3rd Grade Introduction to Violins

In Waldorf Schools, we first bring the music from our own body through the voice. As we move up into the grades, the musical experience moves further through our breath as we play our first instrument—the flute. From here, after we have thoroughly penetrated our music through the breath, we move into instruments that bring the musical experience into our hands—we play the lyre in the 1st and 2nd grade, and early in the 3rd grade year. This is a stringed instrument that brings with it a great reverence of music for the students.

As we prepare to head towards the beginning of our formal orchestra class in 4th grade, we prepare with a short violin block after Easter time and through the end of the 3rd grade year. This block of violin class is an experiential introduction to playing a bowed stringed instrument. Aside from the (eventually beautiful) musical "by-product," playing a stringed instrument serves many purposes including: building fine and gross motor skills and crossing the lateral mid-line, which has become a widely-know factor in brain development, stimulating the corpus callosum.