Knitting and other handwork projects play an important role in the development of fine motor skills, inner calm, and intellectual clarity.
The specific handwork taught in Waldorf schools also “grows with the growing child.” In the first grade, the curriculum calls for learning the basic knit stitch and creating a practical and useful project in a warm textile such as wool. In second and third grades, this is continued with purling and crochet, which add new movements and require more focus on each row and stitch. Around age nine or ten the children undergo a change of consciousness: they are individuals within themselves, no longer as open. The hats that the third graders knit to cover their heads represent this developmental milestone. Also the third grader is experiencing the beginning of critical thinking, and in the knitting of the hats, they are introduced to small patterns, thus engaging their new thinking skills. The cross-stitch taught in fourth grade reflects this more elaborate stage in their development.
The fifth grade begins woodworking and more complicated knitting, such as a pair of socks. This is the age when they turn a corner in development on the road to becoming themselves. They are perhaps less insecure than in fourth grade and are ready to start carving out and exploring this new individuality. Knitting a sock requires using four needles instead of just two, and it is a task that requires much perseverance.
Developmentally the sixth graders are coming into form. This is reflected in the academic curriculum in the precise tools used in the geometrical drawing block, and also in the block on ancient Rome, a society where humans began to make their own laws instead of living by the laws handed down by the gods. In the handwork curriculum, sewing is started in sixth grade. The children sew animals. This requires planning, patterns, cutting, basting, and other skills for a child who is now more intellectual in his/her planning and thinking. The sewing the children undertake in seventh and eighth grade requires extensive forethought and mathematical skills. In seventh grade, they sew dolls by hand and in the eighth grade, sewing machines are used for various projects like patchwork quilts, wall hangings, and simple items of clothing.
Handwork offers many opportunities for reinforcing math skills in practical, challenging, and enjoyable ways. But author and Waldorf teacher Eugene Schwartz points out an even more valuable result:
We cannot underestimate the self-esteem and joy that arises in the child as the result of having made something practical and beautiful - something which has arisen as the result of a skill that has been learned. In an age when children are often passive consumers, who, as Oscar Wilde once said ‘know the price of everything and the value of nothing,’ learning to knit can be a powerful way of bringing meaning into a child’s life.Eugene Schwartz
