2nd grade

We began homeschooling in San Antonio, Texas, in 2005.

I was a tiny bit more comfortable with homeschooling during our second year.

We continued with following the plans in The Well-Trained Mind.

Our Curriculum for Our 2nd Homeschool Year:

First Language Lessons
Spelling Workout
Studying God’s Word
Singapore Math
Apologia Exploring Creation with Astronomy Science
Prima Latina

We still enjoyed working in our little garden.

We loved harvesting and cooking and eating our beans and squash!

Liz continued with weekly art classes at ArtWorks. She learned more about artists and different media and produced more lovely art. We miss it!

We took lots of field trips and had weekly park/co-op days.

We loved visiting a local duck pond.

We loved the plants and flowers at the San Antonio Botanical Garden.

Liz participated in Operation Jet, a mock deployment day at the base.

We visited Wildseed Farms and tagged a monarch butterfly.

We checked online to see when it arrived in South America on its migration.

Tori is a great little helper! She loves to sweep the floor!

Our end of year event was lunch with Shamu at SeaWorld!
Get your SeaWorld San Antonio 2018 Teacher Card

We had lots to learn as we added another baby sister, Katherine, to our family.

This was our epic family photo before we moved to Hawaii.

Texas was a great place to begin our homeschooling journey.

We moved to Hawaii at the end of the summer. That was an adventure for three years!

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I’m revisiting what worked for Big Sister our second year and changing up some things I’ve found since for 2nd grade curricula with the girls and my son.

Second grade is such an exciting time.

Reading, writing, exploring. Kids are so curious and excited.

I don’t want to ever kill that love for learning.

I highly recommend the books by Louise Bates Ames. A good guide to follow is What Your Second Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Second-Grade Education by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

My girls were 7 and 6, respectively, in 2nd grade:

Bible – The Dig Volume 2, Studying God’s Word B, and Grapevine Bible Studies. The girls love to do all these every day! I try to mix it up a little.
ELA – First Language Lessons (1-2), Spelling Workout B, Logic of English. We don’t do all of this every day.
Math – Life of Fred Butterflies and Singapore Math 2. We alternate days with these. Tori prefers LOF and Kate prefers Singapore. Compromise!
Science – Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and notebooking journals. Katie especially loves experiments.
History/Geography – Tapestry of Grace Year 3 with Story of the World, years 3&4. The girls are finally enjoying history and the read alouds, notebooking, maps, narration, projects.
Electives – Prima Latina, Song School Spanish, Children’s Music Journey 2 online piano, Harmony Fine Arts w/ ARTistic Pursuits. We do these once a week.

My son for second grade:

Journey Through the Bible New Testament
All About Reading
Life of Fred and Singapore Math 2
Apologia Science – animals and plants
Tapestry of Grace for humanities

While I have my little checklist of facts and concepts I want my kids to know, I don’t drill or make it boring. It’s about exposure at this point, so when we cycle back through, they will recognize and add to their knowledge base.

I don’t focus on a lot of writing yet.

They have lots of free time to play indoors and outside. We go on nature hikes and explore our backyard.

We cook together and do chores together. I naturally include them so they learn. They beg to help!

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Our Second Homeschool Year 2006-2007

Our Curriculum for Our 2nd Homeschool Year:

2nd Grade Curriculum

My girls were 7 and 6, respectively, in 2nd grade:

My son for second grade: