Level Two
The first and second graders of Level Two love learning on the first floor of our triple-decker home. They become experts at democratic processes and decision-making conversations. This allows for deep friendship and a co-creation of learning structures and routines. L2 students gain fundamental language and math literacy skills through these routines. With these developing skills, they have the tools to express their natural curiosity and love of discovery. How can we describe and analyze what we notice? How can we synthesize and document our exciting findings? Level Two teachers love working in this classroom because they can help students follow their endless questions and innate desires to theorize and deconstruct!
Developmental Approach to Experiential Learning
Level Two math involves multimodal deepening of number sense and computational skills. Through sensory activities, collaborative games, individual practice, and constant iteration and differentiation from teachers, Level Two students move at their own pace as they expand their mathematical understanding of the world around them.
Based on research about effective reading acquisition, Level Two students are submerged in a world of text. Learning to read involves diverse cognitive functions, so students receive many daily hours of explicit and informal instruction designed to increase phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and phonics. Level Two teachers recognize the different amounts of time that students need in order to gain skills, so literacy is woven into every part of the day, including play and the arts!
Level Two students learn about real world wonders and concerns through age-appropriate science and social studies units. For example, to study climate change in an approachable and hopeful way, Level Two students investigated the incredible world of bats. A central study of one topic allows for interdisciplinary connections and extended conversations that follow the threads of student and teacher interests.
Democratic Community Care
Justice-oriented learning happens through content, but also through process. When Level Two students practice having decision-making conversations on a daily basis, they learn how to be allies for each other. How do we listen and learn from others? What strategies allow us to express our differences while accepting each other? How do we build a community that is based on each person’s self-awareness as well as collective ownership? These are the skills that it takes to be a critically conscious member of a community.
Level Two teachers value friendship as something that needs to be explicitly taught and organically fostered. At this age, students are honing their skills of forming group plans and how to communicate and decide about shifts in those plans. Emotional self-regulation is also a key area of practice. These structured social-emotional lessons lead to effortless and child-led moments of true connection. Level Two teachers allow for unstructured play because it is essential for children to experiment with sharing power and solving conflict, within an environment where adults are available to support as needed.
Care looks like fun, beauty, and delight in the world. Whatever the weather, students learn through outdoor play — although a bright blue sky doesn’t hurt! On this particular afternoon, Level Two students extended their geometry lesson about patterns by identifying them in the natural world. With Franklin Park at the end of our street, Level Two students are very familiar with using the space as a classroom. After the math exploration, teachers allowed students to take the lead, and found that students were encouraging each other to use strategies and overcome their worries about climbing trees. What joy!