When starting out on your Waldorf journey, you might want to begin with a Waldorf inspired curriculum if you are home educating. While I can’t say from experience how the following curricula fair, I can tell you that since 2004, we’ve been relying on Live Education! Waldorf curriculum for our needs. You can also explore Lavender Blue, Christopherus, and Waldorf Essentials or Oak Meadow if you want more traditional with just a hint of Waldorf. For more Waldorf vendors who specialize in curriculum or resources, there’s a section at the bottom of this post with more information. Once you have settled on a curriculum, you may want to turn your attention to some of the essentials like papers, pencils, crayons and chalks. Main lesson books are used so that students have a place to record their lessons. Typically the main lesson books are large for Grade 1 and they get progressively smaller as the students move from grade to grade. Main lesson books for the younger years are large notebooks with blank good quality paper. Often you may see them with onion sheets separating the two sheets of paper.

To go along with the main lesson books, you can add Stockmar Block and Stick crayons. These crayons are made from beeswax and come in a rainbow of colors. Typically students in Grade 1 begin with just the three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Together with those colors, students create the secondary and tertiary colors and soon they are able to add those crayons to their crayon case. Stick crayons are used for form drawings and even beginning writing while block crayons come in handy for landscape drawings and filling in white spaces in their drawings. Block crayons are also used for making borders in their main lesson books. To help you on your crayon drawing journey, you may want to check out Coloring with Block Crayons. It’s a wonderful resource for beginners and veterans alike.

When looking to add teacher resources to your materials, I have to say that I’m loving the books by Angela Lord! Her books are colorful, informative and must-have resources especially if you are not relying on a Waldorf inspired curriculum. The ones I chose to include here (though she has several more), are Colour Dynamics and Form Drawing. If you could only choose one, I would highly recommend Form Drawing. Form Drawing is a main lesson you’re going to find in Waldorf school starting in Grade 1. I have included some aspects of form drawing in lessons all the way through Grade 8. Form drawing is the first main lesson block in Grade 1. It helps a student with basic hand eye coordination, centering his or her work within the page, fine and gross motor skills, pre-writing skills, artistry and patterns. Form drawing is therapeutic and meditative at times and therefore a good addition to any school setting and is especially helpful for students who struggle with attention and handwriting.

Once you’ve completed your first main lesson block, you may choose to move to a Language or Math main lesson block. If you embark on your Language main lesson block, you may want to add LMNOP Book and Wall Posters to your resource wish list. The book LMNOP is a collection of poems and illustrations that take you through the letters of the alphabet. The posters may be used as classroom decorations or art inspiration for your own chalk drawings. Incidentally, the book’s illustrated, Bruce Bischof, is also the author and illustrator of the Live Education curriculum! Bruce passed away in 2025 after a 5 year battle with cancer.

If art inspiration is not a top need for you, but you are looking for ways to hone your storytelling skills, I have found joy in using eeboo’s Storytelling Cards. These cards are brightly illustrated and can be used to help jumpstart a story individually or as a group. While I didn’t show the following book, I did find it very helpful early in my homeschool journey. Storytelling and the Art of Imagination by Nancy Melon (Amazon affiliate link for book) really helped me as I had not idea what things made up a story. I needed a book to break it down, down to the simplest steps like characters, plot and setting, etc. Of course this book takes it to a different level by adding Waldorf elements that will be helpful in the classroom or homeschool setting.

Your next block may be math and if so, the book King Maximo and the Number Knights may be a good addition especially if you are not using a Waldorf inspired curriculum. Because all four math operations are taught in Grade 1, you may wish to bring in some math finger puppets or math gnomes to help your students grasp these math concepts. You can make your own peg dolls and finger puppets with peg dolls, Lyra Opaque Watercolors, Holland wool felt, and Lamb’s pride yarn (for hair). We have made so many over the years and they are treasured toys in our homeschool that help facilitate open ended pretend play or with storytelling.

Then next block you might focus on in Grade 1 is watercoloring. While watercoloring doesn’t need to be a block per say, as it can be included in other blocks, it is a good idea to have some basic principles understood before embarking on watercoloring with your students as the Waldorf method is unique is a few aspects. To start with, images that are drawn or watercolor painted are soft, undefined and have blurred edges or rather the edges of the images are not sharply defined. Young students at that age don’t see the world as we do and their illustrations reflect that.

The teacher strives to provide drawings that have soft edges with less detail and when it comes to watercoloring, using a wet on wet technique is a great way to ensure that colors move across the page and blend into one another and thus keep the edges soft and ethereal. To achieve this, use high quality watercolor paper. I like Strathmore 140 lb. Watercolor paper. Though the this pad is 9’x12″, I recommend using larger sheets for Grade 1, though the smaller sheets are great for practice work or free painting. Stockmar watercolors are concentrated paints that need to be diluted with water. They have clear bright colors that mix well to produce secondary and tertiary colors. Grade 1 paint brushes are wide and flat and made from all-natural materials like squirrel hair and wood barrels.

Watercolor paint holders make spillage a thing of the past, but if all you need are the jars, you can buy them separately or repurpose yogurt jars. If you are brand new to Waldorf watercoloring, the book Colour Dynamics by Angela Lord will be a great help along the way. If you are inspired by that book and want to join a course I have on my site in which I do live lessons with my daughter inspired by images in this book, you can join the course by tapping on the button below.

While the main lesson (Morning Lesson) teacher doesn’t teach music, handwork, and other subjects, it helps to have a familiarity with music as songs are included in circle time, opening activities or other lessons. While there are many instruments to choose from, traditionally the classroom will have a piano and the teacher may hone her skills with a recorder or glockenspiel.

The pentatonic music book by David Darcy is a great resource for the musically challenged and possibly the veteran! Having never excelled in the signing or music, I can’t tell if that resource is too basic for someone who already has a music background. If you struggle with music (as I did), you may enjoy Come Follow Me which is a collection of songs you can sing in class. Growing your collection of poems and verses for all occasions happens naturally over the years. Give yourself some inspiration with Wynstone Books for each of the seasons, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. These books are full of seasonally ideas and music to enrich your school day season by season.