Second Grade

I thought I would share some of my notes on Second Grade. I am still not 100% sure on the implementation of all of this, but I do have a pretty good understanding of what is important for Second Grade. Keep in mind that this is my understanding, which means that I have naturally focused more on some things and left other things out.

In my education on this year, I have done quite a few things. I've read through the Christopherus Waldorf Curriculum Overview for Homeschoolers, both in the Second Grade portions and in the Subject by Subject portions. I've read through Melisa Nielsen's A Journey Through Waldorf Homeschooling Second Grade. I've listened to a two hour podcast on the Gnomes Home Radio.

I have a bit of an advantage because the Hippie has already gone through Second Grade, but I did have to spend some time thinking about this child. All of that aside, let me share with you my understanding of the Second Grade and what it means in this house. If you are new to the ideas of a Waldorf Education, I suggest you do some research. I don't have time in this post to break it all down for you and I'd love for you to know what I'm talking about.

The skills that are important to me at this age are pretty basic ~ learn to read and build fluency with reading, basic handwriting (which will be practiced via Charlotte Mason style copywork in this house) and basic math. That is really all that matters at this age as far as skills. Grammar and spelling and composition will come with time, but are not my focus just yet.

My second grader can read, but needs practice. I'm planning to do a "100 Book Challenge" with her like I did with the Hippie at this age. My hope is that it will build confidence and fluency and somewhere along the way she will take off. My second grader can do basic math in her head (and really hasn't had a formal math lesson yet), but we want to deepen and broaden that knowledge this year. My second grader can write, but certainly needs practice. I plan to pull short sentences from our Second Grade stories this year for her to copy in order to practice her handwriting. She still writes the occasional letter backwards and still tends to mix capital and lower case all throughout the same word/sentence. But, I feel confident that a year of copywork will resolve those issues.

The subject matter for Second Grade can really be summed up as stories of Saints, Animal Fables, Nature and Math. Second Graders are still somewhat dreamy like a First Grader (and mine most certainly is!). They are ready for a deeper understanding of the material, but are still so young and playful.

The stories of the Saints meet the second grader where she is developmentally. These are stories of other-worldly people who devoted their lives to serving others. The goal here has nothing at all to do with Catholicism (at least not in my home ~ if you are Catholic then this would be different in your home), but has everything to do with showing my daughter that it feels good to serve others. I want to include stories that will speak to her.

The stories of the Animal Fables also meet the second grader where she is developmentally. These are morality tales that teach a lesson, but as the teacher we should never tell them the lesson ~ let the story work deep inside them.

Second grade is also a good time for myths and legends from around the world. I like the Jataka tales because they sort of combine the ideas of the Saints and the Animal Fables into one ~ the Buddha told these tales of himself as various animals and people in order to teach people to be compassionate to all living things. Like the Jataka tales, stories involving Hindu saints would be good this year. I really like the stories that sort of combine the two themes.

Traditional Waldorf Second Grade emphasizes form drawing, knitting, recorder and lots of movement in addition to the academic portions. I have this in the back of my mind and will do my best to bring some aspects of it to my daughter, but I also have to be true to myself and not set myself up for feelings of failure. I have some goals for us in the form drawing and knitting departments, but I am not going to allow myself to feel guilty for "not doing it right" or "not doing it enough". As for music, we hold music in high esteem in this house and the girls hear a lot of it. We have a variety of instruments in this house and they have the freedom to use them. But, learning the recorder just isn't high on my priority list at this time. Movement? Who can keep them from moving? I mean, seriously. Will I be memorizing finger plays and songs with marching? Probably not. I know me. That isn't me. But, we will walk and scooter and bike to the park and the beach. We may do an exercise DVD together or some yoga. We'll stomp and clap some times tables and participate in circle time with friends, but my home will not look like a Waldorf classroom, complete with "lots of movement" and recorder and quality form drawing and knitting going on. And, I'm okay with that. :)

So, while there are many ways one can go with this year as far as the details go, the year can be summed up as:

• Saints
• Fables
• Legends and Myths from around the world
• Nature Stories
• Deepening the understanding of the four math processes
• Reading and writing

On a more personal level, my goals for The Princess are:

• Math ~ Go slow and savor and enjoy the grade two topics, really solidify the four processes, have fun
• Reading ~ Continue reading every day, increase in fluency and confidence, move from easy readers to longer chapter books
• Writing ~ Write something every day, use short sentences of copywork to practice handwriting
• Composition ~ Orally narrate stories and increase confidence in this skill as a precursor to written composition down the road
• Developmentally ~ Bring her lots of stories of saints, animal tales, fables, legends, fairy tales, myths, etc.
• Slow, gentle pace with lots of time for play and exploration, honor her childhood, let her remain "dreamy" as long as she needs to be
• Regular chances to bake, cook, paint, model, build, create, draw and otherwise express herself creatively

How does that look as far as an outline for Second Grade this year?

I hope to get 8 weeks of school in between our return from Germany and Thanksgiving. During that time, my general plan is to focus on Saints for four weeks, Fables for 3 weeks and then spend a week on St. Martin in time for celebrating Martinmas.

During the holidays, I hope to very gently cover Saint Nicholas and Saint Lucia at their appropriate times in December ~ reading stories about them, baking for the neighbors, leaving shoes out for Saint Nicholas to fill, baking Saint Lucia's buns, making Lucia's crown, etc.

When we return from the holidays, I am imagining the flow to go back and forth between math, Jataka Tales, Saints, Fables, Anansi tales and possibly some Burgess tales. I have an outline of blocks here, but I am still undecided about exactly how we will approach it. Either I will have specific "Second Grade Main Lesson" time with the Princess each day and we will follow the blocks specifically OR I will incorporate the appropriate stories into our family read alouds, have her copywork be related to the stories and have weekly drawing and painting times where she can draw or paint from the stories while her sister is drawing or painting form her applicable stories. I am torn between doing separate main lessons and trying to blend us as much as we can. We tend to work well as a family unit. I'll let you know how that all pans out. The important thing is that her year be focused on the things I've mentioned. Again, as long as she reads every day, practices writing, deepens her math understanding, hears me read aloud quality literature and has plenty of time for artistic expression and play, I think we'll be just fine.

Of course, we will also have our other family stuff that isn't specific to Second Grade ~ God at breakfast (Bible, Character, etc), Literature at Lunch, Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare, Poetry, Biographies, Nature Study, Classical Music, Art Appreciation, Kitchen time (baking and cooking), Crafts, Zoo field trips, Homeschool Group Field Trips, the local Symphony, our little group day of Form Drawing and Circle Time and Handwork ...

How are your plans coming? Do you spend time really getting a feel for what each child needs or do you just plan the year out and go with it? I love to hear how others handle their planning.

Until next time,
   ~ IrieMomma

Summer School Week In Review ...

Summer School is in full effect.  

The girls are LOVING it!  Nothing but fun stuff.  Awesome.

Let me share with you some of the stuff we did this week.  Pretty much all activities were "As A Family", so I'll just write them instead of designating. 

In addition to the fun stuff below, I did spend 15 minutes with the Princess a few mornings this week on her reading lessons.  We've covered short vowels, long vowels, the silent "e" and blends.  She also went ahead and colored her "Word Book".  We will start the "real" lessons next week with "Rain is Falling All Around". 

The Hippie completed several lessons in her Queen Language Lessons book.  She is currently copying Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", two lines per day.   


The Hippie also read some in her Reading Literature Second Reader book this week (whenever she finished something else before I was ready to start).  On Monday when she was reading a poem to me, she came across a word she didn't know the meaning of (a drake).  I didn't know what it was either, so I showed her how to look it up in our old fashioned Webster's Dictionary.  Funny thing ~ she mentioned how it was SO OLD ... I had her look up the copyright ... only 1987.  Haha ~ I guess that IS old to her!  Anyway, in case you didn't know it, a drake is a "male duck".  We kinda figured so from the context of the poem, but we wanted to find out for sure.  She's also been reading Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle on her own time ~ she's on chapter 7, I believe.  And, she started Pippi on the South Seas on Wednesday and finished it Friday afternoon!

We finished the James Herriot's Treasury for Children.  This was such a lovely book!  And, thankfully, it is one we own, so they girls can read it over and over (the Hippie has already read many of the stories on her own after we read them together).  We are still working through The Black Stallion at night, but are almost finished. 
 

What about the fun stuff?

Art

This week we studied Monet's painting "Cliff Walk at Pourville".  It is now hanging on the cork board with the others.

We also read and narrated The Magical Garden of Claude Monet.  

The girls watched Linnea in Monet's Garden on Monday.  I have the book and we are going to read it as well, but I was pretty excited to find the DVD at my library.  It was cool to see the real footage of Monet's actual garden!  


** Side note ~ We decided that we wanted to see how far Monet's Garden is from Nanu's house (my mom lives in Germany), and if it's reasonable, the girls want to go there whenever we get to go visit her next year! 

Science/Nature Study:

On Monday we read "The Century Plant's Wish" out of our Outdoor Secrets book.  The girls narrated it to me then and also told Daddy about it at dinner that night.  


On Tuesday we looked at this website to see pictures of a real Century Plant growing.  We then looked around the internet at other pictures of Century Plants.  We just happen to have an aloe plant at home, so we also took a look at that and compared it to the pictures of the Century Plant.  After all of this, we came inside and the girls drew pictures of the Century Plant in their Nature Notebooks.  The Hippie also copied a small quote from Shakespeare, "How poor are they who have not patience!" into her Nature Notebook.

On Thursday, we read A Desert Scrapbook and talked about all of the life in the Sonoran Desert.  Afterwards, we all drew pictures in our Nature Notebooks.  The Hippie chose to draw a desert tortoise and the Princess and I both drew a Saguaro with a desert sunset in the background.

Here are some pictures of our Science & Nature studies this week ...

The Hippie's

The Princess's

The Hippie's

The Princess's

Momma's

 
Math:

We've had such a fun time with this this week!  And, I am quite impressed with my ability to make this a group activity and just adjust the level of difficulty for each child's ability.  

On Monday we read Polly Plus and spent some time practicing adding up jewels.  The princess added single digit amounts of jewels to get sums no greater than 10; the hippie added up double digit jewels, starting with the ones.  After some fun practice, we went to the table and we all drew pictures of Polly Plus in our Math Main Lesson Books.  The Hippie also added an equation to show how it is done.  She then did some more practice problems that were written out vertically (I just slid the practice sheet into a page protector and let her do them with wipe-off pens).

Momma's

The Hippie's

The Princess's

Tuesday was the best.  After we'd finished up our fun with the Century Plant, I had the girls go dress up as Polly Plus and grab a basket.  I set out a jewel treasure hunt around the house (it's too hot and smoky due to wildfires outside or we would have done this outside).  I set out single jewel piles for the Princess to find (sums no greater than ten) and I set out bags and singles of jewels for the Hippie to find (bags contain 10, so each bag equals 1 in the tens place).  I gave them each a clipboard, a pencil and a blank practice sheet with the following all the way down it:

_____ + _____ = _____

We went on the hunt and each time they found jewels, they counted the first pile, wrote the number in the first blank, counted the second pile, wrote it in the second blank and added them together.  Sometimes they could do them in their head and sometimes they just counted their jewels.  They had SO MUCH FUN!  The Princess kept saying "we'd never get to this in a school!" and the Hippie (much to my surprise since she is older) really got into her role as Polly Plus.  She brought them all to King Divide at them end ... Then, they each counted jewels to make sure that we again had 10 in each bag and they stuck the sheets they had filled into their Math MLBs.  Such a fun day!

 On Thursday, I had the Hippie copy a little poem into her Math MLB to remind her to start with the ones when she does her addition.  She also worked on some practice problems that I made up for her.  She did use her jewels to do these, but then I showed her how it worked on paper, too.

** Another side note.  It almost seems as if the Hippie read somewhere that she would begin to love cooking when she approached the "9 year change".  She has never really cared much about helping me in the kitchen (though her sister has always loved to help cook), but suddenly she is ALL ABOUT COOKING.  No joke.  The girl is hooked.  She has somehow gotten hooked on Giada at Home and wants to watch it every afternoon with her snack (it comes on at 4:30 here on the Food Network).  She also wants to make SOMETHING in the kitchen like several times a day.  I've had to reel her in just a bit ~ we can't afford for her to use up all of our food, nor can we afford for her to make some of the concoctions she's run by me ... if they didn't turn out to be edible, we'd have to toss them and we simply can't have that!  The girl does NOT want to follow any directions or recipes; she wants to be creative and make up her own things.  So far lately, she's made us a peach & mango cobbler, and apple pie dessert, a fruit salad, some little cucumber, cheese and herb snacks, a berry-aid slushy, a cherry-almond crunch smoothie, an apple cobbler, peanut butter/banana/chocolate chip cobbler  ...

Our summer Library event took us to China on Tuesday.  We went to the library and watched Kung Fu Panda and did Tangrams.  This led to some Tangram play at home on Wednesday morning (we have a set of wooden Tangrams at home).

Wednesday morning met us with sneezes, sniffles, a few coughs and still terrible smoke outside due to the nearby wildfires.  We were all tired and just didn't feel like doing much, so after our morning walk, we snuggled up on the couch to watch Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Movie.  We had popcorn and watched a movie ... at 9:00 in the morning.  Ahhhh, nice.  And, hey, it was set in the depression era, so that could count for history, right?  LOL  Other than that, we did some cleaning, some reading and just sort of took it easy.

A Pioneer Sampler also arrived in the mail on Wednesday.  I ordered it to use in planning my third grade year, but the Hippie was tickled pink to spend some time reading it.  She LOVES the Laura Ingles Wilder books, and this book was a perfect supplement, showing her how people of the 1800s lived.  She eats that stuff up.  I'm gonna have to pry it from her hands to get any planning done!  :)

Friday was another relaxing day.  I'm not sure if it's cold symptoms, allergies or just all the smoke from the wildfires, but Momma was just feeling a little blah.  Oh, and that time of the month thing ... aahhh, being a woman.  

Anyway, even though we did not do "official school", the Hippie still managed to fit in "the three R's", as they say.  She did a page of math practice (two digit addition), finished reading Pippi in the South Seas, did some Tangram puzzles and baked (again) a banana, peanut butter, chocolate chip cobbler ... YUM!  As usual, the measuring spoons needed were not all clean, so she easily added fractions on the fly to figure it out.  She's gonna make me fat(ter) with all this baking!


Three full days and two relaxing, yet educational ones ... not bad for a week of SUMMER SCHOOL!

And, I'll leave you with some other pictures from our week ...

The Hippie made Gnomes

The Princess made Momma & Daddy