Course Description

  • The overall emphasis in reading/language arts during the 2nd grade year will be on developing effective writing, grammar, reading skills, speaking and listening skills. The emphasis is on teaching proper sentence mechanics, paragraph structure, spelling patterns, vocabulary enrichment, and reading fluency. Students will compose three samples of writing: Personal Narrative, Opinion, and Informational.

    The math curriculum focuses heavily on numbers and operations, algebra, and geometry and measurement. Second graders will practice math facts and explore the world of place value. They will use number patterns and mathematical sentences to solve real world problems. They will work hard on mastering time, money, measurement, and shapes (2d and 3d).

    While exploring our social studies curriculum students will be exposed to citizenship and government, economics, geography, and history. Kids will learn about the democratic process and why we need rules in our society. The students will learn about basic money management and how to make good economic decisions. Second graders will compare and contrast native american life in different times. Timelines will be used to teach the history of community and world events.

    The science curriculum consists of the studies of: Life Science, Engineering, Physical Science, and Earth & Space. Students explore the life cycle of plants in life science studies. Our engineering course directly follows the engineering design process through our PLTW curriculum. In physical science students observe properties of objects and explain changes in matter. Earth and science studies involve studying the changes in weather.

Reading

  • Key Ideas and Details

    • Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of keys details in a text.
    • Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.
    • Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

    Craft and Structure

    • Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song.
    • Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.
    • Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud.

    Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

    • Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting or plot.

Social Studies

  • Citizenship and Government

    • Demonstrate voting skills, identify rules that keep a voting process fair, and explain why voting is important.
    • Compare and contrast student rules, rights and responsibilities at school with their rules, rights and responsibilities at home; explain the importance of obeying rules.

    Economics

    • Given a goal and several alternative choices to reach that goal, select the best choice and explain why.
    • Describe the trade-offs of a decision; describe the opportunity cost of a choice as the next best alternative which was not chosen.
    • Classify materials that come from nature as natural resources; tools, equipment and factories as capital resources, and workers as human resources.
    • Identify money as any generally accepted item used in making exchanges.

    Geography

    • Create sketch maps to illustrate detailed spatial information about settings from stories; describe the spatial information found on the maps.
    • Locate key features on a map or globe; use cardinal directions to describe the relationship between two or more features.

    History

    • Use and create calendars to identify days, weeks, months, years and seasons; use and create timelines to chronicle personal, school, community or world events.
    • Compare and contrast daily life for Minnesota Dakota or Anishinaabe peoples in different times, including before European contact and today.

Math

  • Number and Operation

    • Compare and represent whole numbers up to 1000 with an emphasis on place value and equality.
    • Demonstrate mastery of addition and subtraction basic facts; add and subtract one- and two-digit numbers in real-world and mathematical problems.

    Algebra

    • Recognize, create, describe, and use patterns and rules to solve real-world and mathematical problems.
    • Use number sentences involving addition, subtraction and unknowns to represent and solve real-world and mathematical problems; create real-world situations corresponding to number sentences.

    Geometry and Measurement

    • Identify, describe and compare basic shapes according to their geometry attributes (square, circle, triangle, rectangle, trapezoid, hexagon, cube, rectangular prism, cone, cylinder and sphere).
    • Use a ruler to measure lengths to the nearest centimeter or inch.
    • Tell time to the quarter-hour and distinguish between a.m. and p.m.
    • Identify pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Find the value of a group of coins and determine combination of coins that equal a given amount.

Science

  • Nature of Science and Engineering

    • Raise questions about the natural world and seek answers by making careful observations, noting what happens when you interact with an object, and sharing the answers with others.
    • Identify a need or problem and construct an object that helps to meet the need or solve the problem. Describe why some materials are better than others for making a particular object and how materials that are better in some ways may be worse in other ways.

    Physical Science

    • Describe objects in terms of color, size, shape, weight, texture, flexibility, strength and the types of materials in the object.
    • Observe, record and recognize that water can be a solid or a liquid and can change from one state to another.
    • Demonstrate that objects move in a variety of ways, including a straight line, a curve, a circle, back and forth, and at different speeds. Describe how push and pull forces can make objects move. Describe how things near Earth fall to the ground unless something holds them up.

    Earth and Space Science

    • Measure, record and describe weather conditions using common tools.

    Life Science

    • Describe and sort plants into groups in many ways, according to their physical characteristics and behaviors.
    • Recognize that plants need space, water, nutrients and air, and that they fulfill these needs in different ways.
    • Describe the characteristics of plants at different stages of their life cycles.

Visual & Fine Arts

  • Art

    • Identify the elements of visual art including color, line, shape, texture and space.
    • Identify the tools, materials and techniques from a variety of two-and three-dimensional media such as drawing, printmaking, ceramics or sculpture.
    • Create original two- or three-dimensional artworks to express ideas, experiences or stories.

    Music

    • Identify the elements of music including melody, rhythm, harmony, dynamics, tone color, texture, form and their related concepts.
    • Sing and play with accurate pitch, rhythm and expressive intent.

Physical Education

    • Perform locomotor skills (hopping, skipping, running, galloping, and leaping) while maintaining balance.
    • Balances on different bases of support, demonstrating muscle tension and extensions of free body parts.
    • Performs manipulative skills (throwing, catching, dribbling, rope-jumping) while maintaining balance.

Media & Technoloy

  • School-wide Technology Integration

    • Use technology (desktop computers, iPads, Chromebooks and Smart Boards) to enhance and personalize learning.

Resources

  • Wonders 2020 Literacy Curriculum
    Math Expressions
    Reagan Tunstall
    IXL
    PLTW
    Discovery Education