This is generally how I find my soon to be 7 year old these days (when she’s not involved in creative play). Nose in a Sophie Mouse book. Sometimes I wake up and she’s all cuddled up on the couch with a blanket by herself reading. I LOVE IT! She took off with reading this year and it has been a joy to watch. Now that she’s heading into the second grade (HOW?!) I know she will be set up for great success with this firm foundation of reading. As for what we plan to use with her curriculum wise this year… keep on scrolling!
Mathematics
We will be continuing with Math-U-See this year for our second grader. This will be my first time using the Beta Level and I am anxious to see how she does with it. There are some math concepts that are still a little fuzzy for her, so we will take it nice and slow and do a lot of review and math games before heading into new territory. I want to make sure she has a good foundation before plowing ahead. I purchased the student book new and then was bound and determined not to spend $56 (or thereabouts) for the instruction pack. What?! No way. I kept looking and BAM! Facebook Marketplace to the rescue. A nearly brand new looking instruction pack for about $20. I’ll take it! You can always borrow things from friends too. So utilize those resources!
Reading
If you know me at all, you know that I love All About Reading (AAR). We’ve used Levels 1-3 with our oldest, and now my rising second grader will be starting Level 3 in the coming school year. She loves the activities and the selections from the provided readers. I spoke about the format of this curriculum in my kindergarten curriculum post if you want to check that out, but this is set up roughly the same way. A new concept is presented and reviewed, and then the following lesson the student reads a story integrating those new concepts. There is lots of time for review in every lesson because the repetition is so necessary. This is open-and-go and I love that it is scripted and I don’t have to prepare anything. Plus, I’m reusing the activity sheets from when my oldest went through it, so I already have that all ready to go and didn’t have to purchase anything a second time. Budget win! (Pro tip: If there is an activity that requires/encourages them to color or write on the page, just make a copy of the original first so you always have that for a subsequent kid.)
Spelling
Speaking of this publisher… we will be continuing the All About Spelling (AAS) curriculum this year as well. The publisher recommends doing AAS Level 1 alongside AAR Level 2, so that is what we did this past year. So she will be starting with Level 2 this coming school year. There are only about 24/25 lessons (or “steps” as they call them) in the book, so we didn’t do one every day this past year. This is a multisensory program and this is definitely helpful for keeping the student’s attention. As with AAR, this is a fully scripted program so it’s open-and-go for the parent/teacher. First, there is a short instruction portion at the beginning of every lesson, secondly the child will practice that new concept with about 10 words using the letter tiles (same tiles in the AAR program), thirdly they will spell those same words on paper (or a whiteboard, chalkboard, salt tray, etc.), and then lastly you will dictate a few phrases and sentences for reinforcement. I would say a lesson can take anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on your student, but it could be broken up over several days if necessary. If I can tell she is waning, we stop and pick up the next day.
Phonics + Handwriting
I’ve mentioned our love for Explode the Code before, and this is something that this child LOVES to do. She loves to tell me she can do it all on her own. ha! After I introduce the week’s concepts through a super short lesson using the teacher’s guide, she works on 2-3 pages per day as extra practice, building on what she is learning in her reading. I find that it follows All About Reading fairly closely so that’s helpful. I plan to have her go through at least Books 5 and 6 this year, but my book 6 is still on backorder from the store I purchased from.
As for handwriting, I mentioned that my kindergartener will be doing Dash Into Learning’s new Dash Into Handwriting program (you can get 15% off with the code thewhisperingglen15). I knew that if one was going to get it, the other had to as well. She found it the other day and got SO excited! Depending on how long it takes her to go through this, I may jump back into The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 3 as she finished Level 2 this school year. I have not started her on cursive yet, and I had started my oldest on cursive in the 1st grade. We will just have to see how it goes!
Geography
Soooo… I had every intention of using this Evan-Moor geography practice book this past year with her. It didn’t happen guys. It just didn’t. I will get around to it this year. Honestly, now that she’s reading really well, she can do this on her own like her brother does. This is just something to scratch the surface of geographical concepts and will be helpful when I need to work on something with her younger sister. I’m all about the independent work! It’s meant to be used with a classroom, because there is a teacher “lesson” portion with talking points and such, but we just use it for independent work. It’s easy enough for them to follow. I have them do an entire week’s worth in one sitting because the daily student portions are soooo basic. We also talk about lots of geography in this house, because my husband is a map nerd and loves all things traveling, maps, and the like. If we can just get her to remember that our state is called a state and not a country, I think we will be headed in the right direction. ha!
That’s it! We do math, reading, and handwriting every day, but the other things here don’t have to be every day in my opinion. She loves doing the phonics work, so she takes that upon herself to do every day if she feels like it. The geography is sometimes once a week. We have geography included in our social studies elements as well, so I don’t feel like this needs to be a main thing. Next I plan to talk about what we will be using with our oldest as he enters into the fourth grade. I cannot believe it! Stay tuned!
As always, feel free to ask me any questions! You can reach out on Instagram, commenting here, or by contacting me via email at hanna@thewhisperingglen.com.