Curriculum Map for 2014-2015

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.