Description: This workshop will invite participants to work with Baba the Storyteller to explore the themes of his presentation. 

Description: This workshop will invite participants to work with Anjum Mir to explore the themes of her presentation through an early-childhood lens.

Description: Restorative justice is a practice that brings the stories of individuals into focus, transforming conflicts into opportunities for growth and community building. In this workshop, we will explore how Waldorf schools can move beyond punitive discipline to embrace restorative practices, fostering empathy, accountability, and meaningful connection within the school community. We will delve into the role of the educator as both a storyteller and a listener, examining the stories we tell about conflict and behavior. Participants will learn how to integrate restorative circles, affective statements, and value-based norms, creating spaces where students can reflect, repair, and rebuild relationships. By reframing conflict as a learning experience, we empower our students to write new stories of resilience and understanding—stories that shape the future of their communities. 

Description: One of our greatest tools to address social emotional learning challenges for both child and adult is the art of theatre. Theatre is one of the subjects that builds community for the students, staff and families, provides a container of safety to express unresolved emotions, and dispels social division through collaboration. 

In this workshop we will look at theatre games as a way to address pedagogical issues in the classroom; class plays as a way to dissolve judgment and division; class plays as a way to connect the school community. There will be a focus on theatre games as well as class plays through the pedagogical lens; theatre games to support social emotional learning; casting and directing tips for class plays; coordinating class parent and student involvement for class plays.

Description: Steiner assures us that the ‘genius of language’ is embodied in each of us from infancy, empowering a myriad wealth of ‘languages’. So how is it that schooling seeks to ‘normalize’ the language students practice by making invisible the cultural essence of each one’s inborn legacy to align with accepted conventions?

Join me to explore ways to uncover with students ‘my language’ and develop ‘my story’ while affirming the universality that underlies all language: the threefold nature of the human being.

Description: Goethe noted that, "Nature is, after all, the only book that offers important content on every page." Connecting students directly with the phenomena of nature is one of the more sacred roles of a teacher. Storytelling, whether in the language of the younger child or in the abstract understanding of the adolescent, is the natural anchor for wonder, sense-making, and the delight of building curiosity and engagement with the surrounding world. 

Description: “Throughout our whole lifetime the fairy tale happenings picture our most profound experiences of soul, even though the style is light, playful and picturesque…. Just as our body has to have nutritive substances circulating through the organism, the soul needs fairy tale substance flowing through its spiritual veins.”  From: The Poetry and Meaning of Fairy Tales by Rudolf Steiner

Learning to listen with new ears and see with new eyes the fairy tale or myth or legend may reveal the universality of human life even through our uniquely individual experiences.                                           Come prepared to engage in artistic practices as a process of discovery; to share bits of your own life and listen deeply to others; to find insights and new meaning.

Caution: Side effects may include: interest, understanding, empathy, tears, laughter, gratitude – and more.

Description: Explore the role anthroposophy can play in teachers' preparation for meeting the unique needs of today's children as they navigate a complex world filled with separation, anxiety, and mistrust. How can hopefulness be instilled? What role does gratitude play? And how does our own inner work contribute to the cultivation of these important capacities? 

Description: Every story has a backstory—layers of experiences, unseen moments, and unspoken truths that shape who we are and how we connect with others. As educators and caregivers, understanding the backstories of our students and community members allows us to nurture relationships with greater empathy, authenticity, and connection. This workshop is an opportunity to uncover and honor the narratives that define us while cultivating sensitivity to the stories we may not see. 

Description: Story is the cornerstone of Waldorf education. A veteran teacher once told me that the stories we tell are soul food for the children; they aren’t something to be bargained away with, “If you aren’t quiet, we won’t have time for story!” or left to be snuck in at some point later in the day. But how can we maintain an economy of teaching when the stories we are telling are new every day? In this workshop, I will briefly discuss the current research on reading and spelling to create a common understanding of what constitutes “good” teaching. Most of our time together will be spent learning how to create personalized lesson plans that you can take back and use immediately, with templates ready for the rest of the year! 

Description: Guided through reflection and discussion, participants will be invited to articulate the real challenges they face working with parents, identify personal goals for strengthening family engagement, and develop a practical action plan for nurturing these relationships. Participants will have the chance to reflect upon positionality and consider the centrality of family engagement in creating culturally sustaining classrooms. Building a toolkit of approaches that honor the teacher and the family’s distinct roles as essential pillars of the child's education, focus will be given to the value of forging authentic connections, establishing and communicating boundaries, and ideas for parent education topics that strengthen collaboration and serve the child, teacher, and parent.  

Seven Habits Description: 

Description: Our Boards (or Charter Councils) have a crucial role to play in the health and sustainability of our schools. Effective Board work requires a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities and an ability to support the mission of the school. It also requires clarity between the school's administration and the Board. Cassandra Bridge will bring her expertise as a school attorney and her previous experience as the director of a Public Waldorf charter school to this topic: identifying and building the seven habits of highly effective Boards. She will refer to examples of current challenges and needs. This workshop is designed for Board members, school directors and administrators, and parent leaders.  

Description for SpEd Workshop: Join us for an informative session focused on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This presentation will explore the most frequent challenges and misconceptions faced by educators and administrators. We will cover essential topics including:

 1. Understanding key provisions of IDEA and Section 504.

2. Identifying common compliance issues and how to navigate them.

3. Best practices for developing effective Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

4. Strategies for fostering collaboration among educators, families, and students.

5. Tips for maintaining accurate documentation and records.

By the end of this presentation, participants will be equipped with practical tools and insights to enhance their understanding of IDEA  and Section 504, avoid common pitfalls, and ensure a more effective educational experience for students with disabilities. Whether you are a seasoned professional or new to the field, this presentation will provide invaluable guidance and support.

$5.00 Supply Fee

Description: Stories address the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of students. In a practical way, stories also support healthy classroom management, especially but not only in teaching manual skills such as, but not limited to, handwork. We will workshop some meaningful 'vignettes' or snapshots which you can apply directly in your classroom. 

Description: Join Mary Ruud and discover how to elevate poetry, speech, and music through Eurythmy. 

Description: Crafting small animals to engage and support storytelling. Kindergarten and early grades marionette. *Two Hour Workshop*

Description: Come sing your way through the wheel of the year and the “octave” of the grades! From fairy songs to songs of revolution, we’ll learn sing-able, shareable, diverse and easily taught songs to take you and your students through the seasons and the grades. Music and lyrics will be provided, but all songs will be taught in the oral tradition—no musical reading ability required. Come away with tools to create a joyful vocal community in your classroom and with colleagues. Singing together creates happiness, health, awareness, and connection! 

Description: This painting workshop will benefit teachers of all artistic skill levels and backgrounds. We will explore many helpful techniques for creating beautiful watercolor paintings in the classroom through a guided painting exercise. 

 Description: Experiencing the threshold of death, in community, through the story of Water bugs and Dragonflies. 

Description: We'll practice chalkboard drawing as a way to deepen story review and create meaningful main lesson book pages.  Whatever your skill level and comfort with chalkboard drawing, we'll build on that foundation and share techniques for bringing imaginative pictures alive. 

Description:  Folk dances are found in all cultures. They tell the story of people, places, and cultures - and are a wonderful way for people to connect, move, and have fun! Folk dances enhance our work with students. In this workshop, you will master dances that are appropriate for lower and upper grades (at least one for each) and gain an understanding of how to bring dance to your students. Plus, you will move, laugh, and connect with colleagues! 

Description:  Storytelling is one of humanity’s greatest gifts, and through story we make sense of everything we see, including our experiences in nature and in our gardens. This workshop will invite educators to tell the stories of their schools’ environmental programs and dream about the next chapters in those stories. Through storytelling, facilitated discussion, a free form artistic activity, and community reflection, we will identify the settings, characters, and conflicts of our environmental programs for our students, whether those are comprehensive gardening programs, carefully planned excursions into nature, or the daily incorporation of natural elements into our instruction. Once we tell the stories of what has already been, we will dream about the next chapters of our schools’ environmental education and how we, as the “authors” of these stories, can contextualize ourselves and our students within the living histories of our schools.

Description:  In this workshop, we’ll explore simple, enlivening movement practices and games inspired by Waldorf education that help prepare children for learning. Together, we’ll experience how purposeful movement settles the body, awakens the will, strengthens classroom rhythm, and builds connection within the group. Participants will experience activities that invite playfulness, focus, cooperation, and laughter, practical tools you can bring directly into your classroom to support engagement, social harmony, and readiness for the day’s lessons.