Second Grade - Curriculum Overview
Reading
Students add making inferences, summarizing, and critical thinking to their growing repertoire of comprehension strategies. Increasingly independent, second graders transition from picture books to chapter books as a rich classroom library provides a wide range of reading choices.
Read-aloud sessions help build oral fluency, while experiencing poetry, descriptive writing, non-fiction and memoir strengthen breadth. Author studies of Patricia Polacco and Faith Ringgold provide interdisciplinary opportunities to integrate art activities and thoughtful conversations about community and social justice into the curriculum.
Writing
Students continue to deepen their understanding of the writing process. They begin to write for a larger audience and develop increased fluency. The concepts of revision and editing are introduced as second graders prepare poetry, fiction, and non-fiction pieces for some form of publication. Students use individual spelling dictionaries and make use of the word wall for spelling of commonly used words. Handwriting practice continues.
Mathematics
Using a variety of problem solving strategies, students begin to choose efficient math strategies based on a problem's requirements. They articulate their thinking, orally and in writing when solving problems.
An annual "Bike to School and Work Day" lends itself to surveys, data collection, and analysis. Students delve deeper into double-digit addition and subtraction and read, write, and order numbers to at least 1000. They explore geometry concepts through creating patchwork quilt blocks.
Social Studies
Forming an appreciation of life on this planet is encouraged through literature, art projects, field trips, writing, and other group explorations. Students read about and discuss families, examining differences and similarities among traditions represented in class as well as worldwide. They examine and make connections between animal and human societies, with a focus on woodland habitat, owls, dogs, and ants. Children explore concepts of geography as they learn about their own and nearby cities. Second graders are actively involved in an annual "Bike to School and Work Day" They graph school-wide participation, create bike routes, learn about bicycle maintenance, and ride to school together.
Science
Life Science:
- Animal Migration
- Life Cycles
- Symbiotic Relationships - Ants/Aphids
- Frogs
- Seed germination & growth
Earth Science:
- Soil Science - composition & properties of soil types
- Fossils & Bones
Physical Science:
- Flight
- Sound
- Solutions
- Evaporation