Second Grade

indispensable first grade activity, since a close relationship between finger movement, speech, and thinking exists. The patterning and repetition in knitting also helps with later math thinking. Painting in the first grade is intended to give the children an experience of working with color rather than attempting to create formed "pictures." Children are guided in exploring the relationships between the three primary colors, red, yellow and blue, through color imaginations and narratives. At this age, the wet-on-wet method is used, to encourage the flow of color rather than attention to form.

The first grader’s feeling for form is developed through modeling. Both beeswax and clay are used as modeling materials. Coloring with beeswax crayons and learning to draw whole shapes rather than mere outlines also builds the children’s sense of form. In creating their lesson books, first graders learn to develop a sense of reverence for their work and an appreciation for beautiful work. Blank pages may be formed with colored borders, which help children develop spatial awareness.

The imitative genius of early childhood makes this an ideal time to learn other languages through hearing and speaking. Spanish is taught in the first grade at Marin Waldorf School. At this age, children learn to imitate and speak this new language primarily through songs, poems, games, and movement.

Eurythmy, an art of movement developed by Rudolf Steiner, is taught by a teacher specially trained for this task. Eurythmy exercises affect the children's grace of movement, sensitize hands and fingers, heighten spatial awareness, and stimulate musical, poetic and dramatic awareness. In the first grade, eurythmy helps children develop a healthy sense of self and others, creates healthy breathing, and enlivens the space in which children work and play. In addition to eurythmy, games class helps children learn to move, play and work together joyfully. The first grader’s day is full of stories, artistic experiences, and social interactions.

Second Grade

Second graders are typically much more confident than first graders. They are boisterous, lively and begin to show a sense of humor.

Rudolf Steiner has described the seven-year life cycles, and the importance of the moment when the forces working within the child cast off the baby teeth and construct a smile that gleams with permanence and strength. Second graders have this process well underway. They are on the threshold of newly awakening faculties. Energies freed from the process of forming the body now awaken the subjective world of feeling - wonder, pity, joy, tenderness and sorrow. These are the currents of air upon which these new little butterflies will rise and find their relationship to the world.

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Second graders retain the love of the archetypal imagery experienced in the first grade stories, but as their feelings awaken they are also ready to see the dual aspect of human nature. Their own feelings of sympathy or antipathy may be unsettling for the adults in their lives, and require us to seek creative responses.

We do not wish to burden the seven/eight-year-old with responsibility for their strong judgment, so we must seek other ways to show them the foibles of their own animal natures. Literature from every culture provides fables that show people's animal characteristics pitted one against another. The pictures speak to the children's imaginations, allowing them to form their own inner pictures, so the morals need not be given to them. A second grader has a ready appreciation for a fox who invites a stork to dine on a low plate from which the stork cannot manage to feed itself, simply so that the fox may enjoy the other's shortcomings. But to see the stork "pay the fox in its own coin", and invite it to a sumptuous meal served in an impossibly tall vase, is to show the child the scale of justice that Mother Nature uses in balancing her affairs.

On the other hand, the second grader is also fed by hearing stories of people who sacrifice for the highest good of all. Stories are told about people from all over the world who have felt a calling to make the world/ their community a better place. Some example of these people may include Nelson Mandela, Malala, Martin Luther King, Joan of Arc. St Francis

In Waldorf Education, ideally the teacher usually progresses with their pupils from first to second grade. The class teachers, who can look back on all their pupils' previous learning experiences and build step-by-step on their own foundation, can endow their teaching with real unity. Also, children who are very sensitive to readjustments and changes are given the security of knowing one personality and method intimately and thoroughly.

As the students progress through the grades the teacher continues to model respect and caring for one another and to promote healthy social relationships. These healthy relationships are a core component of the class curriculum. The pedagogical story plays an important role in guiding the children’s social relationships. The children can create inner pictures that speak to them of certain behaviors and identify with the natural consequences of such behaviors.

In the second grade spoken word, animal fables, legends of great and courageous people, Native American tales and the Irish legend of The King of Ireland’s Son are used for the study of language arts. The children learn cursive writing by joining up the letters in a flowing script. This writing pictures the movement of the breath as it streams through sound after sound, linking them together in smooth continuity.

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