Literature, Grammar, Spelling, and Word Families
This is a good year to introduce two basic forms of letters: the friendly letter, and the business letter.
In the third year the student is engaged in activities with house building and gardening. Sometimes supplies need to be ordered such as packages of seeds, twine or a gardening tools. Although it is probably more convenient simply to go to the store or order supplies by phone, for the sake of learning and practice, have the student make an order for supplies by writing the business letter. Notice how this is also an opportunity for teaching about the practical life skills in business as well as letter writing, for the student will have to itemize, add tax and shipping, total and subtotal the prices.
Another kind of business letter is a request. In this case the teacher could have her student write a series of letters requesting catalogs appropriate for various projects. The idea is to give the student practical life experience in this. A Waldorf class teacher engaged his class of students in a house building activity that was preceded with business letters to merchants in the local community requesting some of the construction materials to be used for the project.
copyright © 2001 Bischof