Our 2nd Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices

As you probably know, there’s a lot of research and effort that goes into choosing a years homeschooling curriculum.  After much thought, here are our 2nd grade homeschool curriculum choices.

Core Subjects

As we are registered with a french school board, at the end of Grade 2 my daughter will need to pass a math and french test in order for us to be allowed to continue to homeschool.

And so the core subjects of our french immersion homeschool are math, french and english.

Math

The curriculum the french public schools use is called Numérik.  And so to be prepared for the test she will write, we will complete Numérik.  There are 2 workbooks A & B.

Pros:

• colourful and kid friendly looking
• won’t take too long to complete
• she’ll learn the math terms in french

Cons:

• covers too many topics which doesn’t allow enough time for mastering a topic

As I want my daughter to receive a solid foundation in math and I don’t feel Numérik is sufficient for that, we will also be doing Math Mammoth.   This will help her really progress in her math skills.  The only con is there’s a lot of work to do, so this will take some time.

French

Equally as important for us and a much more challenging subject for me to teach is french.  I need to be able to teach my daughter everything a french child would learn in school.

So we will be using “ABC avec Majesté“, which is the curriculum they use in the local school.

Since we are english and need all the practice we can get for my daughter to pass the french test, we will also be doing “Alphabétik“.

French audio books “Rat de bibliothèque numérique” (Série Rouge et Jaune) will help my daughter with learning to read in french.

My daughter will also be spending several hours a week in dance class which is taught in french, and we will participate in french community events.

For more information see “Curriculum Ideas for Homeschooling Grade 1 or 2 French“

English

Learning how to read and write in english is just as important to us since we are an english family.  We’ll need to work on reading, reading comprehension, phonics, grammar, spelling, vocabulary and writing.

Reading

We have quite a library of books at home and additionally have a library card.

My goal is to build my daughter’s love of reading and so for the most part she will read the books and topics that interest her.  Her likes and dislikes seem to be changing faster than I can keep up, so it remains to be seen which books or series we will cover this year.

Reading Eggspress, a part of the Reading Eggs programs, is an online reading program that my daughter just loves.  She views it as a game, not work.  She is self-motivated to read books to collect eggs for a variety of rewards.  It’s also great for reading comprehension, phonics, grammar, vocabulary and writing stories.

Reading Comprehension, Phonics, Grammar, Vocabulary

I bought 3 workbooks that I feel will allow her to cover these skills quite thoroughly:

• Complete English Smart (Grade 2)
• Complete Canadian Reading (Grade 2)
• the english section in Complete Canadian Curriculum (Grade 2)

We will also be using:

• Grammar Galaxy Nebula (Text & Mission Manual) a complete language arts curriculum that teaches with a 36 week story and an accompanying mission manual.  On first glance it appears to cover a lot of areas that my typical workbooks don’t, like finding books in a library, the various types of reading materials / books, a good focus on vocabulary, etc.  I look forward to this one and it looks like something my daughter will enjoy.

• K5 Learning (online lessons, activities & games) My daughter enjoys this and it’s a fun supplement.

For my full review, see K5 Learning Review.  

Spelling

We’re going to use these themed grade 2 spelling words.  There’s 36 weeks of words.  Each week has a different theme which will make spelling more enjoyable.

Writing

Lately my daughter has been enjoying writing lyrics to songs she composes.  So I will help nurture this hobby and any other form of writing she might wish to do.

Handwriting

I plan to work a couple of minutes a day on printing correctly one letter per day with my daughter.  My hope is by the end of the year that my daughter will have a proper pencil grip and write all her letters (& numbers) correctly.

Cursive Writing

• french cursive writing workbook called Abracadamots

Extra Subjects

We have so much work ahead of us with the core subjects above that our extra subjects will be limited to:

• Science
• Music
• Art
• Gym
• Life Skills

Science

• Supercharged Science
• the science section in Complete Canadian Curriculum (Grade 2)

Social Studies

• the social studies section in Complete Canadian Curriculum (Grade 2)

Music

• Hoffman Academy.  For my full review, see Hoffman Academy Review.

Art

• HomeArtStudio – Second Grade
• ArtAchieve – art classes level 2

Gym

• dance classes
• swimming membership
• membership to community sports complex which has times for basketball, badminton, etc.
• free local skating
• membership to provincial parks for hiking, kayaking etc.

Life Skills

• membership to SkillTrek with lessons for various life skills
• sewing classes with her Omee
• we will do a bit of coding for the Hour of Code in December

It’s going to be a busy homeschooling year.  The only way I’m going to be able to pull off all this learning is with a good schedule.