The theme-story of the Class Four year is Norse Mythology. These stories, that are always so well received by successive Class Fours contain within them the very things children are grappling with at this stage – the battle between light and darkness, extremes of cold and heat, how to meet challenges and preserve what is beautiful and good.
Studies of nature take in the fascinating variety of the animal kingdom. At this age children’s love of animals and natural phenomena is easily aroused and engaged. The fables and stories of Class and Three are now left behind and the animal kingdom is presented as a factual study, so that the child learns to appreciate the perceptible forms of creatures whose developed bodies enable them to function in many wonderful, specialised ways. Here a distinction is made with human beings whose ‘unspecialised’ hands, for example, provide the freedom for artistic, creative and practical use.
Class Fours approach Geography through a study from their immediate environment further into the wider world. They learn to connect with this ever-widening world through feelings and their newly developed sense of accurate observation.
Grammar moves from the more pictorial presentations of Class Two and Three into the more – dealing with a basic analysis of parts of speech and tenses. Number work, now called mathematics, introduces fractions while the crossing of the mid line which awakens and supports the child’s unfolding consciousness is finally consolidated and strengthened by the weaving patterns in Form Drawing, the cross-stitch work in Handwork and the movements in Eurythmy and Bothmer Gym.
