Second grade curriculum review
As our schoolyear draws to a close, I’m stepping back (once again) to reflect on the curriculum I’ve used this year.
1. For history — Story of the World Vol. II: The Middle Ages (Susan Wise Bauer): Like its predecessor last year, this text was a big hit. I also used the accompanying activity book with maps, coloring pages and enrichment projects, and the audiobook read by Jim Weiss. Both my second grade daughter and my preschool daughter request history every time we get in the car. It’s an effective attempt to engage children in their early years in the great story of human history, establishing a foundation to build on in greater detail in future years.
2. For math: Saxon 2. My daughter learned the concepts easily through the incremental approach used in this program. In that sense it was a success. Its downside is that the amount of drilling became tedious and counterproductive. As I did last year, I streamlined the daily meeting book activities and assigned just one side of the two-sided worksheets each day. But we did do the timed drills each day, setting the timer for one minute and doing as many problems on a 25-question fact sheet as possible. It was an effective motivator in the first half of the year, but in the second half my daughter disengaged.
I’m considering whether to continue with this curriculum next year with some modifications, or to make a change. Not everything is going to be fun, of course, and maybe the thing to do is press on and preserve continuity. I’ve looked at Singapore and don’t think I would do very well with it. A friend showed me her Math-U-See materials, and it does look like a great program for a visual, hands-on learner. But I have concerns about the fact that its sequencing of the material is so unique; I’m not sure how transferable it would be if for some reason we couldn’t continue homeschooling, or how well it would prepare students for the standardized tests mandatory in my state starting in 4th grade.
3. Science: We focused on earth science for the first half of the year using the Usborne First Encyclopedia of Our World. It contains two-page spreads about various earth science topics. We do science twice a week, and we used this book as an introduction to each topic on the first day, following up on the second day with further exploration through the internet links (which were only minimally useful), experiments, and additional library materials.
The second half of the year we focused primarily on astronomy. We used the Usborne First Encyclopedia of Space as our base text, supplementing with the internet links and library books. Last year we studied the solar system, but this encyclopedia helped to flesh out a range of other space phenomena as well as space exploration. We also have Stargazer’s Guide to the Galaxy, Spotter’s Guide to the Night Sky, and Glow-In-the-Dark Constellations but haven’t had enough clear nights to evaluate how helpful they are in stargazing.
I purchased More Mudpies to Magnets as a resource for weekly science experiments, but felt it needed supplementation. Many of the experiments seemed geared for younger children. I picked up a copy of 501 Science Experiments and have found it to be to be a good resource.
We’re concluding the year with a mini-unit on birdwatching using materials from Stratton House. So far this is great fun, opening our eyes to the tremendous variety of sights in our own back yard as we observe and document. (We even take the occasional involuntary excursion into the rodent world…)
On the whole, I felt the Usborne texts were not challenging enough. They contain so little information on featured topics, there’s not much of a platform for further investigation, or hook for deepening interest.
In addition to that, I think I’d like to pursue a more cohesive program for science next year. We’ve followed the method suggested in The Well-Trained Mind, reading books, writing summaries, and conducting experiments from several different sources. But I’m liking the idea of a science “kit” that offers a bit more structure for chemistry. (Perhaps I have a latent fear of blowing up the house…)
4. Spelling and Language: We used Spelling Workout Level C for spelling. My daughter doesn’t like the daily discipline of it, but I think that would be the case with any spelling workbook. It introduces groupings of words with different spellings of similar sounds, or similar prefixes or suffixes or other patterns, and offers opportunity to practice spelling rules through proofreading, some very limited dictionary work, crossword puzzles, various completion exercises, and proofreading.
For language I continued with the second grade section of First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. The lessons are quite short, scripted, and remarkably effective at teaching parts of speech, picture narration, practicing copywork and dictation, and beginning simple sentence analysis. There’s lots of repetition built in. It’s not an exciting text, but I found it to be very solid and thorough for both first and second grade.
5. Handwriting: We completed the Zaner-Bloser workbook for second grade and continue practicing print and cursive through copywork, writing narrations, and dictation. It’s been a satisfactory resource for us.
6. Physical education has been largely “outsourced” this year: Upward basketball, horseback riding lessons, and swimming lessons. In music, I’ve started teaching my daughter to play the piano and read music, revisiting some of the songs from my own early years. It’s my understanding that the Bastien series is more comprehensive, including some instruction in theory. But ultimately I went with my comfort zone and used the beginner Schaum book, which has her playing with both hands, even including chords, soon enough to keep her interested.
For art, I had purchased a dvd course featuring a “real live artist.” It was minimally helpful in providing some terminology, but the match between the dvd and the workbooks was a bit mystifying, and we ended up keeping it all pretty informal. She takes a lot of joy in art work, and does work quite consciously on her drawing and painting. We have a few well-worn books on drawing horses and other animals, but most of her improvement has come from her own careful observation and lots of practice with a nudge here and there from me.
I really like the Charlotte Mason emphasis on cultivating artistic talent through making useful things, and I’d like to find some resources to help encourage some useful skills in addition to the energetic promptings of the drawing muse.
Conclusions:
So there it is: a satisfactory year, but little enthusiasm for the texts I used in math and science. Before I homeschooled, the opportunity to tailor curriculum choices to your child’s learning style seemed like a real strength. But now that I’m doing it, I see how it could become a wild ride if I don’t choose wisely.
Still, it’s amazing that I can get to the end of the year and feel this tired, yet still find so many things to be pleased about. I see some real benefits to the classical model I’ve been following, and the overall philosophy has as much appeal to me as it did when we started two years ago. It gives me a little boost as I turn to the nearest curriculum catalogue and brace myself to wind my way through all the fabulous-looking choices. But first, a quick experiment in bird digestion involving sunflower seeds, needlenose pliers, water, a plastic bag, and aquarium gravel. The life of a homeschooler is never dull.
