Academics
Academics Overview
Our academics are delivered either as a three to four week unit that we refer to as a block, or through courses that last all year. Academic block courses, that happen during morning lesson time, cover a range of topics including science, math, history and literature. Morning lessons provide students with the opportunity to delve deeply into a specialty topic for three to four weeks at a time, five days a week. Examples of a block of study include; astronomy, ancient civilizations, or business math.
Before learning new material each day in morning lesson, teachers lead students through an intentionally designed series of warm-up activities to prepare them for learning. This time of the day can include a wide variety of activities such as physical movement, music, poetry or word games, and math games. This is followed by a careful review of what the students learned the previous day.
Yearlong courses take place in 45-minute periods, two to four times per week. These classes focus on topics like math, English, world languages, music, movement & games, and practical arts.
A note on our education style:
We are proud to be inspired by Waldorf Education, a worldwide movement that began in 1919. If this concept is new to you, here are a few key ideas that might help as you read through the following sections.
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Teachers stay with students through grades 1 to 8, and students stay together in the same grouping also. Read on into the following sections for the substantive benefits this brings, in many ways.
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Students learn handwriting.
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We are phone free, with no screens in the early years and limited, highly intentional screens in upper grades.
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Students don't learn from textbooks. They learn in all experience based forms, and create a "main lesson book" capturing their learning.
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World Languages start in grade one, and two languages of differing structure are studied.
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All subjects are taught - a Waldorf inspired curriculum is full of arts but also includes math, science, computer science, and games & movement!
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Academic Subjects
Math
At Eastside Community School, students are encouraged to develop a deep understanding of mathematical concepts rather than simply memorizing procedures.
In the lower grades, the focus is on building strong numeracy skills and a genuine sense of how numbers work. Teachers introduce mathematical ideas through musical movement, games, stories, and manipulatives. Children might learn multiplication by grouping collections of objects, jumping rope, or participating in a tactile experience. By encountering concepts in multiple ways, students build a flexible and lasting understanding of mathematics.
Our curriculum is also designed to meet students at their stage of development. New mathematical concepts are introduced when students are ready to engage with them meaningfully, allowing understanding to grow naturally and deeply. The concepts that are brought often answer an inner question that the students are holding at the time. For example, around fourth grade and the nine-year change, students begin to see themselves, for the first time, as separate from the whole, or one of a certain group, which is when the concept of fractions are coming alive to them.
We also believe that mistakes are an essential part of learning. In our classrooms, students are encouraged to share their thinking, explore different approaches, and learn from challenges. When an answer is incorrect, the focus is not simply on right or wrong, but on understanding the thought process that led there. This is one reason we don’t introduce standardized testing and always encourage students to show their work. By examining their reasoning and trying new strategies, students develop resilience, confidence, and strong problem-solving skills.
Mathematics at ECS is more than arriving at the correct answer. It is about learning how to think, reason, observe patterns, and approach challenges with creativity and perseverance.
Science
At Eastside Community School, science is not a collection of facts to memorize. It is a process of observation, experimentation, and discovery. Our students are encouraged to approach the world as scientists do: by asking questions, exploring ideas, and drawing conclusions from what they see.
From early childhood through middle school, science learning is rooted in hands-on experiences. Young children explore scientific concepts through nature walks, cooking, building, and outdoor exploration. As students grow, these experiences develop into formal studies of biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and earth science.
Rather than relying on textbooks, students create, experiment, draw, write, model and investigate each scientific phenomenon brought to them. Our goal is to help students become careful observers, thoughtful thinkers, and confident learners.
Throughout history, innovators, scientists, artists, and thinkers have changed the world because they were willing to look carefully at what they see before them and imagine new possibilities.
Humanities
The humanities invite students to explore what it means to be human. Through history, literature, biographies, and primary source materials, students encounter the ideas, challenges, and lives of people across cultures, places, and time.
Rather than relying primarily on textbooks, students often engage directly with the voices of those who lived through important points in history. When studying Frederick Douglass, for example, students read the biography he wrote and grapple with his lived experience. By engaging with history through firsthand accounts and historical narratives, students develop a deeper understanding of both the past and the people who shaped it. In this way, ECS cultivates empathy, perspective, and understanding. Through stories of resilience, courage, and human struggle, students begin to see that people throughout history faced many of the same questions and challenges that we face today.
We bring this historical learning to life through immersive experiences. Some examples include fourth grade students participating in traditional Coast Salish gatherings along with other regional Waldorf students. Fifth graders take part in the Greek Games (where they compete as the ancient Grecians might have at the first Olympics. These experiences help students step into perspectives beyond what is familiar and recognize that there are many ways of understanding and engaging with the world.
By exploring human stories across time and cultures, students develop empathy, flexibility of ideas, and the ability to engage thoughtfully with perspectives different from their own.
Art
At Eastside Community School, the arts are an integral part of the everyday curriculum; both as arts classes and as part of morning lesson blocks. Through drawing, painting, music, drama, and handwork, students deepen their understanding of academic subjects while developing creativity, fine motor skills, confidence, and new ways of seeing the world.
Artistic experiences are woven throughout the curriculum. In first grade, students draw images inspired by the stories they are told, which gradually evolve into the forms of the letters they study. By seventh grade, students explore perspective drawing alongside their studies of the Renaissance and geometry. Painting and modeling complement math study, develop dexterity and mastery of hand-tools, and immerse the students in an experience.
By engaging head, heart, and hands, students understand learning as something active, meaningful, and deeply human.
Visual Arts
Students engage with visual art on a daily and weekly basis through drawing, painting, sculpture, and other creative mediums. Watercolors, acrylic paints, pencil drawing, pastels, beeswax, and clay are introduced to compliment the academic subjects being brought. Often, these artistic endeavors are captured in each student’s morning lesson book.
Performing Arts
Every grade participates in a yearly class play, with increasingly complex artistic and production responsibilities as students mature. Through singing, acting, and performance, students gain confidence and the ability to express themselves clearly. Participation helps students grow as communicators, collaborators, public speakers, and challenges them to step out of their comfort zones!
Music
Music is woven into daily life at ECS. In early childhood, students and teachers have songs for each season and each daily transition. In grades one through eight, students learn to sing and play recorders in unison, rounds, canons and multiple parts, led by the class teacher as part of daily activities, and in support of the morning lesson curriculum.
In grade four, each student begins to play a string instrument with our specialty strings teachers. Music reading begins, and daily home practice is expected. In middle school, choir expands students’ musical knowledge through harmony, vocal technique, and a diverse repertoire of musical styles.
Handwork
Handwork is a hallmark of Waldorf education, and an essential part of the curriculum. Each student learns to knit, crochet, cross-stitch, and sew, creating work that is not only beautiful but also develops patience, focus, and practical skills, while aiding in fine motor dexterity.
Handwork engages the mind through the hands. As students transform natural materials into finished creations, they experience the connection between effort, skill, and accomplishment. Whether knitting in the early grades, embroidering in fourth grade, or creating increasingly complex sewing projects in middle school, students develop the capacity to create and persevere.
World Languages
In the words of Rudolf Steiner, “The finer qualities of a people flow out of a language. The human being becomes more of a universal being when enabled to learn different languages”.
Spanish and Japanese
Starting in grade one, our students begin studying both Spanish and Japanese. Inspired by the understanding that language learning broadens our perspective and deepens our connection to humanity, students are introduced to new languages at an age when learning happens naturally through listening, imitation and experience.
Our study of world languages begins in much the same way that a child learns his or her mother tongue: through listening and imitation. Songs, games and stories are taught orally with the help of pictures and gestures. Grades four and five serve as a transition to the more academic, practical work of the upper grades, where conversation, grammar, written work and reading become increasingly important.
The study of both Spanish and Japanese offers a unique opportunity to engage with two very different language structures and cultural traditions. By working with languages that organize ideas in different ways, students develop flexibility of thinking and a greater appreciation for diverse perspectives.
Learning another language is more than communication. It is an invitation to see the world through another lens. With language study, students cultivate curiosity, cultural awareness, empathy, and the ability to engage thoughtfully with people and ideas beyond their own experience.
Movement
At ECS, movement is an essential part of a child’s education. More than physical exercise, our movement curriculum is designed to support healthy physical, social, and emotional development while helping students build confidence, coordination, balance, and spatial awareness. Through games, movement, gymnastics, and circus arts, students develop capacities that support all areas of learning, fostering a healthy connection between physical movement and cognitive development.
In early childhood, students spend time outdoors daily, including going on nature walks. In the grades program, students have movement classes at least twice a week in addition to the two recesses they have daily.
In first and second grade, movement is grounded in imagination and play. Through circle games, bean bag activities, and movement challenges, students strengthen body awareness, coordination, rhythm, and cooperation. As they grow, movement activities become increasingly complex and purposeful. By fourth grade, games often include problem-solving, strategy, and teamwork, engaging children’s growing capacity for critical thinking and collaboration.
In seventh and eighth grade, students continue to develop strength and agility through cooperative games and track and field. This curriculum encourages students to take healthy risks, persist through challenges, and discover what they can achieve.
Movement classes provide an opportunity for students to develop resilience, self-discipline, social confidence, and a healthy relationship with their bodies. Through movement, students learn not only how to move through space with confidence, but how to work with others, overcome challenges, and engage fully with the world around them.
Academics & Screens
Screen-Free Learning, Intentionally
At Eastside Community School, we believe that children should first experience the world directly, build relationships, and develop confidence in their own thinking by grappling with ideas or concepts before being given the answer. Rather than relying on screens as the primary medium for education, we prioritize experiences. In turn, children benefit from interacting with the three-dimensional realm. Technology has an important place in modern life, but at ECS it is introduced intentionally, as a tool, not a substitute for human experience.
In the early childhood years, learning is grounded in direct experience, hands-on exploration, and meaningful human connection. Children learn by creating, discovering, moving, experimenting, and engaging with the world around them. Then, as students grow, technology is introduced intentionally through blocks like computational thinking and computer science. We guide students to develop the creativity and critical thinking needed to engage thoughtfully with technology, rather than simply consume it.
Students are encouraged to work through ideas from the first principles to their own conclusions. In doing so, they experience joy of self-discovery and develop the habits of mind that foster creativity, innovation and lifelong learning.
We Believe in Education Through Relationship
At Eastside Community School, students are deeply known by their teachers and classmates. With smaller class sizes and teachers that work with a cohort year-over-year, students, families and educators create a foundation of trust, belonging, and accountability that supports both academic growth and personal development.
We believe that learning how to be human in the world happens most powerfully through relationships with other people. Teachers serve not only as guides to academic content, but also as role models who help students develop empathy, communication skills, and a sense of responsibility.
For more on how relationships are foundational to our community, don't miss our community page.
Main Lesson Books
At Eastside Community School, learning is not simply absorbed from a textbook. It is discovered, explored and made meaningful through active engagement. Rather than repeating information curated by others, students take an active role in constructing their own understanding and demonstrate learning in ways that go beyond memorization.
Throughout the year, students create handcrafted Main Lesson Books that serve as a record of their learning. These books include written reflections, illustrations, reports, maps, diagrams, graphs, and other original work created during each academic block. More than notebooks, these books are a unique synthesis of a student’s observations, experiences, and understanding. They become both a learning tool and a lasting record of growth.
Handwriting plays an important role in this process. By organizing ideas and expressing them on paper, students deepen their understanding while strengthening important cognitive skills.
A Common Question:
How do main lesson books compare to a huge textbook that has the whole of history? The Waldorf main lesson book is small in comparison.
Answer:
To answer this, we must ask: what is the purpose of education for you and your child? Is the purpose of education for you to fill the students up with content? Or, is the purpose of education to develop a human being who can contribute something to the world? If your goal is to make historians out of your students, then give them a textbook. Although we question that route in a world where we can look up anything, at anytime, as soon as we need it. Information is kind of a commodity now, so we question the value of trying to know the whole, versus the students summarize the learning in the main lesson book, so they have to grapple with what they learn.
If students have a textbook, full of finished curated information, that is a different experience than making the main lesson book. In making the book, students are a part of the process from the very beginning. Students have to pick and choose what they think is most important. Students go through a drafting process. The teacher can see the drafts and students are also working on editing skills. Instead of just repeating information that is curated by someone else, students take an active role in constructing their own knowledge.
Field Trips
At Eastside Community School, learning extends far beyond the classroom walls. Field trips and overnight stays give students opportunities to apply their learning outside of the classroom while developing independence, resilience, and confidence.
In third grade, students embark on their first overnight class trip, fondly known as “The Farm Trip”. Whether helping with farm chores, learning to camp, or spending time away from home with their classmates, students take important steps toward greater self-reliance while strengthening their connection to one another.
In fourth through eighth grade, overnight field trips become an integral part of the curriculum. Each expedition is carefully chosen to support both the academic studies and developmental needs of the class. For example, sixth grade students study mineralogy before traveling to Mount St. Helens, where they explore the landscape firsthand, walk through the Ape Caves lava tube, and deepen their understanding of mineralogy through direct experience.
These trips also provide opportunities for students to build community. Camping, cooking, hiking, and problem-solving together help them develop collaboration, adaptability, and a sense of shared accomplishment. By navigating challenges alongside their classmates, students discover strengths they may not have known they possessed.
In eighth grade, students embark on a culminating class trip that celebrates their years together and marks the transition to the next stage of their educational journey. While the destination varies from year to year, the experience offers one final opportunity for adventure, growth, and reflection.
Recent ECS Field Trips
7th Grade Ropes Course
To prepare for the transition into 8th grade, 7th grade took a field trip to enhance their teamwork and leadership skills. They spent a day participating in a combination of low and high ropes courses, which focused on fostering collaboration, sharing ideas, and building trust. This enriching experience not only strengthened their bonds but also equipped them with valuable skills for the future.
Field trips at ECS are about more than extending academic learning. They foster a connection to the natural world, encourage students to embrace challenges, and help cultivate resilience. Whether setting up camp in the rain, exploring a volcanic landscape, or supporting a friend through a difficult hike, students learn that growth often happens when they step beyond what is comfortable and discover what they are capable of achieving.