2nd 6 Weeks of 2nd Grade

Benjamin is sailing through 2nd grade. I think it helps that I’ve done the curriculum before and know where some hang ups might be and am able to tailor it a little bit for him. He loves it when we come across a name of some famous conqueror that he knows from his video games like Genghis Khan. 🙂

He tags along for bible with Hannah a lot but we do have readings from John this unit and he has a weekly passage to memorize.

In history/social studies, we finished up vikings and moved into Knights and Castles. Time Traveler: Vikings and Knights and Castles, Usborne Book of World History, Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky, and Window on the World are our spines. We also have been enjoying learning our geography using Geography Songs.

Read Alouds have been exciting. We read Tales of Robin Hood, Minstrel In The Tower, The Door In The Wall, Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great, and have weekly selections from The Aesop for Children and Cornstalks: A Bushel of Poems.

Ben does really well with spelling and is usually done with his list by Tuesday. He also has grammar in Phonics C and weekly cursive assignment, vocabulary in Wordly Wise B and a creative writing assignment each week.

He decided to follow Hannah’s lead and start reading his readers to himself. This unit he finished Riding the Pony Express, The Secret Valley, Third Grade Detectives #1, Chalk Box Kid, and Paint Brush Kid.

Science has been fun but not many experiments. We’ve been in a unit on the body and are moving into one about birds. We have three main books: Usborne Book of Knowledge, Discover and Do Level 2, and Science Activities, Vol 3.

Benjamin finished up Horizons 2 awhile ago so I have been having him do drills and typing, but he’s getting a little restless with that so we are going to go ahead and start on level 3 in January. I think he’ll be fine but if we start to struggle, we can take a break for more drills.

School is pretty fun, but all of our extras are even more fun. We have weekly piano, Royal Rangers, and park dates. This unit, we built and launched rockets with our troop so that was fun. We also signed Ben up for basketball this winter. He wasn’t very interested in it at first but has been enjoying the practices so far and even goes outside (gasp) and practices on our basket in the driveway by himself sometimes. I think he’s also enjoying some daddy time. His games start in January! It will be a new experience. 🙂 He also had a birthday this unit and acquired his first pet responsibilities (two gerbils). We had a couple trips to see family for other birthdays and Thanksgiving festivities.