My daughter just finished 2nd grade and it was the best year so far.
We loved her curriculum and I can whole heartedly recommend each one.
There are some that we liked more than others, and I’ll do my best to explain why under each subject.
My Teaching Philosophy
There are so many approaches to homeschooling, and that strongly influences the curriculum that you use.
So here’s my approach in a nutshell:
- I’m a Christian. So I don’t want the curriculum I use to undermine what I believe, especially science. Not all of my curriculum choices are faith-based.
- I use a mix of traditional and charlotte mason style.
- We don’t like to depend on screens, and are much more textbook driven.
- I like open-and-go curriculum, and don’t want to spend a lot of time planning.
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Handwriting
We used A Reason for Handwriting B.
This is a robust workbook that helps students refined thier printing.
The book starts out with a review of lower case and upper case printed letters from the entire alphabet.
After that each lesson has 5 days of writing practice.
The first 3 days the student practices individual letters and words.
On Day 4 the student traces a Bible verse.
The 5th day is when the student writes out the verse on writing paper all by themselves. They also have the option of coloring the pictures. My daughter loved coloring hers.
The key with handwriting is to go back and check your student’s work. I like to point out the letters that are written well.
And then I point out the letters that aren’t touching the line or aren’t formed well, and ask her to redo those.
Grammar
We chose Easy Grammar: Grade 2.
This grammar book is super simple.
No pictures.
Black and white pages.
No fluff.
But the way it is presented makes it so easy to understand. It doesn’t take long to accomplish each day.
It builds on itself. The student learns a simple grammar rule one day and then reviews it the next.
I love how each lesson is broken up by topic.
There is always a sentence to correct capitalization errors. Then a punctuation section and a part of speech section.
They keep each lesson simple with just one thing to learn.
I appreciate that the book reviews what was learned earlier.
At the end of each day is a writing lesson. The student is given 2 sentences to combine.
This has helped my daughter with her writing tremendously.
Easy grammar is not faith-based. However, I have felt very comfortable with the sentences used.
Reading
My daughter loves to read, but I felt like she needed to sharpen her phonics skills.
So we went through the book Phonics Pathways. We spent 10 minutes a day working through it.
Towards the end of the book, it was challenging, and she had some rough days.
But we made it through!
I used this book to teach and enforce phonics rules rather than using leveled readers.
We go to the library weekly, and my daughter checks out huge stacks of books to read independently outside for “homeschool hours”.
This is not a faith-based book, but I felt very comfortable with the material.
Spelling
This year I decided to skip a spelling curriculum. Instead, I pulled 10 words from her reading lessons to spell.
Many times, she could write the words. But any that she missed, I had her write correctly 3 times.
Then I’d have her write it again the next day.
I also expect her to spell all her writing correctly. So she practiced spelling in her grammar book and handwriting as well.
I really liked this approach better than a formal weekly spelling list.
Math
We chose Math Lessons for a Living Education by Masterbooks.
This was the 3rd year we have been using Masterbooks for math.
I switched because my son needed a book that was less intimdating.
He used to get super overwhlemed with a huge page of math problems and never wanted to do math.
Masterbooks has short lessons that are pretty easy and not overwhelming.
It is a charlotte mason style. Each lesson is divided into 5 days.
The first day is a story to read about a brother and sister and their family which incorporates a math lesson.
If you have a child who struggles with math or really doesn’t like math. I highly recommend this math curriculum.
There are a few areas of concern though:
It was a bit simple for my daughter. Some days were way too easy for her.
I wish there were more basic practice of addition and subtraction. We do a lot of flashcards to supplement that.
Some weeks it felt like we spent way too much time reading the story. Sometimes we just wanted to jump right into the math concept.
That being said, I still liked the curriculum.
Science
We chose Apologia’s Zoology 1.
We do science as a group. So my 2nd grader and 5th grader used this curriculum.
This was such a fun textbook! I loved it just as much as my kids!
It covers flying creatures: insects, birds, dinosaurs, bats.
And it comes from a biblical perspective which is very important to me as a Christian.
The reading material is written in a conversational tone and is very engaging and easy to understand.
The pictures are phenomenal as well!
There are often science activities to go with the lessons which my kids really enjoyed. I liked that they weren’t every day and not too complicated.
We opted for the science notebooks as an add on to the textbook. We didn’t using them for every activity, but they were nice to have for some of the activities and for taking notes.
At the end of each unit the the kids would make a mini book and answer questions that were included in the science notebooks.
We loved Apologia’s science and it was my daughter’s favorite subject in 2nd grade.
History
Her second favorite was history.
We chose Our Star Spaganled Story by Notgrass History.
You can get just the textbooks or a complete set which includes: a timeline, Rythym and Rhymes, and student workbooks. We chose the complete set.
This was another subject we did together with my 5th grader.
It is written from a Christian perspective in a conversational, story tone.
We loved how easy it was to understand.
The pictures were huge and colorful which we all loved.
This was an open and go curriculum that was full of great stories and information. Each week there was a song or poem to listen to.
The maps were great to refer to and the review questions were helpful.
The curriculum also has corresponding historical fiction books to read along with the text. This was a favorite for us all!
I hope this helps you as you make your homeschool choices.