For those of you finishing up Second Grade planning, Eva over at Untrodden Paths has just posted her Second Grade layout of blocks and I thought you all might be interested in how she did it here:  http://untroddenpaths.blogspot.com/2010/08/one-of-veronikas-birthday-presents-was.html

Her blog is beautiful, head on over and say hello!

Jen over at Ancient Hearth also just posted her Second Grade plans here:  http://ancienthearth2.blogspot.com/2010/08/general-plan-for-grade-2.html  She has some great read-alouds that are traditional for Waldorf Grade 2 along with some of my favorites…Peter and Annali and Min!  Yay!

For those of you looking for how I laid out Second Grade, here is a back post to get you started:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/05/21/how-to-plan-waldorf-homeschool-second-grade-part-two/

For those of you who are not aware, there is a Yahoo!Group for mothers planning their Second Grade experiences here:  SecondGradeWaldorf@yahoogroups.com

We have been having a discussion on the Second Grade Yahoo!Group regarding trickster tales…..The next time I do Second Grade, I think I am going to do an entire block of Anansi the Spider tales from the book by Philip Sherlock.  I think I would also add a block of Celtic Fairy Tales (we did Russian Fairy Tales which is also enjoyable!)…   I have some other thoughts as well for the next time around because the child coming up to Second Grade is different than the child who just finished Second Grade.  That is the joy of homeschooling, that we can tailor things to each individual child!

Many blessings,

Carrie

Hi all,

I have been thinking about those of you planning your Waldorf homeschooling Grade Two experience.  I have been speaking with several mothers locally and via email.

One thing that has come to  my mind is that whilst the theme of Waldorf Grade Two is this notion of the duality of man (as shown in the lesser traits in some of the animal fables and the higher traits shown in those other-worldly Saint stories) , sometimes it is easy for the year to feel a bit disjointed. 

One thing that I think will assist you is to think of what you would like to predominate in your Second Grade experience – folk tales?  American tall tales? Saint/hero tales? Fables?  and build the majority of your blocks around that.

Thoughts from anyone out there planning Grade Two?

Many blessings,

Carrie

You can find Part One to this post here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/05/14/how-to-plan-waldorf-homeschool-second-grade-part-one/

I broke my “no-photographs” rule simply because there are not many blogs with examples of Waldorf Second Grade and I wanted to show some sample works. 

January: More poetry. Snowy Village Math from Marsha Johnson’s files and I told Russian Fairy Tales at the end of the Math lessons (also from Marsha Johnson), cooking, singing and pennywhistle – here we again went over place value, carrying and borrowing and multiplication and division

Russian alphabet to go with Russian fairy tales:

February:  Saints and Heroes from Donna Simmons and a few I picked based on Donna’s suggestions in the back of this book; special attention to word families, writing, painting and drawing –  one of these shows just a simple summary because we did a wet-on-wet painting as our artistic work for Finn MacCool.  Math rested during this month except for daily practice of math in Circle Time.

March:  Math – mixture of Melisa Nielsen’s Math Ebook and Donna Simmons’ Second Grade math; math skills as above along with money.

The week around Saint Patrick’s Day we did The Leprechuan Factor Trees of Ireland from Marsha Johnson’s files, first with a lovely drawing before we made our addition  factor trees:

And then those wild little  leprechuans traveled to the mysterious Multiplication Island where the multiplication factor trees grow; a TROPICAL island in the middle of an Irish lake..LOL.  Here is a leprechuan cobbling shoes on the back of a giraffe!

March was also Lent and crafts, weekly form drawing, wet on wet painting, the story of Saint Patrick.

April:  We did a block on Earth, Water, Fire and Air – I used stories from http://www.mainlesson.com , including one I found on Saint Kentigern and The Robin that involved the element of fire, lots of hands-on activities, weekly form drawing, pennywhistle and singing, math rested.

May:  Math from Marsha Johnson’s files  using “Watercraft of the World” as a theme,  more poetry and singing and pennywhistle, wet on wet painting, weekly form drawing, gardening.

Here we counted dates and grouped them in twos and fives, and re-visited our three, four  and six times table with the help of  our hippo friends and the sails..… (these are dates along the top of this picture that we were counting –  we were working with the two-sailed lateens that sailed along the Nile River, and the dates and barley that were agricultural products in this area).  Note the hasty work in this drawing compared to the other drawings… you can really tell the difference between outlining and just building the picture up in layers with the crayon.

June:  Saints from “Stories of the Saints” , review of work

Anyway, hope that helps provide a few resources for next year for those of you with rising second-graders.

Many blessings,

Carrie

I broke my no-photograph rule to post a few pictures from our Second Grade Main Lesson books…there really don’t seem to be many Second Grade Waldorf blogs out there and I wanted you all to see some examples from our work.

Below you will find the resources that I used for each block; you can also see this back post that talks about Second Grade resources  here:

Resources:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/03/19/peaceful-homeschooling-resources-for-waldorf-grade-two/

Planning (two posts, one here and one link embedded in this post):  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/03/05/peaceful-days-more-about-homeschooling-waldorf-second-grade/

Handwork:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/04/22/waldorf-second-grade-handwork/

Let me make it very, very clear that I think you could focus on animal fables and legends and not do Saints at all.  I liked Saints for  my oldest, for this particular child,  so I included them.  Also, our year was more weighted toward math than language arts because that is what my child needed. Also,  know every day had movement, modeling was often included in the Main Lesson so not mentioned separately here, and handwork took place every week along with Spanish and German, and math happened nearly every day during non-math blocks for practice unless we were letting it rest…

Thanks to Lovey for taking these pictures!  Many of you remember Lovey!

I actually took a few of the pictures as well!  A miracle for me!

September: Form Drawing and Math; I took the forms from a variety of resources and used some Cherokee Trickster tales to set the stage.  The forms this year included running forms and vertical  forms  with a midline drawn and a midline present but not drawn.  Math was taken from Melisa Nielsen’s Math Ebook and Donna Simmons’ Second Grade Math book:

We also celebrated Saint Michael and Michaelmas, baking, singing and pennywhistle.  We did wet on wet painting of the geometric shapes from Donna Simmons’ Second Grade Math Book.

October: LA Block, Aesop’s Fables – find free on Internet and flesh out for three-day rhythm (look at Marsha Johnson’s files for examples at waldorfhomeeducators@yahoogrous.com); continue with daily Math and weekly Form Drawing, singing and pennywhistle

November:  Math, resources as above, kept circling back to place value, carrying and borrowing; the story of Saint Martin and some other Saint stories at the end of Math lessons.

December:  Saint Nicholas – many free resources on the Internet for this one- and Saint Francis and Clare (we did a very BIG wall mural); Santa Lucia, poetry; daily math, singing and pennywhistle

Keep it simple;  you are teaching through art as your vehicle but the skill development is still there!  You must know where your child is and what you are trying to accomplish in terms of skills, and then how do I bring that actively within the things that speak to the soul development of the eight-year-old.  And don’t forget your singing, handwork, painting, modeling, games and movement!

Blessings,

Carrie

In Waldorf Second Grade, I believe in working with casting on, knit stitch, casting off, and the simple sewing necessary to finish a project.  I strongly believe both purling and dry needle felting should be left alone until the nine year change.  You can see more about the indications for Waldorf Handwork, written by our homeschool group’s wonderful, wonderful Handwork Teacher here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/03/28/handwork/ 

I feel very, very fortunate to have found a Waldorf Handwork teacher whose views are similar to mine, and I am thrilled she is part of our homeschooling group. 

Here are some of the projects my second grader has done this year:

Above:  A special pouch necklace to hold treasures!

Below:  A sachet; slip your favorite- smelling tea bag inside!

Below:  A rainbow ball

Below:  A child-sized scarf:

Below:  A scarf for Beloved Bear!

In progress right now is a doll poncho, since the scarf for Beloved Bear is now finished. 

Hope this gives mothers out there some ideas for longer and shorter projects for the second grade year.

Blessings,

Carrie

Some wonderful mamas have asked about storytelling with the little ones- how many stories, what kinds of stories  to bring in when, how often, so I thought I would quickly address this and then I have a writing deadline for something else to get to!

We look at building an oral basis of language first and primarily (this later extends into the grades because we first write what we know orally, and then we learn to read off of what we write.  The lectures in “Practical Advice to Teachers” by Rudolf Steiner elucidate this very well).

For one to three year olds, I would suggest mainly nursery rhymes, singing, singing, singing, little rhymes or short verses,blessing before meals, verses regarding animals and plants you might see on your nature walks.  For a three year old, some folks would start to add fairy tales, but I feel a little  bit differently about those tales for the three-year-old.  I often feel the “list” of fairy tales was designed for a mixed age Waldorf Kindergarten, and if your oldest is three, they are not going to have those older ages to really carry those tales.  So, you have to know your child well.  Sometimes introducing children to these fairy tales goes better in a song format, called a story circle, by many Waldorf Kindergarten teachers.  I tend to say for three year olds at home with no older siblings, how about using Juniper Tree’s “Around the World With Finger Puppet Animals” by Suzanne Down?  Also, simple stories you make up…  Then, at four, you could move into Suzanne Down’s nature stories, other nature tales, and other fairy tales and more complex stories you make up.

The fairy tales, whilst the hallmark of the Early Years and first grade, don’t have to go away completely!  We can always circle back around.  There is a book called “The Pancake” made up of repetitive fairy tales and such  that could be an effective reader for first or second grade.  Mrs. Marsha Johnson has a free “Russian Fairy Tales” block on her Yahoo!Group  that involves creating readers and such for second grade – this expands vocabulary quickly!  It also takes something the children know through the oral tradition, we write it, then we make readers and read it!  In Third Grade, that whole series collected by Andrew Lang (The Pink Fairy Tale Book, The Blue Fairy Book) could be readers or read-alouds.  There are collections of fairy tales and folk tales from all over the world.  This then later moves into mythology and finally into other great works of literature. 

The other place I differ is that all the stories have to be memorized.  This makes no sense for those of us who have small children, as the memory is part of the etheric body and that is being depleted when we have small children  as we share our life forces with them as they are still connected to us.  Donna Simmons always talks about using two beautiful watercolor paintings and making a beautiful, special book that the tales are written down in.  I have seen that work.  You can also try a bag of props to help you remember the story.

Yes, the stories in a Waldorf Kindergarten are usually brought for anywhere from two weeks to a whole month, the same story.  If you see the story coming out in their play, or they can chime in on the story and the story’s repetitive phrases, then you know it is sinking into them and doing good work!  Puppets, drama, music, props, all enliven the experience. 

As far as books, we know the first seven years are truly for the development and protection of the lower four of the twelve senses.  This is for interaction with people, and yes, reading to a child is interaction, but we would like to see even more in the way of singing and storytelling than books. 

For example, for children from birth to three, they don’t necessarily need books at this point.  A bedtime routine could be singing or storytelling and oral traditions.  I think many of us with multiple children admit to reading far more books to our first child as a baby than our subsequent children; we didn’t always know or have at our disposal the wonderful songs, nursery rhymes, etc that we build up over time.  There are some lovely books for babies, but is this an indispensible part of building literacy?  I don’t think it is; I actually think oral recitation,  singing and rhymes are.  Children who lack fluency in reading, children who have dysarthria (speech expression), etc actually  often need to go back to recitation of oral material in a rhythmic manner.

What babies need is human contact, being carried, being in a sling, being talked to and sung to and rhymes and learning to enjoy and play in silence as well, and to listen and hear the sounds of nature!  If you are going to read something, how about beautiful poems or things out of the Bible or the Koran or whatever fits your religious traditions?

For ages three to five, ideally, the books are kept up on a shelf and brought done with reverent care when it is reading time.   Perhaps you  have a  set reading time before quiet time and then  again at bedtime.  Rhyming, repeating books are wonderful for this age, such as the story of  Chicken Licken or Henny Penny or The Gingerbread Man. The other kind of book  is ones of  simple stories of every day life where not much happens. Books such as Ezra Jack Keats’ “The Snowy Day” and other by him.   You want the same books to be around for one whole season if possible, and then change them out with some new ones.  And yes, that means you read the same books over and over and over, but that is really what small children need to develop vocabulary and a sense of sequencing in the story line.

For ages five to seven, we can now add some weightier stories and books.  More complex fairy tales, more formal story times where we sit and light a candle and listen to this story.  This is where you look at that list of fairy tales by age and read them and see which story speaks to YOU and then you tell that.  If it doesn’t speak to you, pick a different one!  Here is the list:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/20/the-importance-of-fairy-tales/

Chapter books most likely are something that should wait, I think, until at least age six and more ideally, probably grade one and being seven years old.  Don’t rush this, there really is time.  Here are some back posts with books for the under-7 crowd:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/20/more-books-for-children-under-7/   

One thing that always baffles people about Waldorf is starting things a bit later. ( I actually don’t consider it later, I consider starting it at the normal, appropriate time) This is what  EVERY country almost around the world does except us and England at this point. Yes, the children go to school early, around age 3 or 4, but no academics are taught until the first grade.  There is no rush, and those children beat our children on every kind of standardized test and our educational system is particularly failing boys who often have trouble sitting still during those first seven years.  There are NO studies that back up introducing “academics” at an early age, and in fact, children are play-based programs for the first six years excel ahead of children introduced to academics early!    But I digress here, back to the main subject at hand….

Someone asked what I personally do with my under-7s.    My oldest, as I have repeatedly written about on this blog, pretty much taught herself to read around age  five and a half.  I have some posts on  here about doing Waldorf First Grade with an early reader.  The thing no one tells you about early readers, is that there are few things for them to read that are worthy!  The things they can read have themes that are way too mature, and the rest are series that are short and not beautiful – sorry,  Captain Underpants does not count to me.  🙂  So, her books were limited and that was a source of complaint, but I am glad we stuck to it.  Before the nine-year change, you really want more of the archetypal, life is beautiful and good and safe and orderly kind of books.   My second five-year-old is not yet reading, but likes to be read to and loves stories and can sing, sing, sing. She is picking out letters and letter sounds, and that is okay (and it would be okay if she were not).    My third little guy is just a wee baby, so he is enjoying songs and hearing passages of the Bible hear and there..:)

As far as storytelling within the Waldorf homeschool, I did stick to the same story for usually a month, unless there was a special story I really wanted to bring around for a festival.  I know many of the Waldorf schools stick to one story every two to four weeks, but bring in a separate  story for baking and/or gardening or nature walk day.  That may very well be way too much for a mother tending to multiple small children at home, so I think you must do what resonates with you.

Hope some of that helps; take what resonates with you.

Many blessings,

Carrie

Here are my suggestions  for  essential resources for Grade Two.  Investigate for yourself and take what resonates with you!

• Again, just like Grade One,  if you are not a do-it-yourselfer, you will need a curriculum!  I like Christopherus for a full everything ( handwork, music, everything!) -included except the need for a form drawing book- curriculum (although you can buy the Second Grade Math, Saints and Heroes and Animal Tales books separately).  Everything is very detailed and step-by-step, and you can tailor it to what your family needs.  Live Ed! is also a possibility;  I am not sure what extra resources one would need with Live Ed!  though regarding such things as handwork,etc or how much extra work it is to create your own rhythm out of it……My recommendation with choosing any curriculum is just to  make sure you know how much work it will take to put together if that is a concern for you and what other resources you will need outside of that curriculum to flesh it out!  Those two, plus the guide for second grade by Melisa Nielsen and the blocks by Marsha Johnson, are the only ones I that I can suggest to you in knowing that the authors work off of an anthroposophic basis that understands and respects the seven-year cycles and the three-and-four fold human being.  On the whole other hand, I honestly don’t think second grade is that hard to piece together yourself because there are quite a few resources for these kinds of stories. 
• Also be sure to check out the free blocks in the FILES section under Second Grade on Marsha Johnson’s Yahoo!Group waldorfhomeeducators@yahoogroups.com.   There are at least two math blocks there that are free and also a Russian Fairy Tale block that could be useful for this grade. 
• If you are going to put second grade together yourself, you may consider checking out Melisa Nielsen’s “A Journey Through Waldorf Homeschooling Grade Two” which  has some lovely articles in it to set the stage for second grade, ideas for how to approach the saints, verses and a paragraph of explanation for  many of the Saints,  many of the Aesop’s fables in their entirety and a sample  order of possible Main Lesson  blocks for the year with an idea or two  for each day of the week using a four-day week, and some  forms for second grade form drawing.   The extra resources you would need are listed within this guide. 
• Samples of work at this stage can be important; there can be wide variation in the skills and abilities of second graders.  Check out the Grade Two Main Lesson Book pictures available to download for a fee  at the Millennial Child website by Eugene Schwartz here:  http://www.millennialchild.com/and also the second grade work on display at Christopherus:  http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/resources-for-waldorf-homeschooling-and-conscious-parenting/gallery-of-student-work/2nd-grade.html   
• Check and see if you will need a form drawing resource or a traditional drawing resource for yourself.  Drawing, whilst still about color and gesture and filling up the page,  is becoming more formed and with more variety (how will you draw the animals for those fables?!)  and if you need help in this area, now is the time to get cracking and practice!
• Yarn, knitting materials, a needle for sewing and ideas for projects.  I feel strongly about leaving purling until Third Grade and the nine-year-old change  because purling  is a gesture toward the body, a gesture of inwardness.  This is an area you will have to search your heart and decide what is best for your family!
• The heart of this year is fables, folktales, American tall tales fit well, and also things like Russian fairy tales,  trickster tales, more African tales from Betty Staley’s “Hear the Voice of the Griot!”  What Native American tribes were or are in your area?  Some families bring Native American tales here and in third grade as well; some families wait until fourth grade and do these Native American tales along with local geography. Follow your heart, and do have a plan for this year that meshes with the coming years.  Themes run through the year, and everything builds upon everything else.
• For music curriculum, pentatonic flute/recorder is traditional.  My friend Jodie over at homemusicmaking.blogspot.com is hard at work on curriculum; there are also resources available through David Darcy and Prometheus Press.
• Movement is a big part of second grade between active, imaginative ways to bring the subtraction and addition facts and the multiplication tables  and also doing movement in blocks as found on the Movement for Childhood website.
• Wet-on-wet painting is important, and so is modeling.  I like “Painting in Waldorf Education” by Bruin and Lichthart  and of course Arthur Auer’s “Learning About the World Through Modeling.”  Excellent!
• One thing I have found a lot of fun is to bring in some Eurythmy-inspired lessons; verses and songs and poems with gestures.  I love “Come Unto These Yellow Sands” for that.  If you are not a trained eurythmist you cannot bring the speech eurythmy gestures and do them justice, but you can bring movement and fun to your homeschool with this wonderful book that covers Kindergarten through all twelve grades with great ideas!  There is also an article on copper rods on the Movement for Childhood website available here:  http://www.movementforchildhood.com/copperrods.pdf
• Some people have asked me if they should get Donna Simmons’ “Saints and Heroes” book versus “Stories of the Saints” – the traditional Waldorf resource.  They cover different saints; please look for an upcoming blog post on this since it is a common question! 

IMPORTANT NOTE:  If you have a second grader who is “advanced” you can  keep moving ahead on academic skills, but please, please, please do NOT bring the Third Grade Curriculum until your child  is NINE or pretty darn close to nine.  The Third Grade Curriculum is really a year of DOING, a year that speaks directly and eloquently to the nine-year-old change.  If you bring it in too early two things will happen:  1.  The stories and activities of the Third Grade  just will not speak to your child’s soul, they become a rather empty gesture because they are being offered prematurely and 2.  You will be causing an avalanche effect for the coming years because the Grade Four Norse Myths are VERY dark!  (ie, everyone dies!)  I think a child really should be close to ten to deal directly with the content in the Norse myths; the themes are mature.  When we do academic work, we have to be sure to enliven it with lots of DOING, lots of music, art, painting, sculpting, modeling, gardening, doing, doing, doing.  Otherwise the academic work just sits there, dead and useless.  The teaching through art is the vehicle, the stories and the art and the movement and the doing are the way for the development of the soul.  If you need further clarification on this, I so highly suggest Steiner’s “Practical Advice to Teachers”.  Even just reading the forward will explain this so well!

Just a few thoughts for second grade!

Many blessings,

Carrie

I wrote a pretty detailed post regarding second grade planning  here:   https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/07/planning-waldorf-second-grade/   but wanted to recap half-way through this grade what I  have learned in the doing.  (I did this for first grade as well, please check under the first grade tag).

Here is a list regarding some things I have learned along the way in teaching second grade  that I think would be valuable for other parents:

1.  Regarding math, I think second grade is (and not to sound scary at all!)  a bit of a make or break point because your child starts to size up in their head whether or not they are “good” at math or not.  In other words, it seems like it could be the time for a child to generate a “math phobia”.   Much of this, I think has to do with temperament and personality.    Are they the type of child who will persevere and try and try again and be okay with trying to figure something out or does that just  make them fall apart?  I think this is something you can tuck in your hat and work with in math.

2.  Daily math practice is very, very important when you are not doing a Main Lesson Block on math.  The math  facts often seem rather floating around and up and away in the mind’s eye of a child….In third grade, these facts should be more well-solidified, but I think it is worth practicing in second grade.

3.  As far as language arts, I do not think you need to jump into spelling and grammar as of yet, but we had to because my daughter is learning German and in the German language,  grammar is the heart of it all (nouns are capitalized in the German language, for instance) and my daughter was starting to bring German grammar into English..so we had to go there a little bit.  I used some of the lessons from Dorothy Harrer’s “An English Manual”  book and those were helpful.

Other things to think about include writing utensil (we have been using stick crayons, but I do know Second Grade parents who are using other utensils).  Also, when will you be bringing in cursive?

4. Keep carving out time for baking, gardening, cleaning and allow more consecutive days for project completion.  How about music, painting and modeling?

5. I strongly believe that there are anthroposophic indications for saving purling in handwork until the third grade.  Just a thought.  Go read through Steiner and see what you think. 

6.  Form drawing and movement are important.  For movement suggestions in block form see here:  http://www.movementforchildhood.com/classroom.pdf

7.  After dealing with Saints and Heroes this year, I am not totally convinced that they should be part of the curriculum for the homeschooling family unless the parent is really comfortable with them and those stories.  On the one hand, the saints were not part of the original Waldorf school curriculum, and whilst I think it is worthy and important to look into them and see why you don’t connect with them (because there are plenty of Hindu, Islamic, African saints in many places, also heroes of people who were otherworldly, figure who had a connection to the spiritual world that an eight-year-old with one foot on the bridge and one foot on earth could really relate to!), I also don’t think people should bring these stories if they are not comfortable.

Before you give up Saints, though,  you might want to check out the Saints and Heroes book by Donna Simmons here: http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/bookstore-for-waldorf-homeschooling/publications-for-grades-1-through-5/saints-heroes-a-2nd-grade-language-arts-block.html

There are saints and heroes from many different cultures in this resource.

We personally did enjoy saints and heroes along with fables, Native American tales, more fairy tales (Russian ones this year, and I know some families who did a block of Celtic tales).  I think second grade could be just  those animal trickster tales, fables (no telling the moral please, please let the child figure it out!), more fairy tales, folktales.  (King of Ireland’s Son is also traditional in many Waldorf schools).   However, I think we still need to show the eight-year-old the duality of man, which is why I think so many schools do use the saints and heroes (otherworldly wonderful qualities close to the spiritual worlds) and the fables or trickster tales (the baser parts of being human).  Food for thought anyway. 

7.  If you are feeling overwhelmed and ready to give up Waldorf, please don’t.  You really can do the very essential – opening things (an opening song, a seasonal verse, a longer poem to memorize), do your mental math if not a math block and jump into Main Lesson work and be done.  It is better than giving up this great healing education! And, you eventually go through a cycle and time when you can add more back in!

8.  Plan for summers OFF.  Your child will make so much progress if you just let this material rest, rest, rest.

Hope that helps your planning!

Carrie