There is allot of talk about the "Seven Year Change" in Waldorf education. I didn't fully understand it when Sage was small (and perhaps still don't) but I've come to understand it as the transition from the dreamy mind of the young child to the more focused mind of the older child.
From a play world to one of the child's work.
There are so many changes that have come to Sage in the past year. Some challenging, many magical. I've received several emails recently addressing the topic of violent play, which in our world really emerged in earnest at 6 1/2. (I'll discuss this in a future post.) But the most profound change has been that of "work".
Sage (who once focused like most little ones for just a few minutes on a project) now creates elaborate work scenes. The sequence here is a sand manufacturing station that he set up on the back steps. He worked there for nearly an hour, pounding, triple filtering, quality-checking.
The lives of our kids are ever-changing. It is such magic to tune into the subtleties of their development and watch who they are becoming.