Waldorf Grade 2 Stories: Fables and Saints Side by Side

In Waldorf grade 2, children hear two kinds of story side by side: animal fables and the legends of saints and other remarkable people. The fables, mostly Aesop's, show our small failings through animals: the grasshopper who played all summer, the fox who couldn't reach the grapes. The legends show the other side, a person who chose to act well: Saint Francis talking with the wolf, Saint Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar. Many teachers add trickster tales, Jataka tales from India and a hero's story. Families who'd rather not tell saints stories can choose real people who did good in the world instead.

What stories are taught in Waldorf second grade?

When Steiner sketched the story content for the first Waldorf school in 1919, he gave grade 1 "a treasure trove of fairy tales" and grade 2 stories from the animal world, told through fables. Steiner also spoke of saints and heroes as stories for the 8 year old, and today most schools and homeschool curricula tell both. The Tucson Waldorf School, for example, describes a year of fables and stories of saints. The children draw and write about them in their main lesson books and act one out as a class play.

A typical grade 2 story list looks something like this:

• Aesop's fables, such as the tortoise and the hare or the fox and the crow
• Trickster tales, such as Anansi the spider from West Africa, Br'er Rabbit and Coyote
• Jataka tales, old animal stories from India about the Buddha's earlier lives
• Saints' legends, such as Saint Francis, Saint Martin and Saint Jerome, and good people from other traditions
• A hero's story in some curricula, such as the Irish hero Finn MacCool

If your child has just come from a year of Grimm's tales, the Waldorf storytelling guide shows how the stories change from grade to grade.

Why fables and saints are paired

In a fairy tale, good and bad are usually easy to tell apart. Many 7 and 8 year olds start to see that real people are more mixed than that. A friend can be generous at lunch and mean on the playground. They can feel it in themselves too.

Fables meet that. Each animal is one quality, drawn clearly: the lazy grasshopper, the proud hare, the fox who pretends he never wanted the grapes. Lavender's Blue describes the grade 2 stories as a look at "greediness, laziness, deceit, and foolishness" alongside generosity, perseverance and cleverness. Your child can laugh at the hare and recognize him at the same time, without anyone pointing a finger.

Saints' legends show the other side: an ordinary person who chose to be kind or brave. Francis gave away his fine clothes. Martin shared his cloak on a freezing night. These stories give children what the Tucson school calls models "in the world outside of family", people to look up to.

Put together, the two kinds of story give a fuller picture of being human than either one alone. The Jataka tales carry both at once. Live Education! calls them "a unique blend" of a saint's legend and an animal story, which is why many teachers like them for this year.

What fables do Waldorf second graders learn?

Aesop's fables are the heart of it. They're short enough to tell in five minutes, and your child can retell them the next day. Good first choices are the grasshopper and the ants, the lion and the mouse, the fox and the grapes, and the tortoise and the hare.

The most important thing is what you don't do. When the fable ends, don't ask "So what did we learn?" Put the book away and let your child sit with it. The next day, ask what happened first and who was in the story. The moral settles in on its own, over days. Waldorf teachers often say it this way: tell the story and let the child feel it, rather than explaining it.

The Animal Fables guide walks through a full first day with "The Grasshopper and the Ants": a phonics rule, a page in the main lesson book, then the fable read aloud with the books put away.

Trickster tales come later in many grade 2 years, and children usually love them. Anansi is clever, greedy and funny, and he often gets tricked back. You don't need to decide whether he was good or bad. Laugh with your child when the trick works and laugh again when it backfires. The Trickster Tales guide has the first day of that block.

Which saints are appropriate for grade 2?

Choose stories with a clear picture and a simple deed. Children this age hold on to what a person did with their hands, much more than to titles or dates. Legends with animals in them are especially good:

• Saint Francis and the wolf of Gubbio, or preaching to the birds
• Saint Jerome pulling a thorn from the lion's paw
• Saint Martin cutting his cloak in two for a beggar, told every November before Martinmas
• Saint Christopher carrying a child across the river
• Saint George and the dragon, often told near Michaelmas

Many teachers now reach beyond one tradition. Christopherus's Saints and Heroes includes Rabia of Basra, the Baal Shem Tov, Nandanar and Hiawatha beside Martin and Francis. Live Education!'s Golden Legends includes Rumi. One Waldorf class teacher, Serene Perrow, writes that she chose her class 2 stories to "reflect a multi-faith and multi-cultural classroom".

If your family isn't religious

Plenty of Waldorf-inspired families love the fables but feel uneasy with saints. What your child takes from a legend is the picture of someone being brave or kind, and a true story can give that just as clearly.

One option is Starpath's Inspiring People block. It tells four real lives, about five days each: Saint Francis of Assisi, Jane Goodall, Abdul Sattar Edhi and Wangari Maathai. The guide asks you to start with what each person did rather than the prizes they won. Jane sat still in the forest until a chimpanzee trusted her. Wangari planted one tree, and then another. You could also build your own list of people from your family's history or your part of the world, as long as each story has a clear picture at its center.

How many stories, and how often?

In a grade 2 main lesson block, one story usually runs over two or three days:

1. Day one: you tell the story. Books are away, and your child just listens, ideally away from the writing table.
2. Day two: your child retells it, then drafts two or three sentences in a lined book.
3. Day three: they copy their best version into the main lesson book and draw a picture beside it.

At that pace a four-week fables block holds about seven to ten fables, and a saints block holds four to six lives. That's enough. You can tell extra fables at bedtime or at the lunch table without asking your child to write about them. The main lesson books guide has more on how the pages come together.

Good books for grade 2 stories

You don't need many. A small shelf covers the year:

• A collection of Aesop's fables. Any clear edition you enjoy reading aloud.
• A book of Jataka tales. Several retellings for children exist, and Live Education! publishes its own.
• A saints collection. Siegwart Knijpenga's Stories of the Saints (Floris Books) has over 40, written for children aged 7 to 11.
• A Waldorf homeschool story guide, if you want the stories already chosen: Christopherus's Saints and Heroes or Live Education!'s A Collection of Golden Legends.

Read each story a few times on your own before you tell it. You'll tell it more warmly once it's yours.

A week to try at home

If you're starting grade 2 soon, try one fable this week. On Monday, read "The Lion and the Mouse" aloud after breakfast and stop there. On Tuesday, ask your child to tell it back to you, then write two sentences together. On Wednesday, your child draws the lion in the net and copies the sentences underneath. Then tell one saint's legend the week after and notice which one your child asks for again.

For how the whole year fits together, read the grade 2 curriculum guide. If you're choosing a curriculum, the best Waldorf curriculum for grade 2 compares the main options.