The LifeWays Wisconsin Training is a full-year course,
meeting four weeks during 2025-26 as follows:
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Jul 27 (eve) - Aug 3, 2025
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Sep 6 & 27
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Oct 18
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Nov 1 & 22
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Jan 10, 2026
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Jan 31
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Feb 21
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Mar 14
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Apr 4 & 25
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May 16
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Jun 6
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Jul 27- Aug 2, 2026
Applications are now being accepted and the class size will be limited. Enrolment Deadline is June 15th. Scholarships and financial aid are available. For full information about this Training contact the Completing the LifeWays Training can open NEW Opportunities for you:
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Childcare providers in homes and centers
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Early childhood assistants, teachers and nannies
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Parents and grandparents
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Parent-child teachers
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Early Childhood Aftercare teachers
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Homeschool parents.
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Become the parent or early childhood professional you long to be.
LifeWays students learn from master teachers in 200+ in-class hours over a year’s time. Additionally, mentor-supported independent study enriches learning between sessions. The LifeWays curriculum is divided into four categories:
Human Growth and Development
based on the insights of Rudolf Steiner and others
Child, Family and Community
home health care practices, unique and beautiful handwork, gardening and meal planning, meaningful celebrations and festivals, self-care and more
Program Curriculum
deepening your classroom and in-home practices (artistic and practical, nature and nurture); fundamentals of establishing child care, parent-child, after-school and daily homeschool rhythms; and more
Living Arts
learn the Living Arts as developed by LifeWays and the keys to joyful, purposeful living through Practical Activity, Nurturing Care, Creative Exploration and Social Awareness
LifeWays students graduate with a renewed sense of joie de vivre in their daily lives. Strengthened by an amazing view of the developing human being, a lifted experience of personal growth, guidance in establishing successful programs and a sense of being grounded in the practical, artistic and nurturing skills, they tell us over and over again that this training was a life-changing experience for them.
Housing and Childcare
While LifeWays does not directly provide housing or childcare, we are happy to provide applicants with contact information for local resources..
Meals
Snacks and daily organic hot lunches are included in tuition. Students provide their own breakfast and dinner
Your journey toward joy-filled and purpose-full living begins in July 2025. Join us in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!
Learn to create magical puppet shows for young children using silks, hand-made puppets and natural materials.
Learn songs and lullabies playing the lyre.
Learn watercolor painting for young children.
Study and discuss with one another.
Meet Your Core Teaching Staff
Cynthia Aldinger
Cynthia founded LifeWays North America in 2001. Author of the book Life is the Curriculum and co-author of the book Home Away From Home: LifeWays Care of Children and Families, Cynthia has lectured and presented internationally and is pedagogical advisor for trainings and seminars across the United States. She served fourteen years on the board of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America. A former Waldorf Kindergarten teacher, Cynthia received her Waldorf teaching certificate at Emerson College in Sussex, England. A mother and grandmother, Cynthia’s passion is the preservation of the playful spirit of childhood and helping to create home-like environments that provide the comfort, security and activities found in a healthy home.
Laura Cassidy
Laura taught in the Early Childhood Department of Prairie Hill Waldorf School in Pewaukee, WI, for 22 years, 8 of those as a lead kindergarten teacher. She founded the school’s “WonderGarden” preschool and taught in the parent-child playgroup, assisted in grade one, and continues to teach calligraphy to sixth graders. She is a core faculty member of the Great Lakes Waldorf Institute for teacher training.
Laura has a B.A. in English, graduated from the very first LifeWays training with Cynthia Aldinger, and took the 3-Year Gradalis Early Childhood Therapeutic Education Course with Bonnie River, Nancy Blanning, and Lori Clark. She is the mother of three grown Waldorf alumni. Laura has a deep love and is inspired by the fairy tales, her work as a calligraphy artist, and the archetypal artist and healer: Mother Nature.
Shanah Ahmadi
Shanah earned a B.A. in Communications from the University of Oklahoma, and she completed her LifeWays training in 2007. That same year she began a home-based program named The Purple House, which in 2010 was incorporated as a non-profit organization named Rose Rock School. Shanah currently serves as Director of Rose Rock School, plus she is a Grade School teacher there. She loves getting to know the individual spirits of the people with whom she works--children, parents, and colleagues. She cannot begin to count the ways that the many people she has worked with over the years have shaped her character and helped her to be a more loving, authentic, and dedicated human being.
Mary Rudd
Mary has been teaching in Waldorf communities, both in public and independent schools for more than 40 years. She continues to teach Kindergarten Eurythmy and works with rising First Graders. Though she has taught throughout the grades, and many classes with adults, Mary has a special love for the young child. She is a founder of the Great Lakes Waldorf Program and, as a teacher, a member of the Board for Waldorf in Public Schools. She has been a support for many teachers around the country.
Mary has a Masters in Liberal Studies from the University of Wisconsin, a Eurythmy diploma from New York and Germany and a diploma in Therapeutic Eurythmy from England. Mary is a mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother.
Mary O'Connell
Mary opened LifeWays Early Childhood Center in Milwaukee in 2002, where she served as director for 13 years. She has taught parents and childcare teachers all over the U.S. and internationally. Mary co-authored Home Away From Home: LifeWays Care of Children and Families with Cynthia Aldinger, and authored Observing Young Children: A Tool for Meaningful Assessment. Most recently, Mary started a non-profit farm education program at Paradise Farm in West Bend, where she and her colleagues provide outdoor, farm-based education to children and adults.
Rhoda Kambandu
Rhoda Kambandu is passionate about working in early childhood. She was the Parent/Child Teacher at Tamarack Waldorf School in Milwaukee, WI for five years, and concurrently taught preschool at LifeWays Milwaukee. Rhoda completed her LifeWays training in Milwaukee and then went on to become a lead kindergarten teacher at Tamarack, before relocating with her family to Green Bay.
$225.00 discount if enrolled by May 4, 2025!
Financial Aid is available
For all the information about how to apply please contact the Student Services Coordinator
Contact: Jason Boose, Student Services Coordinator
Email: jsboose@gmail.com
Jason has been a stay-at-home dad for nearly a decade, receiving his Lifeways Early Childhood certification in 2016. He was a librarian before Google was a household name, and a journalist in the days of newsprint. These professions changed greatly, but after the birth of his first child, Jason realized there is a job that will never be usurped by modern culture: nurturing children. With the knowledge that children will always need loving care and parents will need a community of peers to look after their children away from home, Jason entered the early-childhood workforce in 2017 at Lifeways Milwaukee. He is a Kinderforest teacher who believes sometimes there is such a thing as bad weather that no combination of clothing can conquer; at these moments, a cup of hot tea and stories are better than a walk in the woods. Jason enjoys cooking for his family, gardening, reading, thunderstorms, snowstorms, and layered clothing. He is ever grateful to the LifeWays family who made it possible for him to play an active role in the rich, joyful environment that our community fosters. He looks forward to helping build this community further.