Every Wednesday our members get to ask Waldorf teacher Diane Power questions about their homeschooling experience, Waldorf education and more. These Q & A sessions are posted on the member blog every week so you have access to all the past Q & A sessions. Become a member of Earthschoolingto get your questions answered personally every week.
Question from Earthschooling Member: How long should one use a particular morning verse? Until it is memorized, understood, and recited/sung comfortably? Monthly? Seasonally? When it feels right to change it? My daughter loves morning verses, and loves to master saying them, putting them to tunes, and being expressive when reciting them. – K.C
Reply from Diane Power: Hi Kalanit! Welcome and thank you for your question! I have some questions in return – how old is your daughter? What morning verses are you referring to? To begin the day, seasonal morning poems, the primary school morning verse?
K.C: Hi, Diane! Sorry for being so vague. 
My daughter is 9, 3rd grade, and in general, for the past two years I have been doing morning verses in the morning after warm up. I have been just choosing a new one or using ones provided in the curriculum until she masters them. I just wanted more insight into the hows and whys and ways others use them or they were intended to be used. Thanks!
Diane: In third grade, I would have verses that went with the block. I would also add seasonal verses that would begin and end relative to the season and/or holiday/festival. These seasonal and holiday/festival songs and verses came back every year with newones added that had a higher level of difficulty. Pentatonic flute to C flute to recorder. Pentatonic melodies moving to rounds moving to parts. Verses that could be added to a ML book. The verses are versatile – they work with memory; they enliven the imagination; the language adds beauty; they are models of language; they can be used with beanbags and other movement activities. They can be learned as a performance piece. They canassist in learning other languages – Hebrew for 3rd grade, Gaelic or Norse in 4th, Ancient Greek and Indian in 5th . . . also, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese . . .
K.C: We did learn some of the verses in English and American Sign Language. She also started learning Hebrew this year so that is a great idea to learn in both (or all three).
Diane: With block verses, I would introduce one and once it was learned but not quite mastered, I would add a new one. We usually ended a block learning 3 to 4 new verses unless we were working on a particularly long piece.
Leave a Reply