Teaching Language arTs in The WaLdorf schooL

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Language Arts Compendium
22. Indications Regarding the Morning Verses
A teacher suggests beginning the morning with the Lord’s Prayer.
Dr. Steiner: It would be nice to begin instruction with the Lord’s
Prayer and then go on to the verses I will give you. For the four
lower grades I would ask that you say the verse in the following way:
The Sun with loving light
Makes bright for me each day;
The soul with spirit power
Gives strength unto my limbs;
In sunlight shining clear
I reverence, O God,
The strength of humankind,
That thou so graciously
Hast planted in my soul,
That I with all my might
May love to work and learn.
From Thee come light and strength,
To Thee rise love and thanks.
[When in October 1923 Rudolf Steiner visited Marth Häbler’s new
fifth-grade class, he recommended that the children say the Lord’s
Prayer in addition to the morning verse.]
The children must feel that as I have spoken it. First they should
learn the words, but then you will have to gradually make the difference
between the inner and outer clear to them. The Sun with
loving light Makes bright for me each day; The soul with spirit power
Gives strength unto my limbs; The first part, that the Sun makes
each day bright, we observe, and the other part, that it affects the
limbs, we feel in the soul. What lies in this portion is the spirit-soul
and the physical body. In sunlight shining clear I reverence, O God,
The strength of humankind, That thou so graciously Hast planted
in my soul, That I with all my might May love to work and learn.
Here we give honor to both. We then turn to one and then the other.
From Thee come light and strength (the Sun), To Thee rise love and