Step-by-Step Guided Daily Lessons

Daily Wonder refers to step-by-step guided lesson plans, but what do we actually mean by this?
 
Our step-by-step morning lesson unfolds in a typical Waldorf-style main lesson format. Each step that makes up the morning lesson is vital to your child's learning, and together, they create a meaningful experience. We thought it was time to share the wisdom behind these steps because when you know WHY you bring something to your child, you don't have to explain it to them. Instead, trust that you impart your understanding to them through feeling.

Daily Wonder's step-by-step guidance flows like an artistic experience. In this way, your child is carried from step to step by your familiarity and deep understanding of each component. 

This first step is acknowledging that the morning lesson is officially beginning. 
 
Daily Wonder guides you to bring reverence and honour to your daily lessons. Instead of simply calling your kids to the learning space to begin the day, we recommend using verses, poetry, and songs to signal the start of your lessons. 
 
We do this by reciting an opening verse and seasonal poem and singing songs related to the unit theme. Daily Wonder provides all of this in our lesson plans. 
 
Throughout a unit, your child has the opportunity to memorize the poems. In addition, the recitation work builds memory, vocabulary, strength of individuality and opportunities to practice oral language features such as intonation, pace, and volume. The goal is that by the end of the unit, your child will share these poems by heart. 
 
Singing each day during this first step enhances group connection and offers a lovely balance to individual recitation.
 
By including poems connected to the seasons, your child becomes connected to the cycle of nature through their feelings. 
 
Poems and songs connected to the unit theme enliven the topic of study and support our artistically integrated method.

The second step of the morning lesson prepares your child's body to be ready for settled, focused work. It also supports the development of the brain-body connection and the building of new neural pathways. Intentional Movement Activities can be a wide variety of things such as clapping games, circle dances, rhythmical activities, ball bouncing activities, jump rope, and the list goes on. 
 
In past generations, children spent more time in these types of physical activities as a regular play experience with friends: clapping games, jump rope, hops scotch, were not only fun but they had a meaningful purpose in integrating brain pathways, left and right hemispheres, and vertical and horizontal midlines. They were the movements of childhood, and they promoted healthy neural pathways. Today, our children get less of this traditional gameplay, and it is essential to bring it in intentionally. 
 
Daily Wonder offers various ideas that we gather in our resource hub. Parents can choose from this list and spend 3-4 weeks building skills in any particular area. Children develop gross motor skills, body geography awareness, rhythmical development, spatial orientation, and body coordination. 

Math is something to practice daily for your child to continuously develop their math abilities. That is why Daily Wonder includes a portion of time set aside for daily math practice. Based on Daily Wonder's recommendations, this often looks like some time for fun math games and then some focused time working on skill-building. Daily Wonder ensures that you, the parent, cover all the important math concepts for any given grade. The guided lessons highlight areas of math to focus on for each unit. Daily Wonder also presents new math concepts in artistically integrated, hands-on ways as a month-long unit theme.  

A huge part of remembering something is forgetting it and then recalling it again. The practice of recalling something strengthens the muscle of remembering and allows it to be more deeply understood the second time, and so forth. The purpose of recall and practice is to allow your child to bring something back to mind that was released the previous day. This is an important skill to practice regularly for it to be useful. Reviewing a learning topic allows your child to explore, discuss and appreciate more facets. Recalling the previous day's learning indicates what your child has taken away from the lesson. During discussion, they consider other perspectives and enhance what they have learned. Regular review teaches your child that reflection is an important aspect of life. We do not simply learn something once and move on; we return to it repeatedly and deepen our understanding each time. It deepens the capacity for clearly communicated and articulated thoughts to be shared. As our children grow up, they will have more honour for reflection and digesting material, rather than always moving on to the newest topic.  

It is important that children learn something new each day. New material presents the child with another aspect of the unit topic through a story or lecture. It comes from several angles to meet all different learning styles: auditory, visual, kinaesthetic, etc.

Daily Wonder students create their own learning portfolio to reflect the learning that is taking place. Each entry is an artistic representation of the concept learned. By creating this learning portfolio, the child directly engages in their learning process rather than passively reading and learning from an assigned textbook. A lot of pride comes with creating your own textbook, and a lot of care and attention goes into the writing and drawing, as well as the book's aesthetics, such as page layout design and neatness. The child is led from the early years through the grades to bring more and more independence and sophistication to their portfolio pages.

The rich curriculum is experienced even more deeply through daily story time. A good story offers nourishing soul food for the child. Daily Wonder often recommends a story theme and specific book to use, and when that isn't the case, Daily Wonder offers suggested readers, allowing older children to enjoy independent reading each day. Daily Wonder curriculum usually revolves around a great story theme from ancient myths, folktales, and religious paths. Children receive a depth of wisdom when they build imaginative connections through inspiring imagery. Following the daily steps, the story theme is reviewed and recalled the following day, enhancing understanding and perspectives, and then reflection through artistic rendering to bring it to life.

The experience of a Daily Wonder lesson is creative and reverent. This is why Step 1 creates a special moment to acknowledge that the morning lesson is beginning, and Step 8 marks the closing of this part of the homeschool day. Participating in a closing verse, poem, or song is a meaningful and beautiful way to honour all the work and learning that has just taken place. 

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​So, there you have it, a helpful explanation to support your understanding of what we mean when we talk about our step-by-step guidance. We at Daily Wonder are thrilled to provide all the aspects that create a meaningful, artistically, and academically integrated experience for your child.