Second Grade Curriculum

Literacy

In literacy there is a huge emphasis on beginning reading skills. We focus on phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, and phonics skills. We teach these in small groups, and we also use the Heggerty program. We have been partnering with Literacy How for several years to learn strategies to best teach our early readers, and we implement these strategies in small groups daily.

Math

We use Everyday Math 4 (EM4) for our math curriculum. This program teaches skills designed to make our students think critically and become math problem solvers. The program is a spiral curriculum, meaning that it builds on skills over time and frequently loops back to skills learned in earlier chapters to deepen understanding. By the end of second grade, we cover a wide range of standards, specifically expecting the following to be priorities:

-Fluently add and subtract within 100 using models/paper & pen, and within 20 mentally. Add and subtract several two-digit numbers at once, understanding that you may need to exchange ("borrow") some tens/ones.

-Understand numbers into the thousands and be able to represent them using base-ten blocks notation.

-Compare numbers using < , > , or =.

-Count within 1000 - skip counting by 5s, 10s, 100s.

-Use addition and subtraction to solve word problems.

-Recognize the need for standard units of measurement (inches, centimeters), and recognize that the smaller the unit, the more iterations will cover a certain area.

Science & Social Studies Units

The following science units are taught throughout the year in second grade:

-Physical Science: Matter/Changes

-Earth Science: Earth Materials

-Life Science: Life Cycle of Plants

The following social studies units are taught throughout the year in second grade:

-What is Citizenship in Our Community?

-Stamford Over Time

-Stamford Geography

-Stamford Local Economy