through eurythmy, mechanics, chemistry, and physical education. The emotional life is explored in a thoughtful, organized way through the poetry block, geometry, perspective drawing, chemistry, etc. Cognitive skills are challenged by the increasing expectation of clarity and order in verbal and written expression as well as through the observation of phenomena in the sciences, the humanities, or the arts. The goal is for the student to experience a stronger sense of self-mastery and responsibility. The students are increasingly experiencing themselves as individuals with tastes and impulses of their own. They rightfully challenge accepted practices and ideas in order to understand and participate in a more independent way. The history of the Renaissance, Age of Exploration, and the Reformation (1300-1700) meets their inner experience with biographies of human beings who fought with the cultural life of their times in order to live out of their own individual conscience rather than the laws of the State or Church.
The students are introduced formally to meters and poetic structures. These are used as a foundation to explore specific experiences of wish, wonder, surprise, fear, anger, and other soul moods. The natural mood swings the children experience are worked with using these poetic structures allowing them to shape their inner experiences and to articulate them in a new way.
The experience of algebra brings simple, logical structures into more complex problem solving. The students continue work with plane geometry, often focused on the geometry of triangles and the laws of construction in regard to the various kinds of geometrical centers. Constructions become increasingly demanding both technically and cognitively. Accuracy is essential in both thinking and technique. This practice gives the children confidence in their growing capacities. Through a study of perspective drawing, the students can experience a confluence between science and art. Depth no longer is seen as an arbitrary phenomenon but as having mathematical lawfulness. This study connects well with the history curriculum, as the discovery of the mathematical laws of perspective in the Renaissance, first used in art, became the foundation for a new accuracy in map making, a technological support for the explorers, and also provided some of the foundation for the new scientific worldview.
The historical transition from the geocentric to the heliocentric picture of the solar system is the focus for the study of astronomy. The biographies of the great thinkers Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, etc., connect this block well to the history of the Renaissance, and the Age of Exploration.
Seventh grade is the first introduction to a more formal study of chemistry. Combustion is the starting point for this study, followed by a consideration of the lime cycle, salts, acids, and bases. This relates closely to the physiology block and the work on the digestive system, which will be picked up again in the 8th grade chemistry block.
At a time when their center of gravity is experienced differently and a physical lethargy can be felt, the students are introduced to the new topic of mechanics and the simple machines in physics. This study is picked up from a different perspective in the eighth grade study of muscle and skeleton. A physiological and developmental context is given for discussion of sexuality, substance abuse, and peer pressures by a study of nutrition and health, which includes an introduction to the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, and reproductive systems of the body.
Language Arts
- Writing, Reading, Spelling, Grammar
- Speech Formation/Dramatics
- Research Skills
- Composition / Creative Writing
Mathematics
- Geometry
- Algebra
Natural Sciences
- Inorganic Chemistry
- Physics
- Human Physiology
Earth Sciences
- Geography
Social Sciences
- Renaissance
- European 17th-18th century
Foreign Languages
- German
- Spanish
Fine Arts
- Painting, Drawing, Woodwork
Handwork
- Sewing
Music
- Recorder, Singing
Eurythmy Physical Education
- Games
- Sports
- Health