Second-grade learners are exposed to opportunities to create independence, build responsibility, and instill a love of learning while creating a caring, respectful, classroom community, where every child feels safe to learn, think, question, and have fun!..  We look forward to an active partnership in your child’s learning.

Second-grade children enter school proud of having “learned to read” and being ready to “read to learn”.  Following the reader’s workshop model, students engage in both fiction and nonfiction literature, through mini-lesson activities, guided reading groups, independent application of strategies, and partner sharing. Strategies for decoding are re-introduced, as well as literal comprehension skills such as main idea, sequencing, cause and effect, and comparing and contrasting. The big leap is into the exploration and practice of metacognitive skills, such as predicting, summarizing, questioning, inferring, and synthesizing.

In writing, we follow a writer’s workshop model. Students are exposed to the three types of common core writing: narrative, informative, opinion as well as poetry. All workshop models begin with a mini-lesson, followed by active engagement, independent work, and a share.  Word work activities help second graders solidify their word skills in spelling, phonics, and vocabulary, which adds depth to their writing work and clarity to their reading.

The second-grade math program combines elements of standards-based instruction with the best traditional approaches. Through drawings, conceptual language, and real-world examples, it helps students make sense of mathematics.

The second-grade social studies program follows an integrated Social Studies/English Language Arts curriculum. These units begin with specific ideas and questions based on the overarching understandings and essential questions, and then focus on what evidence will show that students have mastered the material. Second graders will cover the following units: Active Citizenships, Rural, Urban and Suburban communities, Geography of Communities, and Change and Interdependence.

In science, second graders explore their world through the lens of tools, and how they help make our world easier. From measuring to energy and diversity of living things, children learn about their world in a hands-on,experiment-based manner. Exploring the garden becomes the real-life application of our classroom learning, and helps to tie into our school-wide work on Environmental studies. Rounding out our year is the opportunity to deepen all curriculum areas with cultural enrichment.  The interdisciplinary experience of in-classroom visits helps second grade to be a year of great memories, side by side with strong learning.