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RyaneM
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| Posted: April 23 2012 at 5:20pm | IP Logged
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Hi ladies..
I am beginning to plan second grade for next year and would love to hear from those of you who did Second this year. Curriculum wise.. What worked? What didn't?
What does second grade look like in your house?
Thanks!
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Ryane in NY 
Mama to ds (3/05), ds(1/09) and dd (4/10)
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mommy4ever
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| Posted: April 23 2012 at 5:22pm | IP Logged
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LOVED CHC curricula. Made it simple :) I preferred the CLE Math to the one CHC recommended, but that is personal preference.
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1 graduated June 2012
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kristacecilia
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We are just finishing up our second grade year for the first time. Things that worked was... taking it a lot easier than I originally planned.
Language Arts was Primary Language Lessons, one lesson done orally 4-5 times per week, plus copywork 5 times a week for 10 minutes at a time. We also introduced cursive this year at my DS's request.
Religion was the Baltimore Catechism 1 (my DS made his FHC last year), one lesson per week or so. We also read some books on the lives of the saints and, as a family, have been reading Leading Little Ones to Mary.
Math: We used Life of Fred A-E and Math Mammoth 2, each twice a week.
Science: We are working through Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding with my K'er and 2nd grader together. It's really more for the younger grades, but my 2nd grader has gotten a lot out of it and we have found some experiments and books to develop some of the ideas a but more for him. I highly recommend this book, even though it's a bit teacher intensive. We also read some living science books together slowly- Wildlife in Field and Woods, Seed Babies, and Among the _____ People (most of those were in the morning basket). We have also done a lot of nature study with nature walks and the Anna McGovern book Type Lessons for Primary Teachers in the Study of Nature, Literature, and Art.
History: We read Fifty Famous Stories Retold and I had him narrate. This was mostly to develop his narrating, which we are still working on.
Latin: We are using Getting Started with Latin very slowly together with my K'er (who finds Latin fun). We are also learning the responses to the EF Mass using the book from St. Augustine Academy Press, Learning to Follow the Mass.
Music: This has been a conglomeration of learning liturgical hymns, Making Music Praying Twice, and learning the recorder using The Nine Note Method.
Art: He's been working through the first book of Artistic Pursuits pretty slowly, but we have also thrown in some artist study using some picture books and the book Discovering Great Artists.
Poetry: He memorized a few poems, including Paul Revere's Ride (his choice!!!!). We mostly use The Harp and the Laurel Wreath and Favorite Poems Old and New.
I think that is it? The year's been pretty laid back.
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Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 23 2012 at 6:55pm | IP Logged
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For second grade this year we've worked particularly on solidifying reading skills and transitioning to real independence (for a child who hasn't been an early reader); improved print handwriting and moving into cursive; and greater confidence and ability in using numbers, for a child who last year had trouble remembering the most basic of addition facts.
We've also worked on gentle, basic grammar (capitalization and basic punctuation, usage, parts of speech, what makes a complete sentence, etc), and on fine motor skills through drawing.
And we work on larger cultural literacy through history, art history (Knights of Art has been a favorite read-aloud this year), listening to classical music while we work, reading Shakespeare stories and watching film versions of some plays.
Her one extracurricular activity is American Heritage Girls. One of the things I love most about scouting programs is how they function as curricula unto themselves, covering a huge range of experiences which I might not deliver at home.
Likes:
CHC's Language of God. I don't use their whole curriculum, but I have liked their little grammar series, and my current 2nd grader enjoys it.
Draw Write Now. We've done all kinds of copywork this year, using one of those Mead Primary Journals with the space for illustration, but particularly in mid-winter, when we had the blahs, this was a huge hit.
St. Patrick's Summer and A Life of Our Lord for Children, both by Marigold Hunt, both read-alouds for religion (especially First Communion prep). My 2nd grader has also been increasingly able to help read psalm verses aloud when we pray Morning Prayer at the start of our day. She's not always super-willing, and sometimes it's hard going for her, but this has been a *great* ritual to settle into.
Thornton W. Burgess animal stories (The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver and The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse) as first chapter books to read independently.
MEP math, though lately we've also been using a cheap math-skills workbook we got at Staples, because she likes that kind of thing. HUGE strides in math this year, I have to say, and I credit our heavy concentration on MEP in the fall semester for that.
I combine my second- and third-graders for the read-aloud portion of our day, which covers religion, history, science/nature, and much literature.
What didn't work:
I had planned to lean heavily on The Baldwin Project for copywork and, in small doses, independent reading, but that just didn't turn out to be feasible. When we aren't doing Draw Write Now, I've pulled copywork from poetry books and/or books the kids are reading. And we've essentially used those two Thornton W. Burgess books I mentioned above as our "readers" for the year. I have used Baldwin for most of our read-alouds though, and it's been a great resource.
You can see more of what our day/week/year looks like here. R is my second-grader, and right now we're moving rather slowly through subtraction-with-regrouping, though she's got it cold . . . Our year has evolved somewhat from the plans I made this time last year -- mostly it's gotten simpler, especially as the spring winds down -- but on the whole it's been a very good year, and I've been pleased by the extent to which we really have done what I wanted us to do.
Sally
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MommyMahung
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My son finished the first grade work that I had for him and started the second grade work. My daughter is doing first grade work and will be getting into second grade work by the end of summer.
We do a lot of reading. The kids have their own library cards and check out books that they want to read.
For math, I have been putting together my own curricula. I use a site called dadworksheets.com. I also use flash cards and incorporate math into many things we do through out the day. My son has gotten through the 1,2,3,4,5 and 10 times tables. Both of my kids learned to tell time with regular numerals and roman numerals.
Language arts has been really relaxed. We do some spelling, grammar, etc... a little bit everyday.
History and geography have been done together. We put together our own curricula to go according to the questions at hand.
Music, the kids are enrolled at the Suzuki school for violin and piano. Now the three year old as decided she wants to play the harp! Really?? Why not the violin like your brother or the piano like your sister? The hunt has begun for a harp teacher...
Mandarin and Spanish have been with Rosetta stone. I encourage the kids to practice speaking with the people at the grocery stores, especially in Chinatown.
Phys. Ed. they play outside and then I have them do obstacle courses in the house. We go to the parks at least twice a week.
We do a lot of field trips!!! Botanical Gardens, the zoo, science museum, history museum, aquarium, anything that doesn't have a big crowd for that day/week.
I have found what Sally and Krista have said, to be very helpful. I feel like I have done a disservice to my kids after reading what they have done! Thanks for the ideas too!
Hope this helps you!
Laura
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 23 2012 at 7:47pm | IP Logged
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Funny, I was thinking the same thing looking at yours, Laura!
Sally
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CrunchyMom
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Math Mammoth and Life of Fred for Math has worked well.
This is our third year using Explode the Code, and we still like it.
At the beginning of the school year, when my oldest was not a strong reader, we really enjoyed the Faith and Freedom readers. Pretty sure we started with those at the end of first.
I think that you should probably plan to be pretty flexible. I planned the school year for him when he was barely reading, and by Christmas, he was reading chapter books at a fifth grade or so level. I had to really revisit and wing a lot mid year.
The New St Joseph First Communion Catechism is what we've relied on for FHC prep. We also really like A Life of our Lord by Marigold Hunt and Angel Food by Fr. Brennan.
We're making our way through This Country of Ours for American History. If I had it to do over, I'm not sure I would have started it this year. Frankly it spends a lot of time on early America that can be a little dry. However, I think that it will be good to continue with next year and include my then first grader as we'll get to the Revolutionary war and post war history. There are a lot more options for supplemental reading once you get that far along.
I burned Mighty Men and Fifty Famous Stories onto CDs, and all the boys listen to them a lot just for fun. Just recently, as my son has settled in as a confident and somewhat advanced reader, I added in Gombrich's a Little History of the World. I had it already, and we've listened to it on cd on long car trips in the past. It might be a little heavy, but my son does like it. I'm having him read it, but the CDs are very well done as well.
Anything by Thornton Burgess has always been a hit here. We've listened to all the titles (especially the ones we don't own) on librivox over the years, and my son did read the volumes we own. I can imagine their being used well as a reader like Sally describes.
I did use Building Foundations some though not as much as I'd hoped. I rely heavily on it for its booklists, though, and I reference it a good bit when choosing books on a theme from the library.
One thing that we dropped on purpose was The Blue Fairy Book. My boys just don't love that style of fairy story.
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kristacecilia
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| Posted: April 24 2012 at 6:35am | IP Logged
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SallyT wrote:
Funny, I was thinking the same thing looking at yours, Laura!
Sally |
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Me too! 
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God bless,
Krista
Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)
I blog at http://kristacecilia.wordpress.com/
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Becky Parker
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Sound Beginnings has worked very well here for teaching phonics. We also like All About Spelling for the same purpose. Depends on the child. Both are mom-intensive but I have found them to be well worth the time.
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: April 24 2012 at 9:13am | IP Logged
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These worked:
Math Mammoth
Fifty Famous Stories Retold
Seton Readers
Stories from Shakespeare (Usborne Book)
Math Bingo games
Burgess Bird Book
Piano Lessons
Soccer
American Heritage Girls - badge work really brings in skills and other learning.
A Year With God
Library programs
She learned to pay chess this year and loves it, and we also like to play Mancala (this is an awesome game that even my 5yo likes to play, our first game was made out of an egg carton and popcorn kernels).
GeoPuzzles - love these puzzles
Various picture books based on her interests that week.
We took a mainly workbook approach for the core of second grade (for various reasons), and it was BORING but effective for keeping me a bit sane this year. I'm planning to revamp for third grade since our life situation is changing and allowing us to try a different approach.
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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mamaslearning
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| Posted: April 24 2012 at 10:24am | IP Logged
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Krista, I have a question on this thread about a book you referenced.
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Lara
DD 11, DS 8, DS 6, DS 4
St. Francis de Sales Homeschool
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 25 2012 at 7:50am | IP Logged
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Lindsay makes a really good point about flexible planning, particularly where your expectations for reading are concerned. I've had two second graders who took off really quickly early in that year, going from having to buddy-read fairly basic stories to devouring books several grade levels above where they'd begun, and I had to scramble a bit, especially the first time around, to have books to throw at them.
And then, this year, I've had a second grader who hasn't taken off that fast, and I've had to readjust for that, too.
So there can be a huge variation in what happens once you've gone through the basic learning-to-read stuff of K and first grade. It's helped me to have a lot of books and materials already on hand, since this second-grader is my fourth and last child, so that when one book turned out to be more than she could handle, I had something else to substitute. She did move fairly quickly from buddy-reading to reading to herself, but she just doesn't read as quickly or fluently as the previous two children did at the same age.
One thing that's worked well for us this year has been to start our school day (on days when we haven't gone to 8 a.m. Mass) with Morning Prayer. Now that all the kids are reading, this is finally possible, and I've found that it's been a really good exercise to have the kids take turns reading psalm verses aloud. The third grader reads very fluently, and the second-grader has improved steadily in the course of the year. This is occasionally pretty demanding reading, but the verses are short, and I help her over rough spots. It does help me to see where she's stumbling without having to build a separate reading *lesson* into our day (otherwise she reads independently for a short time at the end of our "table work" period).
The same child really enjoys and is good at copywork, however -- she has struggled with writing far less than her two older brothers did (possibly a boy/girl fine-motor-skill thing), and we've used that extensively, as I think I may have noted. She wanted to write long before she could read, and her spelling has always been . . . interesting, though it's gradually improving. I don't do formal spelling at this stage, but I have found that both reading and writing via copywork are helping with self-correction, and that copywork has reinforced reading ability.
Sally
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JennGM
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| Posted: April 25 2012 at 8:06am | IP Logged
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SallyT wrote:
| One thing that's worked well for us this year has been to start our school day (on days when we haven't gone to 8 a.m. Mass) with Morning Prayer. Now that all the kids are reading, this is finally possible, and I've found that it's been a really good exercise to have the kids take turns reading psalm verses aloud. The third grader reads very fluently, and the second-grader has improved steadily in the course of the year. This is occasionally pretty demanding reading, but the verses are short, and I help her over rough spots. It does help me to see where she's stumbling without having to build a separate reading *lesson* into our day (otherwise she reads independently for a short time at the end of our "table work" period). |
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Love this idea...will have to wait a couple more years, but this has been one of my plans for many years. The younger ones love to lead the prayer and read aloud -- it's an important role.
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 25 2012 at 8:13am | IP Logged
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JennGM wrote:
SallyT wrote:
| One thing that's worked well for us this year has been to start our school day (on days when we haven't gone to 8 a.m. Mass) with Morning Prayer. Now that all the kids are reading, this is finally possible, and I've found that it's been a really good exercise to have the kids take turns reading psalm verses aloud. The third grader reads very fluently, and the second-grader has improved steadily in the course of the year. This is occasionally pretty demanding reading, but the verses are short, and I help her over rough spots. It does help me to see where she's stumbling without having to build a separate reading *lesson* into our day (otherwise she reads independently for a short time at the end of our "table work" period). |
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Love this idea...will have to wait a couple more years, but this has been one of my plans for many years. The younger ones love to lead the prayer and read aloud -- it's an important role. |
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We've been learning and reciting the Invitiatory Psalms. This seemed a good way to start the habit before we were quite ready for the full deal.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 25 2012 at 11:24am | IP Logged
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An alternative, which we've done with Compline for a long time, is to let the pre-readers memorize things like the Responsory -- my youngest child has been leading the Compline Responsory for several years now -- and any other short elements of the office, so that they can chime in. Gradually, as you do it daily, they memorize more things, like the Nunc Dimittis (in Compline) and the Benedictus (for Morning Prayer). Then as they learn to read, you can have them participate in the psalmody.
Typically, at the end of the day, when everyone's tired, I just read the psalm/s for Compline aloud; sometimes I do that for Morning Prayer, too, and let them listen. As they *can* begin to be still and focus, that's possible even before they can read (and you can just do the Invitatory, or just do one psalm to begin with, and work up as their ability improves). A lot depends on people's moods . . . I don't want to turn prayers into a battle of wills. Even when they're only listening, over the course of the weeks and months and seasons, I find that they do start to recognize psalms when they come up, and to have them at least half-memorized.
(I do this pretty faithfully, by the way, because it's the only way I'm going to pray the Office if I'm not in church -- in our parish, we pray either Morning or Evening Prayer corporately after the daily Mass, which is a huge blessing. Won't do it by myself, though. So I make the kids do it with me, for the good of all our souls.)
Sally
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JennGM
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| Posted: April 25 2012 at 11:26am | IP Logged
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I'm the same way, Sally, that I don't always get the Office done. Now that I have an iPhone I am saying it more while I pray along with the podcasts from Divine Office.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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setonmom
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What worked well for my second grader this year was something we did in Spelling, which was very difficult for her last year. What I would do was write each spelling word on an index card, then again on another index card, then we would play a game of "concentration" ( I think some people call this game "memory match"). It got her to read the spelling words multiple times, and get used to what the words looked like.
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Topic: Second Grade.. What worked?
