Middle School Curriculum
At Waldorf School of Pittsburgh, Middle School encompasses Grades 6 through 8. During these fundamental years, the child’s intellectual curiosity is met with an imaginative, artistic, and stimulating curriculum that grows and expands each year as the child develops and matures.
Curriculum Overview:
The Three Rs of Waldorf Middle School —
Rome, Renaissance, and Revolution!
Waldorf School of Pittsburgh’s Middle School Program curriculum meets students at a crucial threshold as they transition from childhood into adolescence, shifting their inquiry from what the world is to why and how it works. Education during these years focuses on cultivating independent judgment, rigorous critical thinking, and a deeper sense of ethical responsibility. Expanding on the spiral curriculum, familiar subjects are revisited with analytical precision—moving from experiential observation to scientific law, historical cause and effect, and complex problem-solving. As upper grades students navigate an emerging sense of individuality and an expanding awareness of the broader world, the curriculum mirrors their inner search for truth, purpose, and balance. Through collaborative projects, diverse perspectives, and real-world challenges, middle schoolers build the intellectual stamina, emotional resilience, and adaptability needed for high school and beyond.
The goals of the Waldorf middle school are to encourage and inspire students to:
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Think clearly and independently
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Question the status quo
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Learn out of their own experiences
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Study to satisfy their own desire for learning
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Have a sense of their own dignity as human beings
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Have a sense of belonging to the world and of being needed in the world
Curriculum by Grade
Sixth Grade:
From Romans to Romance
Overview
Sixth grade begins a time of inner turmoil marked by physical and hormonal changes. Students experience a new weight in their bodies and want to feel solid on the earth. Geology helps to ground them in the physical world, while Astronomy stretches their reach upward, outside of themselves. Sixth grade is also a time of great growth in objective reasoning and critical thinking. The phenomenological approach to Physics fosters this growth, as students utilize their own observations to draw conclusions, make judgements, and develop concepts. The study of two powerful empires, Roman and Islamic, mirrors the students’ desire for justice and order during a time of inner struggle.
Lesson Blocks
Lesson blocks for sixth grade include Rise and Fall of Rome, Islamic Empire, Middle Ages, African or South American Geography, Business Math, Geometry, Geology, Astronomy, and Physics.
Art, Handwork, Music, Physical Education, World Language, and Woodworking
Formal art class begins in sixth grade where students engage artistically in painting landscapes, working with color and contrast, and modeling in bas-relief clay. In handwork, students sew a sculptural piece, like a stuffed animal, to complement the curriculum. They work musically by playing a string or woodwinds instrument, recorder, and choral singing and in physical education balances team sports with classical Greek athletics. In Spanish, simply reading texts and compositions along with free translations are studied. In woodworking, students being to use saws, rasps, and gouges to shape a spoon.
Special Events and Class Trips
Students end the year with the Knighting Ceremony. This rite of passage provides a culmination to their studies and personal journeys throughout the year, marking their transition from a squire-in-training to a modern-day knight who strives to act with purpose and compassion. Students also attend an interscholastic event, the Medieval Games and participate in an upper grade drama production alongside students from the seventh and eighth grades.
Seventh Grade:
A Year of Awakening and Exploring
Overview
Seventh grade is a time of polarity; students experience inner extremes and reactions. Simultaneously, students begin their own personal ages of exploration. They long to venture beyond their known worlds and discover their own truths. In doing so, they experience a renaissance. As they become more aware of truth, they also become aware of a desire to challenge authority. The curriculum meets these new awarenesses by countering their potential to spiral into extremes, primarily through the study of ordered sciences such as physics and physiology. In mathematics, students find their need for balance met by algebraic equations and the logical proofs of geometry.
Lesson Blocks
Lesson blocks for seventh grade include Exploration, Renaissance, South American or African Geography, Creative Writing, Algebra, Geometry, Physiology, Chemistry, and Physics.
Art, Handwork, Music, Physical Education, World Language, and Woodworking
In art, seventh graders explore geometric and 2-D form drawing, black-and-white techniques, and transparent color painting on wet and dry paper, while modeling human anatomy in clay. Handwork advances to complex texturing with felting custom slippers. Musical study turns to the Renaissance, featuring madrigals, ballads, and selections from opera, alongside ongoing orchestra, choir, and recorder work. Physical education emphasizes the internal forces of heaviness and lightness through tumbling, free gymnastics, and dynamic team sports. Spanish deepens conversational fluency and advanced grammar through the study of myths, poetry, and cultural legends. In woodworking, students master mallets, gouges, and chisels to carve primitive bowls, mechanical moveable toys, and small end tables.
Special Events and Class Trips
Students participate in an interscholastic Renaissance Faire. Students participate in an upper grade drama production alongside students from sixth and eighth grades.
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Eighth Grade:
From Revolutions to a Free Society
Overview
Eighth grade marks the culmination of childhood and the beginning of young adulthood as students prepare for high school. Students utilize their strong critical thinking skills and newfound independence to become active agents of change, taking up the battle cry for causes, events, and ideals that ring with injustice. They analyze the actions, struggles, and contradictions of U.S. History, viewing its complex story from multiple perspectives. Seeking transformation themselves, students investigate organic chemistry and physics. By studying anatomy and 3D geometry, students learn of the biological marvels of bone and muscle and the structures that support our physical world. Students actively engage with Computer Science. As they complete their journey through middle school, they leave with a thirst and love for truth, beauty, and goodness.
Lesson Blocks
Lesson blocks for eighth grade include Revolutions, U.S. History, World Geography, Geometry: Platonic Solids, Computer Science, Meteorology, Anatomy, and Physics.
Art, Handwork, Music, Physical Education, World Language, and Woodworking
Students master solid geometry drawings, charcoal, and color modeling in art, while handwork focuses on the sewing machine and designing messenger bags. Music explores symphonic forms, Elizabethan songs, and spirituals through choir and orchestra. Physical education combines gymnastics, circus arts, Greek wrestling, and team sports to build strength and agility. Spanish refines grammar, vocabulary, and dialogue through cultural study. In woodworking, students apply mechanical principles to construct moveable toys, carved boxes, and a hand-built chair sat on during graduation.
Special Events and Class Trips
Student participate in Waldorf Revolutions touring local sites such as Carrie Furnace and in an upper grades drama production with sixth and seventh grade students. Eighth grade students create a long term research project in collaboration with a mentor that is presented to the school community. The students also culminate their experience through a service learning trip.
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