Educational approaches incorporating Waldorf methods are designed to be developmentally appropriate. The method is partly based on the question: what is the best thing to teach a child at each age? Rather than the question: how early can a child be taught each subject? Children are given tasks according to their readiness and not pushed towards the earliest possible achievement.
Our educational approach is also multidisciplinary, centered on a 3-4 week subject unit called the Main Lesson Block. At Portland Village School, academic studies are integrated across disciplines such as art, science, math, and history. For example, students in a seventh grade main lesson history block on the Renaissance Period might be studying the lives and times of da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Rafael, whale at the same time creating their own "text books," complete with their own writings (in calligraphy) and drawings. Earlier in the day they might practice 3 part recorder music and recite poetry from the Renaissance, and later the same day, study the laws of perspective in Math class. The next day they would apply those laws in their own drawings and paintings.