FORM DRAWING: The running, straight and curved line forms become the foundations for cursive writing. The class works with exercises involving left/right symmetry.
DRAWING: The class works with familiar themes such as houses, people and trees, but with an emphasis on drawing animals. The students begin to creatively add their own elements to their compositions.
PAINTING: The class continues to work mainly with pure colors, experiencing the living quality of each color and the colors' relationships to one another. A color study of the complementary colors is done.
WRITING/READING: The year begins with continuing work with lower case letters. Cursive letters are then introduced as letters that "like to hold hands" - the cursive style helps the child to see the whole word rather than focus on the individual letters. The class uses the cursive style for handwriting by copying sentences from the stories into their main lesson books.
After the activity of writing, the sentences are read and used for spelling exercises. Dictations are also given for spelling work. There is continued work with word families, consonant blends and vowel sounds. Grammar is introduced in an elementary way through the parts of speech - the doing, naming, and describing words. This gives the children a foundation from which they are able to create their own sentences.
SPEECH: The children recite poetry and verses that they learn by heart, using gesture and variation in the speed and quality of tone. They also recite tongue twisters. This all has a strong relationship to teaching the child to breathe rightly. Legends of the Saints, the animal fables, and such stories as "The King of Ireland's Son" are told by the teacher with care towards the beauty and flow of language, and are subsequently re-told by the children on the following day. A class play is presented.
ARITHMETIC: The class works intensively on the times tables (1-12) through rhythmic stepping and clapping exercises and with mental and written problems. Mental arithmetic is done each day during these blocks through a "number imagination", which quickly moves away from the picture to the realm of pure number. Square numbers, odd and even numbers, and place value to one million are worked with. The processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are expanded upon.
GAMES: Here, the emphasis is on the human voice to initiate movement; for example, one side becomes the sheep and chants a verse that calls the fox to chase. Students also jump rope, play follow-the-leader, run in geometric patterns, and learn several hand-clapping and string games.
MODELLING: The children model with beeswax and clay.
HANDWORK: In second grade, the fundamental knitting skills are reinforced. Following a somewhat rigid pattern of bands, they learn the purl stitch, along with learning to knit and purl in patterned sequence, changing colors, casting on and off, and identifying mistakes and correcting them. Their thinking and awareness are awakened with the changing requirements of this project. Their second project is knitting a doll. With this project, they bring more of their individuality into designing how they want their doll to look, reinforcing the skills of focusing, planning and producing.
MAIN LESSON BLOCKS IN THE 2ND GRADE: Legends and fables, stories of saints and heroes; continued working with writing, reading and arithmetic; cursive writing introduced.
Spanish: Poems, Songs, Fables, Group Games
Painting: Complimentary Colors
Handwork: Crocheting, Knitting
Farming: Wood Sawing, Apple Pressing and Drying, Garden Work
Music: Singing, Pentatonic Flute