Second Grade

The second grade ELA curriculum includes reading, writing, spelling, speaking and listening. It includes the necessary skills of phonics, English language usage, and the elements of proper writing including printing and cursive handwriting.

Through the course of a year, students read and identify various genres of literature with a focus on accuracy, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Students work in a whole class setting as well as small, differentiated groups. We utilize books and workbooks from the WONDERS series, as well as chromebooks/technology to develop and reinforce skills.

Daily journal writing serves as an opportunity for students to express themselves, write poems, reflect on a story, explain a math process, share insights on science and social studies topics, and apply their independent spelling and phonics skills. The 2nd grade writing goal is for students to follow the writing process to complete a paragraph including a topic sentence, supporting sentences, and closing sentence, and descriptive vocabulary words. Students explore different types of writing genres including narrative, opinion, sequence, letter, and persuasive writing.

2nd grade math topics to be reinforced, introduced, and mastered are addition and subtraction facts through 20, numbers and place value to 1000, addition and subtraction of three digits with and without regrouping, identifying and counting coins and dollars, data analysis, time to the minute, customary and metric measurement, geometric shapes, and equal shares/fractions.

The children work by themselves, with partners, and in groups to write and solve problems. The students use a variety of manipulatives to demonstrate how they could solve a problem. Pupils are encouraged to think in different ways to solve the same problem and write and explain their answers. The second graders use math books and their Chromebooks to explore and gain further understanding. Math is used across the curriculum in science, social studies, and language arts.

Second Grade Social Studies covers the diverse areas of communities: urban, rural and suburban. Students also learn about geography- continents, oceans and our country. History and culture are also introduced through holidays. A brief unit on economics introduces the concepts of needs versus wants, goods and services and producers and consumers. The students also learn about our government, American symbols, the Pledge of Allegiance, and citizenship. Students become aware of the world through the use of Scholastic Magazine.  They use their Chromebooks to visit sites that will increase their exposure to the world and deepen their understanding of the areas of social studies. Students are exposed to skills and ideas they will use across the curriculum, including usage of a compass rose, reading and making bar graphs, time lines, maps and a calendar.

Through the science curriculum the second graders are exposed to three different areas of science: Life Science, Earth Science and Physical Science. In Life Science the children learn about how plants, animals and people grow and change. The students explore habitats for plants and animals and how habitats change. In Earth Science the pupils learn about Earth’s resources, earth long ago, our solar system and weather. In Physical Science, the second graders observe and measure matter, learn about changes in matter, forces and motion and sound.

In second grade, students concentrate on either Spanish or French, and continue with oral vocabulary acquisition using games and songs and move gradually towards writing and spelling some vocabulary and simple formulaic sentences.

Bible stories teach students about God and the life and death of Jesus. There is a focus on the Sacrament of Reconciliation through the introduction of decision making, examination of conscience, prayer, and the Ten Commandments.