At the parent teacher orientation, many of you requested a copy of the rough outline I have for which units the students will be studying for this coming school year. I have attached an outline, as well as a summary of each of the the core subjects. Please understand that this is a rough draft, and will be altered and adjusted according to the students' needs and interests, as well as due to time constraints.
Language and Spelling
Reading and Phonics
The goal of language arts is to help
develop strong readers, writers, communicators and thinkers among the students.
Literacy skills are the cornerstone to learning in all of the content areas,
thus a great priority has been placed on helping the students develop their
phonetic knowledge, decoding skills, fluency and prosody. The second grade English language arts
curriculum continues to expand the foundation of literacy through each of the
language arts. In reading, children decode unknown polysyllabic words
through phonetic and structural analysis, as well as by monitoring their own
reading. In oral reading, they work on fluency by phrasing accurately,
reading with an understanding of punctuation, and reading at an appropriate
rate with a smooth flow. In writing, children create simple stories,
personal narratives, and research reports that utilize compare and contrast or
cause and effect organizational patterns. They compose second drafts
using appropriate grammar and spelling conventions, and they employ appropriate
steps of the writing process. Through listening, speaking, and viewing,
the children retell a story heard or viewed in class, capturing major story
events, main ideas, and supporting ideas; conduct a brief interview; and give a
news report. Through the use of narrative and expository texts from our common
culture and other cultures around the world, second graders explore a variety
of topics in the units of study.
Math
The second-grade math curriculum builds on
the foundations developed in the previous grade. The construction of
mathematical knowledge continues through the use of concrete manipulative
materials and problem-solving discoveries. Students acquire knowledge and
skills and develop an understanding of Mathematics from their own experience.
This means that students will be provided with a wide range of varied
meaningful experiences through applying math in real life contexts and
situations, where children will become actively involved in learning. In this
way, students will be gradually aided in gaining understanding of the abstract
and symbolic. Throughout this course, students will work individually and in
groups with an emphasis on the importance of communication, mathematical
risk-taking, and the value of diverse approaches to solving problems. The students will spend this semester focusing
on addition, subtraction, grouping and fractions. We will spend the winter and
spring quarters learning about time, the calendar, multiplication, measurement
and finally, moving on to three-digit numbers.
Science
Learning is an active process resulting
from hands and minds on explorations in which learners construct their own
knowledge. Students have an opportunity to learn at their own and explore the
world. Teachers find out what students know, and use literature, photographs,
real objects, a demonstration, or a “hands-on” activity to introduce a concept,
and to set up a problem to be explored. All facets of learning will be built
and reinforced upon the experiences provided by the activity. At the end,
students will apply their new understanding to real-world examples as teachers
help students see science as part of technology, society, personal experience
and life in general. A primary goal is for the students to develop
understandings of science concepts that endure well past the next year. These
understandings are nurtured through the identification and discussion of the
"big ideas" and essential questions of science. The students will
commence with a unit on how to think like a scientist by improving their
inquiry skills. They will then progress on to units on life science, earth
science and physical science.
Social Studies
Social studies in the second grade will
help the students understand the course in a wider scope; it includes history
(the stories of our past), economics (the way we meet our needs), geography
(how and where we live), citizenship (the ways we interact in our society), and
culture (the ways people express themselves). With an emphasis on map skills,
they study the geography of the community, its connections to neighboring
communities and the world beyond. They begin to explore how people make a
living in their local community and how goods and services move in and out of
the local area and internationally as well.
In this course, students will reinforce the map skills they have learned
in the previous grade and will be introduced to other skills (like reading
different kinds of graphs, diagram, identifying boundaries, how to use the
ruler properly, using a map scale to find out the distance between places)
wherein other subject areas (especially math) will be integrated. Furthermore,
students will realize that every situation has been an effect or the cause of
another situation, and how they affect the lives of people of different
communities. Thus, the goal of this course is to let students appreciate and
respect the different people, places and cultures of the world.
