Four classes, two grades in each

• Letters drawn and painted before they are read

• Number stories, counting rhymes and times tables clapped and walked

• Fairy tales and fables told aloud, then retold in the class's own words

• Wool, beeswax and a first knitting needle

The class teacher stays with the class through both grades, and the next teacher visits in the spring.

• Farming, shelter and the first fractions, learned by building and baking

• Myths from the old world, written up in a main-lesson book

• A map of the valley drawn by hand, creek to ridge

• Recorder and a first string instrument

A new class teacher takes the class, and the two teachers spend a week side by side.

• Botany, with a garden bed the class keeps

• Geometry with compass and straightedge

• Ancient history told as a story, then argued over

• Choir and a class orchestra

The class teacher stays through both grades, and the older class invites the younger one to its spring play.

• Physics and chemistry shown at the bench and written up like a notebook

• Poetry, drama and a class play in the spring

• Algebra, and graphs drawn from real measurements

• A long project chosen by the student and shown to the whole school

Students leave after grade 8. The teachers and each family talk through the next school in the winter.