Professional development for Waldorf teachers and home school parents. Read all about Summer Series 2025.

Taught remotely in real time, this course offers you an invaluable opportunity to focus entirely on your upcoming third grade school year in five days brimming with presentations, discussions, and practical activities.

Under the guidance of an experienced class teacher, you’ll discover ways to enliven your teaching and how to approach the blocks so that they may meet the third grader in a deep and meaningful way. With the insights of anthroposophy, gleaned through a discussion of child development focusing specifically on your class’s age group, you will get to know the third grade child in depth as they as they experience the nine-year change.

Along with time and space to consider and hone your skills in such practical matters as main lesson books, block planning, projects and activities, and classroom management, your course will include such key topics for third graders—and their teachers—as:

• Multicultural approaches to the creation stories and the role of Old Testament stories in the third grade curriculum
• Topics in language arts, reading groups, and class plays
• Topics in math
• Third grade approach to science and gardening
• Third grade approach to social studies, class trips and community service
• Third grade morning circle
• Third grade assessment
• Parent work and colleagueship

These subjects will be supported by explorations in art and music, giving you practical tools to take into your school year. In addition, you’ll gain many valuable opportunities for building connections among a community of parallel colleagues from across the country to carry with you throughout your teaching. And participation in an anthroposophical study undertaken in common with all Grades participants will help enable you to build bridges between colleagues and parents once you return to your school.

Grade-specific resource materials useful for your year, including poems, songs, stories, and main lesson book ideas, will be provided to you electronically.

NOTE: This course is taught with the expectation that you have a foundational background in Waldorf education.

Lead Instructor

Melanie Niemczura currently teaches grades four and five at River Valley Waldorf School. Melanie came to River Valley in 2009 as a Kindergarten teacher before moving on to the grades. After completing an eight year cycle and graduating the Class of 2022, she took on the role of pedagogical chair to dedicate her time to support the work of the faculty before returning to the classroom. Prior to joining the faculty at RVWS, Melanie taught at Northern Lights, a Waldorf-initiative school in Lake Placid, NY, and at the Monadnock Waldorf School. Melanie, who started as a Waldorf parent at Hawaii’s Malamalama Waldorf School, holds a BS in landscape architecture from Pennsylvania State University and completed her Waldorf teacher training through Antioch New England Graduate School in 2006.  Her professional background includes permaculture training and organic farming, working on farms in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Hawaii. Some of Melanie’s many interests include growing/cooking whole local foods, dancing, cycling, walking in nature, and continually learning about science.

Recent Summer Series Grade Three participants had this to say:

• I loved how the course gave us so many real world tools, while also diving deep into abstract concepts and the talking of inner self work.
• I really enjoyed the way everything was laid out – the sequence of what was taught, the space that was given for questions and real deep dialogue.
• This course was so helpful in the connections with other teachers and the vast array of resources provided.
• (The teachers’) enthusiasm, interest, warmth and professionalism (was) steeped in experience. I was at first hesitant to approach this via Zoom but I was happily surprised at how wonderful the experience was!
• It exceeded my expectations. I found the depth and breadth of the course incredible, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the teachers we did. I appreciate the patience, grace, and encouragement they shared, and how intentional everything felt.
• I find the thoughtful resources to be very helpful.
• I found this course to be everything I could ask for and more.
• I feel secure and comfortable going to my third grade teaching.

Your course also includes sessions in art with Adrienne Patrick, music with Katey Dolezal, and eurythmy with Alexandra Spadea.

Schedule

This course takes place June 29 – July 4 in a synchronous online classroom. ALL TIMES LISTED ARE EASTERN (NY) TIME ZONE.

NOTE: Classes will take place on July 4.

Sunday evening
6:15 pm-6:25 pm: Log-in for technical check-in and attendance
6:30 pm-8:15 pm: First session

Monday – Thursday
9:45 am-9:55 am: Log-in for technical check-in and attendance
Sessions run from 10:00 am through 4:45-5:00 pm, with time for breaks and lunch

Friday
9:45 am-9:55 am: Log-in for technical check-in and attendance
Sessions run from 10:00 am through 1:30 pm, with a mid-morning break

NOTE: Most sessions are required in order to receive a certificate of attendance. Others, such as Q&A sessions with your lead instructor and studio time with your art and music instructors, are optional. Complete schedules will be sent two weeks before your course start date, along with a list of materials you will need to procure for use during your course. Participants should be prepared to work on course-related assignments outside of their regularly scheduled instructional sessions (including some that may be assigned in advance).

Cost 
$645 includes all resource materials, yearlong access to your Grade Three Google Classroom, and a $55 non-refundable registration fee.

25% discount for:

• Students currently enrolled in a Sunbridge teacher education program
• Sunbridge program graduates
• Payments made in Canadian dollars

Accounts must be in good standing and discounts may not be combined. Qualification for discounts will be verified by Sunbridge staff.  

Registration opens January 17.

Questions?
Please contact Barbara Vitale, admissions and summer coordinator, at [email protected] or 845-425-0055 x20

Sunbridge reserves the right to make faculty substitutions when necessary. See registration form for refund policy.