Our School: Second Grade Curriculum

We are enrolled in Mother of Divine Grace homeschool. MODG is a CLASSICAL curriculum.  I am enrolled in their school, but that enrollment allows me some flexibility in curriculum choices if I keep to the school standards.  I definitely organize the school day in my mind differently than they, but the essence is the same.

Here's the original:

Religion:
St. Joseph’s Baltimore Catechism No. 1
St. Joseph's First Communion Catechism
Any Lives of the Saints book

Math
(Option 1): Arithmetic 2 (www.abeka.com)
Arithmetic 2 Tests & Speed Drills (www.abeka.com)
Math-It Set (E.W. Brooks) (www.rainbowresource.com)
(Option 2):
Saxon Math 2 Homeschool Kit (www.saxonhomeschool.com)

Reading/Phonics:
Sound Beginnings: Parent/Teacher Manual (J. Fogassy) (www.ourfathershouse.biz)
The Harp and Laurel Wreath (ed. Berquist)

Handwriting:
Writing Can Help, Book 1: Introducing Printing and Handwriting (M. Picard)
composition notebook

Poetry:
The Harp and Laurel Wreath (ed. Berquist)
blank book

History:
Paul Revere’s Ride (H.W. Longfellow, ill. Rand)
Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims (C.R. Bulla)
blank book for Family History (same book used in Geography)
various historical biographies – see Supplementary Materials – These can also be found in
libraries

Geography:
United States Coloring Book (W. Adam, pub. Dover)
The United States of America: A State by State Guide (www.amazon.com)
States & Capitals Flashcards
blank book for maps (same book used in History)

Science:
Science with Plants (pub. Usborne)
Seasons and Living Things (pub. Milliken)
blank book

Art:
Child-Size Masterpieces: Mommy, It’s a Renoir! - Text (Aline D. Wolf)
Child-Size Masterpieces: Mommy, It’s a Renoir! - Advanced Steps 1-3
Discover Crochet Kit (or any How to Crochet Book)
Tissue Paper Flowers (pub. Klutz) OP
Wooden Rosary Holder: Immaculate Heart of Mary
Jesse Tree Kit
First Communion Banner Kit
First Communion Invitation Card Kit (www.illuminatedink.com)
First Communion Thank-You Card Kit (www.illuminatedink.com)
Wooden Rosary Holder: Sacred Heart of Jesus

Music:
First Book of the Recorder Kit
Let’s Learn Music #1
Music Masters Series (choose any 8)
36 Traditional Roman Catholic Hymns


How it shook out for our family:

Religion:
We follow the syllabus, with the addition of a reading about the saint of the day.

Poetry:
We follow the syllabus except we don't copy and illustrate the poem at the end of the whole thing as recommended.  The verse for the week has become her handwriting/copywork.  She traces it twice (www.handwritingworksheets.com) and then copies it into her notebook.  At the end of the week she illustrates that stanza.


Reading:  
Writing Road to Reading and Starting a Spelling Notebook.  We use Option 4 for lesson plans.  If someone has never used Sound Beginnings, I highly recommend it.  There are a few things that I will always teach the Sound Beginnings way, though I use WRTR now for second grade.

I just personally found it super-difficult to get in any practice reading with Sound Beginnings.  The lessons were SO INVOLVED that I didn't have much "do this or else" left in me.  Now, each day, we just go over phonograms, maybe add a couple more, dictate 6-10 words in WRTR, and then split our time between the Faith and Freedom readers from Seton and Dr Seuss easy readers in the evening.  She gets at least 30 minutes a day of practice reading aloud to me. 

Writing:

We follow the syllabus, but if the child is anxious for cursive, we skip the first half of the book.  Even before they know ALL their letters in cursive, though, we start tracing our poetry stanza in cursive two days a week, then copying it into our poetry notebooks to be illustrated on the last day.

'Rithmetic
I followed the syllabus, using Abeka for the first half of the year, but the Abeka style just doesn't work for my kids once the math gets harder.  I should have thought to do Saxon, but I forgot it was recommended.  Currently, we use Math Mammoth, following the internal order.  

Geography
We followed the syllabus for the first half of the year, but all those states coloring pages finally wore on my daughter (who adores coloring, btw).  And, I have yet to ever get to that end of the year history literature.  Doesn't seem to matter, though, since you read them all again next year.  We are elaborating on the family history and mapping projects, looking at google earth maps where family members lived and spending more time investigating the time period.    We do, however, do the states and capitals memorization religiously.

Art, Music
We follow the syllabus for music, minus the Catholic hymns and recorder.  They sing in the church choir, so that covers the hymns and we'll do that recorder thing when they can read well enough to do it all in a room far away from me.  For art, we follow the syllabus, minus a few of the art projects.  We have lots of handwork like weaving, stenciling, braiding, and stitch boards on our busy shelf.  I also add a weekly informal drawing lesson using Kistler's books.

Science
We follow the syllabus for the worksheets, but we garden and keep a nature notebook instead of doing Science with Plants.  Also, our literature readings have LOTS of natural history in them.

30 Minutes of DAILY Reading

Our school recommends 30 minutes a day of read-aloud time.  I do all three kids together.  We split our time between Burgess and Holling C. Holling stories, The Book of Virtues, tall tales and fairy tales, picture books, and the occasional Eggleston history book.