Second Grade Curriculum

RELIGION
Two of the most important Sacraments are studied and celebrated in second grade: Reconciliation and Eucharist. Through study of the Ten Commandments, students learn how to love God and others and develop a closer relationship with God. They also learn about special Holy days and saints, and how to be followers of Christ in their daily lives. During the month of October, each student researches a saint. On All Saints Day the students come to school dressed as their saint and lead an all school mass. In preparation for First Eucharist, students learn about the parts of the Mass and the importance of prayer, faith, and service.  In May, students come to school dressed in their First Communion attire and lead May Crowning along with the 8th grade students.

LANGUAGE ARTS
The Guided Reading program in second grade is focused on meeting the needs of all students and their continued literacy development. Students are assessed throughout the year and are placed into small groups with instructional texts. They are provided with appropriate mini-lessons and teacher support. Students participate in the Reading centers twice a week, which include: independent reading with self-selected appropriate texts, buddy reading, word work, and work on writing.  These opportunities for reading practice are in addition to guided reading groups with teacher and peers. Reading instruction is focused on comprehension strategies, graphic organizers, accuracy, fluency, and vocabulary development. We begin our year with a Marc Brown “Arthur” unit and then continue on into our Journeys reading series. Throughout the year we also focus on fairy tales and fables and, in the month of December, we focus on The Polar Express. The students visit the school library weekly and teachers read to their class on a daily basis.

Second grade Language Arts and Writing are taught using a “Writing Workshop” approach.  Students learn to write in a variety of genres, encouraging creativity. Published writing pieces include narrative, persuasive, how-to writing, and poetry. Students begin to use the writing process: brainstorming and prewriting, drafting, proofreading and editing, rewriting, and publishing. The writing process involves teaching students to use the Six Traits of Writing. This framework is focused on traits that define strong writing, including conventions, organization, ideas, word choice, sentence fluency, voice, and presentation. Students learn about sentence structure and correct usage of grammar by identifying nouns, verbs, and pronouns. Instruction about adjectives and adverbs helps to enhance student writing. Formative assessment is used, such as rubrics, to guide and improve students’ writing. This type of authentic writing allows students to apply their writing skills to all subjects.

The second grade Spelling curriculum uses differentiated weekly spelling lists that address the developmental needs of all students.  Students study short and long vowel patterns, contractions, homophones, compound words, consonant blends and digraphs, prefixes and suffixes, as well as common sight words. Students discover the patterns and rules of words as they use the spelling words in their daily writing. To help practice their words, students are offered various ways that fit their individual learning style. This supports students and their continued reading and writing development.

At the beginning of the year, students review manuscript D’nealian handwriting, which includes proper formation of printed upper- and lower-case letters, size, and spacing. In January, the cursive alphabet is introduced. Children learn the proper formation of letters and the joining of these letters to form words in cursive. Practice of handwriting skills is reflected in their daily writing.

MATH
The second grade Math curriculum uses the McGraw-Hill math series, which incorporates a variety of ways to teach, practice, and review concepts including direct instruction, center work, games, technology, partner work, and small group activities. Students use manipulatives and various strategies to help them visualize math concepts. In math, we will continue to practice addition and subtraction, at times using manipulatives as visual objects. In order for students to develop critical math thinking, students are challenged daily with word problems. Students use problem solving skills which require them to write and draw to explain how they solve the word problem. Hands-on activities and math games are used to review and learn addition and subtraction facts, money and making change, telling time, geometry, measurement, data and graphing, and double digit addition and subtraction with regrouping.  The curriculum meets the needs of diverse learners through reteaching, enrichment materials, and teacher support.

SCIENCE
The second grade Science curriculum explores three domains of science, including Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science. Lessons in each domain follow the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Second graders begin the year investigating matter. They learn about three states of matter, forces and motion, and energy.  In Life Science, students explore the habitat and animals of the Arctic. Applying engineering design, students construct their own dioramas of the Arctic habitat. In the last semester, students investigate how land can change slowly and quickly, learn about the Earth and the Sun, and construct a water cycle mobile. Throughout the year, students engage in various hands on and scientific inquiry experiments to help them understand concepts in the domains of science.

Students attend STEM class weekly where they participate in hands-on activities which promote real-world problem solving skills.  

SOCIAL STUDIES
The second grade Social Studies curriculum is focused on children and the study of their families, communities, and government.  Students study not only their own cultures and family traditions, but learn of the traditions and cultures in populations around the country and world.  Our year is comprised of the following units: Communities, Christmas Around the World, Immigration/Our Country Long Ago & Today. Students extend their understanding of community to the level of state, country, continent, and world.  We learn about the history of our nation, which includes a focus on our nation’s capital and the Presidents. Students study our country’s past through historical events and learn about significant people and holidays celebrated as a nation.

Please refer to the Specials/Fine Arts page to learn more about our 2nd Grade curriculum in the areas of Art, Music, Physical Education, and Technology.