Grade 2 girls outside playing

As part of an integrated education bringing wholeness in body, soul and spirit, grade two features:

Writing in Sentences, Consonant Blends and Word Families, Reading in Small Groups, Speech and Drama, Four Math Processes, Place Value, Nature Study, Fables and Ancient Legends of Wise Beings, Mandarin, Spanish, Knitting, Recorder, Singing, Movement and Games, Painting, Drawing and Modeling.

crayon drawing done by second grader

Grade Two Curriculum

The second grade child is poised between the innocent, imaginative consciousness of early childhood and the more worldly consciousness of middle childhood. Wondering anew at the kindness, then cruelty of his friends, and at the honesty, then deceitfulness of his own nature, the eight year old child becomes aware of the greatness and the shortcomings of human beings.

What better time of life to introduce fables and, as a balance, the lives of heroes and saints? In their language arts and history studies, the second graders will explore the landscape of their own and their friends’ personality traits: the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Traditional fables hold a rich source of wisdom about human nature and the world. There, human traits are exaggerated in the brave lion, the timorous mouse, the pokey turtle, the clever fox and so on. The children can see themselves and their classmates through the antics of the animal kingdom and learn valuable lessons about life. Then, through the lives of wise beings and saints of many cultures, the children see how the human spirit can aspire to the loftiest deeds.

All basic academic skills continue to develop at a rapid pace. Writing and reading skills become more independent, and the children are excited at their ability to enter entire imaginative worlds of their own choosing. Students are at home in the world of numbers. Mathematics lessons include the sequence and patterns in numbers, continued work with the processes and the introduction of place value as an antecedent to carrying and borrowing. Laying the ground for future science blocks, the students will continue their experiential exploration of the world of nature through observation, stories, and cooking.

As with the first grade, the entire curriculum is integrated to present the world as a whole, not as disjointed and disconnected pieces. The students will continue to study Mandarin and Spanish through learning poems, stories and acting out short dramas. Likewise, all students will continue water color painting and their exploration of the moods of the colors; beeswax modeling and crayon drawing, as well as form drawing, for the element of form; and knitting, in practical arts. Musical instruction continues as in first grade and includes singing as well as pentatonic recorder. Physical education provides ample time and opportunity for the students to move their limbs in movement and games.