2nd Grade Curriculum Choices

When we began our homeschooling journey four years ago, I was teaching 2nd grade and pre-k 4.  Well, here I am again, teaching 2nd grade and pre-k 4!!  We have come full circle!  I can not believe that the kid I was teaching pre-k to is now my second grader!

This year Noah will be continuing to learn to read, which has been a huge struggle for us.  Reading will really be our main focus this year, everything else will be secondary.  Here is the list of Noah's 2nd grade curriculum.

Language Arts:

All About Reading Level 2 and All About Spelling Level 1

   Noah did a wonderful job with AAR Level 1, so I am excited to see how Level 2 goes.  He has been asking to begin level 2 since it came in the mail about 2 months ago.  That makes my mommy heart really happy to hear my kid who struggles with reading say he is super excited about continuing on!
   I am not too sure when I will began AAS Level 1 with him.  I will have to wait and see how the first few weeks of school progress.  I am thinking about beginning it about the 7th week of school or so.  It will not be a big pressure to me if he doesn't get it right away, I will probably take it really slow and see what happens.

Math:

Math U See Beta

 
 Last year, about half way through the year, we began Math U See Alpha, we didn't quite get to finish the whole book but I think Noah has a strong enough grasp on math that beginning in Beta will be a good fit for him.

Handwriting:

A Reason For Handwriting B

 
I love this program!  We have used different programs in the past and this is the one that has worked the best for both of my boys.  We didn't use a formal program last year for Noah because it was integrated into his curriculum using copywork.  What I realized a few weeks into the year was that Noah did not like copywork, he preferred the handwriting book.  I had some left over pages from a book that Elijah had worked through so that is what we used for the remainder of the year with him.

Typing/Coding:

Typing Instructor and various free kids coding websites

    Noah will be working through Typing Instructor for the first time this year.  He has never had a formal typing program and he is happy to begin learning how to type.
    I shared in my 5th grade curriculum post what coding websites we will be using this year, be sure to check them out.

Don't forget to go back to see what we are doing for our all together subjects and 5th grade.  I will be sharing our Pre-K 4 curriculum choices later this week.

Week In Review

Well, here we are!  Into our final weeks of school! We have one more week left, I know I had said earlier that we were going to be going until the end of May, but in all honesty we are just done!  The kids have had enough and with my parents coming into town next week, I am sure nothing will get done anyway.  So we will continue through next week but, then its summer vacation for us!

Zach's preschool this week focused on some Daniel Tiger activities.  I found this cute packet from none other than, yes you guessed it, 1+1+1=1!  They are too cute!  He was able to do quite a few of the activities in the packet but some of them were geared more towards kindergarten age.  I kinda slacked off and didn't get any books to go along with our unit this week, so I did the best I could with the books we had.  He really enjoyed them!

Noah had a great week!  He finished All About Reading Level 1!  He was super excited to get to put up his last two stickers.  As soon as he did, he asked if he could begin the next one, meaning level 2!  Silly kid!  If you have been following us much this year you know that this kid and reading have had a love hate relationship.  He claims that reading is his favorite subject but, oh how he struggles!  Since we began Level 1 towards the end of last school year and are just now finishing it, I too am ready to move on!  I'm still working on a good strategy to keep this all fresh in his mind over the summer.

Finished reading his last story in Level 1!

He looks a little crazy but he was so excited!

For our geography studies we traveled to our last country, which is Australia!  I decided to switch things up a bit for this last one, and we are making a country lap book.  I really wish I would have done that with all of the countries instead of using the worksheets, which I think we both found really boring.

We are also doing a lap book for our science studies, we are studying the Great Barrier Reef.  I'm not sure if making two lap books at the same time is a good idea, but I think they are enjoying them.  I will share the finished products next week, so stay tuned.

We also went on a field trip this week.  It was one that my little guy was in heaven over!!  We went for a real train ride!  It was so cool!  We learned about railroad safety and about the old steam trains and when trains were the main mode of transportation.  Very fun stuff!!

Do you think he was excited!!??

Well, here's to a great last week of school for us!!  There will be great celebrating next week as we finish everything up!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Week In Review

The countdown continues!  One more week down, 5 to go!  The summer itch is hitting us hard, I am so anxious to be done.  Part of that might be the fact that my parents will be here in about 3 weeks and there is much to do to prepare!  You saw my house the other day, that is not parent ready!  I have always been one that works well under pressure though, so it will get done just probably not until the last minute.

This week's preschool theme was Monsters!   We had a great time doing our monster activities.  This little pack I got from 1+1+1=1, and it was just perfect for my little guy.  I had a horrible time finding appropriate books to go along with this theme though.  So we ended up just reading some cute little stories and using some books we had.  The books I chose this week were Go To Bed, Monster! by Natasha Wing, Animal ABC by Marcus Pfister, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff and Dr. Seuss's ABC.  He loved all of those books!

For Noah this week I had to get a little creative.  All About Reading includes fluency sheets after almost every lesson.  We really slacked on them this year because they were so daunting for him, but I realized recently just how important they are!  So I spiced it up a bit for him, using some ideas from All About Reading, we did a Feed The Monster Game!  He loved this!  It made the reading fluency sheets not so intimidating for him.

In geography we have been in Russia this week.  For a fun craft we made Russian Nesting Dolls.  I was a little behind in my planning and wasn't sure how the boys would like the doll craft, but I didn't have any other ideas.  So I found one on Pinterest and went for it.  Only Noah took part and he really enjoyed it!  Elijah didn't want anything to do with it, but he really isn't into crafting much, and only wants to color when its something he's interested in.

Finally here a few more shots from our week: