Homeschool Year in Review – Second Grade
It’s hard to believe another year has passed! Claire has completed 2nd grade and is moving on to 3rd. I love reflecting on our school year – what went well, what didn’t go so well, curriculum choices, growth that happened, etc. As in previous years, I’m taking you along for the ride (you can read kindergarten here, first grade here).
(If you’re curious as to why we homeschool, you can check out that post here)
Like first grade, we did do a bit of switching around with curriculum midyear. I like to reassess what’s working and what isn’t about halfway through the year. By waiting until midyear, we make sure that difficulties with a curriculum isn’t just struggling to adjust, but is actually something that does need to be changed.
Language Arts
As in first grade, we continued to use Brave Writer. We absolutely adore their Arrow guides, which teach the mechanics of grammar through literature and copywork. We read quite a few amazing books.
(Note: these images are clickable links that take you to my Amazon affiliate page. You can purchase these books and I will receive a tiny commission, at no extra charge to you. Thanks for supporting Beautiful Minutiae!)
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling
As you can see, we enjoyed some classics and some newer books. Claire said her favorite books were Pie and the Incorrigible Children, but she’s re-read every single book the moment she’s done reading it. Every single book has become a new favorite and we would recommend all of them!
Each week we would read and work on copying a passage from the book. As we worked on it, I taught grammar from the passage. It works on handwriting, grammar and spelling, while enjoying a really wonderful book! I saw massive improvements on Claire’s handwriting this year.
We also worked on some writing projects throughout the year. We love Brave Writer’s Jot It Down, which gives some great creative writing ideas. We were initially planning to rewrite our own version of fairy tales, but we ended up making a book of Greek Myths instead. It went right along with studying Greek myths during history. Claire really enjoyed this project! I wrote whatever Claire dictated to me and she illustrated.
Math
As I mentioned in our 2nd grade curriculum choices post, we added Life of Fred to our math curriculum. Life of Fred is very story based and a lot of fun. We continued to enjoy it throughout the school year, completing Cats, Dogs & Edgewood.
We also completed Addition Facts That Stick to help cement the 10 facts. After that, we had originally planned on continuing with Miquon Math (which is very hands on and uses Cuisenaire rods as manipulatives). However, Claire refused to the use the rods (she wanted to do the math in head) and was really struggling to complete the worksheets without them. It was also very teacher intensive, so it was difficult for me to find time to prepare it.
I waffled back and forth between Singapore Math and Math Mammoth. In the end, I chose Math Mammoth (you can check out their website here). Partly because it was more open and go, partly because it was much more cost efficient. We began using it in January. So far, it’s working really well for us. You can add manipulatives to make it more hands on, make it spiral or mastery based (depending on your preference) and it includes a lot of game ideas and great computer games to help supplement. It’s still not Claire’s favorite, but it’s met with less resistance than Miquon.
History
We used a modified version of Simply Charlotte Mason’s history this year. They had dedicated one year each to Greek and Roman history, so we decided to combine them. We really enjoyed the book selections (Guerber’s Story of the Greeks and Story of the Romans, Our Little Athenian Cousin, Our Little Spartan Cousin and Detectives in Togas).
We began doing oral narrations this year. For those of you unfamiliar with narration, the child tells back the story or lesson once you have finished reading it. It helps with remembering, but also builds personal connections as the child is putting things in their own words, rather than just rote memorization. Since it was something we were easing into, I only required it for history. We would also occasionally do picture narrations, where Claire would draw a scene from what we read and then explain it to me.
Science
During first grade, we enjoyed The Good and the Beautiful’s marine biology (the PDF is a free download, so if you’re interested in trying it, you can find that link here). We continued in second grade with Botany and space science. It probably shouldn’t have taken all year to get through only those two units, but we took our time. Botany had a lot of fun experiments that involved growing plants and looking at things under the microscope. Space science was a little less fun in terms of experiments, but we still really enjoyed learning about our solar system and beyond! I had intended on completing the meteorology unit as well, but we just didn’t get to it. We will just push it to third grade instead.
We also have loved Exploring Nature with Children. I had never been consistent with nature walks or nature study and Exploring Nature with Children really helped me get my footing.
Each week they suggest a seasonal thing in nature to study (some examples are honeybees, mushrooms, snails, life cycle of a butterfly, wildflowers, and pond life). For each week they include information, book lists, poetry and an art piece to study if you’d like to enrich your nature study further. I can’t say that we did every single week, but it’s a curriculum designed to be used year after year, so we can dive into it more this year.
We also enjoyed reading the Burgess Bird Book. Many of the birds we would learn about, we would then see out on nature walks, which was so exciting! We paired this book with the Audubon app. We looked up each bird to see their picture and listen to their different songs and calls.
Geography
For second grade, we used Simply Charlotte Mason’s Visits to Europe. We absolutely loved this curriculum! The lessons were only once a week, which made it doable. The lessons alternated between map drills and reading about the countries we were studying. The main two books that are required are Hungry Planet and Material World, which show how families all over the world eat and the possessions they own. They are really amazing books! Claire and Peter often flip through the books just for fun. I’d recommend them for anyone to own! They are a bit pricier, but they are required for every year of Simply Charlotte Mason’s geography curriculum, so it’s a one time purchase. They also had suggested (but not required) reading that you could request from the library to enjoy.
Picture/Composer Study
Rather than using a set curriculum this year, I chose some artists and composers to learn about in 2 month increments. Some we stretched out longer. Our favorite artists we learned about were Monet and Van Gogh. This was our favorite book about Monet:
I can’t find our favorite book about Van Gogh on Amazon, so it might be out of print. It’s called Van Gogh: The Touch of Yellow by Jacqueline Loumaye.
Our favorite composer we studied this year by far was Tchaikovsky. Claire especially loved the Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty ballets. We loved these books about Tchaikovsky’s life:
Typing
We began the year with The Good and the Beautiful’s typing. I liked the idea of using a curriculum that didn’t seem like a computer game, because I wanted to be cautious with how much screen time she was getting. We weren’t thrilled with the curriculum. Though she enjoyed it at first, Claire easily got bored with it. There were also multiple times that she was required to type words that had letters she hadn’t learned yet. We fell off the typing bandwagon for a while, but got back on a little bit using typing.com. This is a free online program that has lessons and also games. Claire has really enjoyed it.
Art
At the beginning of the year, I mentioned we were using Yellow Spot Sun. We were using the Ancient Architects course. While we weren’t as consistent as I might’ve liked throughout the year, we did complete most of the projects. We may work on a few over the summer, just for fun. Claire didn’t struggle with the instruction being too much, nor did she get too upset (most of the time) with her art not looking like the instructor’s did. All in all, it was a win! I think I may purchase the Kingly Kingdoms course for the fall as we learn about the Middle Ages.
Piano
We found a new piano teacher in September. She is such a wonderful teacher! Her style is very gentle and encouraging, which is perfect for Claire. Claire has whizzed through her piano books and really found a love for playing piano. I can often find her playing outside of our designated practice time.
She had a Christmas recital in December and played “We Three Kings” and “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.” She was really nervous about it, but she overcame her fears and actually enjoyed it!
Junior Bible Quiz
This was Claire’s second year of JBQ. She did really well! The last few meets ended up being cancelled due to COVID-19, but they still sent out medals they would’ve given for finals. Claire got 3rd place in her division for the entire year and her team got 1st! She was so excited and we were so proud.
Field Trips
One of the best things about homeschooling is that we can go on field trips when places tend to be empty! Our most visited field trips were probably the zoo and the art museum, but our favorite field trip was probably the City Museum in St Louis! We did a lot of crawling and climbing. We were exhausted at the end, but it was SO much fun!
As we are wrapping up our school year, I have mixed feelings. We’re both ready for a summer break, but second grade has been so much fun that I don’t want it to end. This is the first year where I feel as if we have found our footing and really understand what methods work for her as a student and me as a teacher. That’s not to say that there weren’t days with frustration, tears or fits, but overall it was such a good year. It was also the first year we completed all our curriculum from start to finish, so I’m feeling accomplished. We finished later than expected, but that’s because we took more breaks. Flexibility in schedule is the beauty of homeschooling! We can’t wait to see what joys third grade holds!
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