In second grade we build on the skills the students learned in first grade and introduce them to many new concepts. In language arts, our primary focus is to build comprehension skills. We teach children specific strategies to use for comprehension, such as making predictions, making connections, and summarizing. The students also continue to work on improving reading fluency. In addition to the stories from our second grade anthologies, the students have the opportunity to read poetry, biographies, and fables. Each second grade teacher meets with flexible groups of students to provide additional language arts instruction.

 

If you haven't heard of the 6 traits of writing by the time your child enters second grade, you will learn all about them by the end of the year. Our writing instruction is based on the traits of ideas and development, organization, sentence fluency, word choice, voice, and conventions. Children learn to write for a variety of reasons and to a variety of audiences. Your child might have the opportunity to write everything from a "how-to" piece to autobiographies and poems.

 

Math time is a very active and hands-on time in second grade. If you walk by the door of a second grade classroom during math, you might see cars rolling across the floor while children measure distance and collect data. You might also see children dropping objects into a graduated cylinder of water, applying Archimedes' principle to measure the volume of a solid object. In second grade, mathematics instruction focuses on problem solving, computation and math concepts. The children are taught to explain their mathematical thinking using pictures, numbers and/or words. They also work on computation frequently. Many second grade teachers use the 24 Challenge Math cards as a fun way to practice computation. We are hoping to send another second grade team to the district level 24 Challenge Math competition this year!

 

Second graders will learn about the life cycles of insects, the properties of soil and how objects balance among many other science topics. A yearly favorite is watching the meal worms go through their metamorphosis. If your second grader doesn't know about metamorphosis, he or she will by the time our life cycles unit is over. In social studies, some of the topics you can expect us to cover include citizenship, economics, our government, and history.