Second Grade Curriculum
Miss Westrem
2009-2010
Religion: This is a time when we learn about God’s word and how we can apply it to our daily life. Students will learn stories from both the old and new testaments. There will be a memory verse given each week that will be recited on Thursdays. Memory folders will need to be brought to school each Thursday. We have chapel every Tuesday unless announced differently. Please refer to the dress code for chapel!
Reading and Phonics: We use the Open Court reading series in second grade. Reading in second grade focuses on building vocabulary and gaining fluency and confidence in independent reading. Students will explore a variety of comprehension strategies which will help them relate the stories they read to other literature and their own personal experience. The Accelerated Reader program is an important part of the second grade reading curriculum. We will use a separate phonics book to reinforce decoding skills and help students build tools that enable them to sound out more difficult words.
Grammar and Writing: Students will learn more about proper sentence construction. We will explore capitalization, punctuation, nouns, pronouns, verbs, and adjectives. We will also learn about different types of writing such as writing a personal narrative, writing a story, writing instructions, writing a description, letter writing, and writing to express an opinion. Students will practice these writing skills in their daily journal and will also choose certain writing pieces to edit and publish in a final form.
Spelling: Second grade students begin to move from phonetic spelling to more traditional spelling of words. Our weekly spelling lists help them build a bigger spelling vocabulary. Spelling tests will be on Friday and will contain 16-20 words each week.
Handwriting: We use the Zaner Bloser handwriting curriculum. In second grade, we will work on mastering the correct formation of manuscript letters. Second graders also switch from writing on lined writing paper to writing on wide ruled notebook paper. Cursive writing will be introduced toward the end of the year. Please see attached sheet for the correct formation of letters.
Math: Second graders will continue to work on memorizing addition and subtraction facts to 18. Students will learn to add and subtract two and three digit numbers with regrouping, recognize parts of a whole as fractions, count money and make change, and tell time to the nearest quarter hour. Students will also explore geometry concepts, measurement, and different types of graphs. We will also focus on a variety of problem solving strategies. Multiplication will be introduced toward the end of the year. For those students to whom these concepts come easily, the computer lab lets them advance to more difficult problems.
Social Studies: Social studies allows students to explore the world around them. In second grade we will study about communities, landforms, the earth’s resources, our country’s early history, jobs and economics, and how our governments works. This year we will explore special units on the Olympics and the election. We will also learn more about maps and how we can be good citizens.
Science: Our science curriculum allows for hands-on experiments and demonstrations as we learn about plants and their parts, the water cycle, fossils and dinosaurs, heat, light and sound, simple machines, forces and magnets, the canyon habitat, rocks, and our human body.
Specials: Second graders enjoy enrichment activities such as music, Spanish, art, physical education, library, computer, and recess. Students will have the opportunity to explore various art mediums as we do weekly art projects in our classroom. The other specials will be taught by specialized teachers.