The Waldorf Class Play

Spring is generally class play time at many Waldorf schools, so it’s no surprise that my mind has turned to thinking about our class play.

Every year, I find myself needing to remind myself why we do a class play. Truly, the purpose of the class play is not to have an amazing performance that impresses the grandparents. (Often it does, but that’s not what it’s all about.) As the pace of life speeds up and the world becomes smaller, I’ve found that it is more and more difficult to remember that putting together a great show is not what the Waldorf class play is all about.

It’s taken me awhile to remember this and in my early years of teaching I felt a lot of pressure to put on a great show. But these days I use the class play as a chance to really contemplate the developmental stage of the grade I’m teaching and to craft the play to really give them what they need.

For example, last year we performed The King’s Son Who Feared Nothing (I’ve put it together in a pdf you can find here) and I looked for every opportunity to provide my students with experiences they craved and furthered their development. The play was performed in a circle (just opening the circle at times to allow the audience to see the acting that was happening in the center) and there were opportunities for my very physical class to fall on top of each other and roll around on the floor together. It was great.

This year, I’ve put together a selection of fables for our play and I’ve approached it with the same thoughts in mind. This year my students are seeking out opportunities to tangle with each other and there are constant “us vs. them” games happening on the playground. This is completely typical 2nd grade behavior and experiencing that opposition helps them come into their own when they go through the 9-year-change next year.

So, rather than fight that dynamic and try to force them to get along with each other, I’m embracing it. The fables in our 2nd grade play are all about the animals opposing each other in one way or another. In each of the three stories (and one of the dances that comes between them) the class is split into two opposing groups. We’ve got the cats vs. the foxes, the rabbits vs. the elephants and the birds vs. the beasts.

We’ve just started working on it and we’re already having a great time and I can’t wait to perform it.

If you’re looking for a 2nd grade play, I’ve put this one together in pdf format, as well, and I’ve included some of the songs we’re performing, as well. I hope you enjoy performing it as much as I have enjoyed putting it together. And if you do perform it, please reach out! I’d love to hear how it went! Leave a comment below or send me an email meredith@awaldorfjourney.com.