At the end of each school year, I had decided I would ask the boys if they still wanted to be homeschooled the next year (…partially so that when times were tough during a school day, I could remind them that “they wanted to do this, too”!) J When we arrived at homeschooling 2nd grade, I found that I had to think a little more beyond 2nd grade when choosing what we would study and which curriculum would provide all that we needed to cover. I realized I needed to think long term regardless of whether I knew we would still be homeschooling or not. Why? Well, I found that the curriculums at this point started to be cycled…either a 3 year or 4 year cycle. What does that mean? Typically, it would be a history based cycle…so a year focused on ancient history, then a year of United States history, followed by modern history. Or…history that cycled through ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern. The concept of this cycle is that if you are teaching multi-aged children, the subject could be taught to various ages simultaneously and allow for other subjects to flow out of this as well. That’s a short version explanation…and there are many types of cycles (literature based, book based, language based, science based, etc.). But the point here is that the curriculum chosen can actually extend beyond the present year…and jumping curriculums year to year can create gaps or excessive repeat if you aren’t careful. And that is crucial!!!
What Curriculum?
With all that said, we landed again with My Father’s World…Adventures in US History. And this is the year where I learned that homeschooling was not going to only teach my child, but that I was going to learn a lot along the way as well. And I learned a lot of things about US History while teaching 2nd grade.
Within this curriculum we studied US History and made a timeline and a history notebook of those events. (The notebook served as a handwriting practice as well.) We learned states and capitals along with map skills and some geography. We continued with more of the Usborne kitchen science books, learned some art and music (I started teaching our son piano as well). For Bible, we studied the names of Jesus and learned his character via these names. This incorporated handwriting again, too, and became a place to practice cursive as well. I chose to teach cursive this year and found online printable worksheets that laid out the order of learning cursive letters based on the similar writing pattern of the letters (the loopy vs the lumpy vs the mix and match letters). This was very helpful.
Math Curriculum
For math, we used The Complete Book of Math (for grade 1 & 2) which we had started in first grade. Since we only had part of it left for 2nd grade, we also used Singapore math…which had pros and cons. One advantage is that it comes in split levels…1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, etc. What this means is that if your student is capable in first grade of doing the “second part” of first grade and advancing to the “first part” of second grade, you can purchase the books that cover the end of first grade and beginning of second grade math. This was where I first realized that homeschooling allows you to strengthen your child’s strengths and allows the opportunity to focus better on the weaknesses.
One disadvantage for us in using this math was that it was too repetitive or too slow in its progression. I now know that our oldest son is really good with math and so that explains why it seemed we were not meeting his math needs with that curriculum because it moved too slowly. I’ve had friends that used it and loved it, though.
Reading Curriculum
Throughout the year, I used Abeka’s Letters and Sounds for 2nd grade. Again, it really focuses on phonics and learning the crucial foundations of reading. I know there are other products that do the same…but since we had started in Kindergarten with Abeka for phonics, I found the repetitious layout and the style/format of the books each year to be important in “sticking with the same ideas” or “staying in the same ballpark”. I also purchased the Language Tool Kit flashcards to help emphasize phonetics. This really connected patterns of phonetics in words which also helped with spelling.
Grammar
In grammar, I also used Primary Language Lessons with our older son. It was good for the most part, but not necessarily the best fit for us. (I’ll come back to this in a moment.) The style of the product is more like a “sit on the couch and discuss nouns by looking around the room and connecting the idea with what you see in front of you”. This worked well with introducing the grammar, but I struggled to concretely measure his understanding without having to create a test or quiz of measurement from scratch myself. So, for me it was a little more labor intensive simply because of the expectation I had for what I felt our son should be getting out of the information. Again, personal preference…but you might be starting to pick up on the fact that as the teacher you begin to identify what is better for your student. And while that is super important, it can make the process of finding the right curriculum or book that much more difficult or at least more time consuming. A friend used Primary Language Lessons with her boys and loved it. Again, it’s simply finding what works best with your kids.
One subject I still hadn’t found the perfect match for yet was spelling. And this was frustrating. At a homeschool convention I would look at a dozen great spelling books and still not see what I was looking for in any of them. The problem was…I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for but I knew it had to do with focusing on more than just how to spell basic words. And at this point, the majority of books I was looking at just didn’t lay out a clear logic to their lists. So, what did I do? I used spelling words based on phonetics from our Abeka curriculum and some word lists I found on the internet. It was a lot of extra work, but it worked. Throughout the year I did start keeping track of grades on tests. But I only recorded the weekly spelling tests (from the Abeka curriculum), the math tests, and the grammar tests. My thinking was that these are measurable subject areas that show whether he has understood the concepts. But science, history, cursive, art, music, etc. just didn’t seem like they needed firm grades at this point. This would be an area of personal preference as well as a decision based on what the curriculum you are using provides in the rhythm/method of recording things consistently