Before I share our second grade curriculum picks for our upcoming school year, it may be helpful to read about our first grade year in review, here. You may also find this blog article helpful about how, what, and when I begin our yearly homeschool planning. Although, after writing that blog, I am undecided about our break weeks and have been playing with different scheduling options. We love homeschooling year-round, but may consider not doing the Sabbath scheduling (6 weeks on, one week 1) and just doing breaks as we need it, still following a 36-week school year. Nonetheless, I can see it all coming together finally!
Ok, let’s talk about our second-grade curriculum picks!
After fervently praying and considering options, we are going to continue with Ambleside Online Year 2. I am actually quite excited about this but more importantly, so is my second grader! Here is a closer look at what we’ll be using from AO Year 2.
To respect their terms, I’ve linked Ambleside Online’s booklists for the books we are using from their website. All other books and resources in this blog post may contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you when you click through a link and make a purchase, I might make a small commission. Thank you for supporting Our Cooper Nest in this way!
Bible
We will be going through Genesis and Matthew simply using our own Bibles. I won’t be adding expansion activities to this, just praying, reading, and naturally drawing out narrations through discussion and open-ended questions. We will also be memorizing new scripture passages for recitation, which will include a Psalm, an OT, and an NT passage each term. These will become part of our memory work rotation which includes previous scripture passages we’ve memorized together. I’m using Simply Charlotte Mason’s method of memorizing scriptures with my family. I write our own verse cards, but she offers a free video which is a great demonstration of the method!
Poetry
Poetry has become an acquired taste for my family. It was something very new to us in first grade, but, it quickly became a favorite part of our morning collective that we will continue to grow a richer taste for. Poetry is also part of our recitations this year, personally selected from the AO poetry schedule for Year 2.
Music And Artist Studies
AO’s Hymns, Folk Songs, Composers, and Artists Here
It was really nice to just follow along with the scheduled music and artist studies for AO year 1, so we will do that again this year. We may explore a little further with living books about the artists and composers. These subjects tend to get put on the back burner if I don’t stay intentional with planning things out, so I’ve moved them to our morning collective which will happen first thing in our homeschool day.
Geography
I’m excited to dive into a couple more Holling books for geography! I couldn’t believe how much my daughter took away from our journey with Paddle To-The-Sea so geography is something we are both looking forward to. I also plan to be better about completing our map work with the Beautiful Feet Books maps that go along with the Holling books.
We will also read from Long’s Home Geography and Charlotte Mason’s Elementary Geography throughout the year. I purchased an inexpensive compass for my children which I think will be a great benefit to learn, especially when we are camping in the mountains!
Natural History/Nature Study (a.k.a.Science)
AO’s Natural History booklist and Nature Study Schedule Here
This year we will be studying birds, mammals, and wildflowers. I am continuing to keep our lessons based on local nature which has made nature study way more approachable for our family. I love that AO allows an entire term for one nature topic to dive into. I’ll be gathering living books from the library on our topics, and including lesson ideas from the Handbook of Nature Study (free in the public domain). I am also planning to purchase some new bird feeders for our backyard so we can study and observe up close, and more often!
For wildflowers, I will be using the Delightfully Feasting Wildflowers Special Studies Unit. If you’re looking for special studies units, she has a variety of topics to choose from! You can use FEASTINGAMANDA to get a 10% discount at checkout.
We also get to read Burgess Animal Book which will be a fun family study on Fridays. I grabbed the Dover’s Animals of NA color book to use with this which I know my 2nd grader will enjoy while I read.
Shakespeare/Literature
We’ll continue using our puppets from RachelKiwiDesigns Etsy shop for our Shakespeare readings. They really helped my daughter keep names and events in order last year, all while giving her hands something to do while I read.
We are including all the literature books from Year 2 into our schedule. I believe this will be a great continuation for building upon my daughter’s narration skills and continue to set the bar for wholesome, rich living books to enjoy!
We will read A Pilgrim’s Progress for the first time this year! I decided on this version of the story. I also decided to start reading this version to my 3.5-year-old because I really love the illustrations and adventure it holds!
Copywork
To continue improving penmanship and building writing skills, I decided copywork straight from our readings is the simplest way to do that. We already have so many living books we’ll be reading from, I just ended up using this free handwriting worksheet generator and printed off a term’s worth of copywork so it’s easily accessible in our week. This is going to save me a little time from having to write the copywork after each reading on a white erase board. I pulled our copywork at random from our Bible, poetry, literature, and history passages.
History
The more I researched which history rotation would be the best fit for our homeschool, the more I just loved the flow of AO’s history rotation, despite (or especially) how different it was from my own growing up. I contemplated back and forth if to continue with AO’s rotation or begin with American settlement as many other curriculums start with. With that said, we will continue on with AO’s history rotation as well as use the books they schedule, with pre-reading.
We enjoyed Our Island Story in year 1, so I am happy to see it on the schedule for another year. We will be using D’Aulaire’s Leif the Lucky and Columbus biography books in place of This Country of Ours since I already own them and they were substitution options on the AO website. I also already have BFB’s Early American History Guide from last year, so I will probably pull some of the lessons and living book suggestions from that to complement our American biography readings.
When I opened A Child’s History of The World, I was pleasantly surprised and can’t wait to see how those readings go. I believe this is the perfect age to read about castles and knights! I purchased Dover’s Kings and Queens of England Coloring Book which I think will be a great activity for readings and I’ll probably look at the library for some books on castles.
Free Reads
We will be pulling some free reads from AO’s list, but mostly just continuing to read what comes available either at the Library, what we already own, or book recommendations from other favorite resources such as the #livingbooklegacy Instagram group who recommends loads of amazing books. I also enjoy Read Aloud Revival’s book suggestions.
Other Curriculum Picks
While AO offers such a wide feast of subjects, there are a few subjects we will need to outsource.
Reading/Phonics
Learning Language Arts Through Literature (Red Book)
We are going to ease into a phonics curriculum this year and I am quite excited about using the red book, at the pace that is best for my daughter. I don’t see us using it for 5-days as it recommends, so we will see how it goes!
Math
We’ll move right into Level B which I thankfully found the teacher manual for $15 on Ebay over Christmas time. Right Start math is one of the more expensive math curriculums on the market (around $100 new) so I was very happy to have found at least the teacher manual in gently used condition for the price I paid. We already have the math kit so I just had to buy the student workbook.
Drawing
We’re adding formal drawing lessons to our schedule this year and these beginner drawing lessons seemed like a good place to start. Dallas has a beginner’s course we are going to try, which includes a scope and sequence, teacher’s videos, and student tutorial videos. I’m honestly looking forward to this for myself!
Timeline
We are going to create a paper timeline such as this one. It’s simple, affordable, and when we are done with it, I can fold it up and add it to a 3-ring binder (which is where I keep all of the year’s work when we finish). Each time we need to add to our timeline, my second grader can unfold it all the way out so we get the big picture all in one view, without having to flip pages!
Recently, I purchased my very own Book Of Centuries from River Bend Press to start this year. I am planning to add to it in my own mother culture time, and when my daughter is adding to her timeline from our readings. I am hoping by the time my daughter starts her own BOC, mine will be a real-life example and a demonstration of education as a life (no matter how old one is).
Typing
This will be a new subject for us, but one my second grader has been asking for! I like that it is a game-based program which I know she will enjoy!
Cultural Studies
Beth from Little World Wanderers offers free unit guides for studying different cultures! We are going to dive into her Mexico guide for our first term!
Foreign Language
I chose Spanish as our foreign language this year and we’re all pretty excited about it! We will work on it together as a family, even my husband is eager to try it!
Handcrafts
For the first term, we will focus primarily on baking skills! My daughter will learn to bake muffins, cookies, and cupcakes this term. I am also hoping to get her help more consistently with food prep at dinner time, and learn simple cooking skills like helping brown meat, and scramble eggs.
Drill/P.E.
At the beginning of this year, I won a giveaway from The Schoolyard for a Swedish Desk Drill curriculum/guide. I loved that the guide came with simple-to-follow instructions and the music QR codes! This will be great for in-between readings!
Other P.E. we will incorporate will be game-based instructions such as red light, green light, and backyard obstacle races. Activities such as walking the dog, jumping on the trampoline, jumping rope, and evening soccer or frisbee with my husband are all other ways we will get in our daily P.E.
Conclusion + Summer Plans
We are starting the first week of July, but as the curriculums and books start coming in, we can’t help but want to begin now! We will continue with math and reading practice through the summer along with enjoying some free reads we have around the house. This has helped us ensure a smooth transition back into our actual homeschool rhythm, rather than jumping in all at once.
Looking at our new schedule, I feel mixed emotions of excitement and nervousness all at once. We are also adding a preschooler in the mix who, although isn’t quite ready for anything formal, nonetheless wants to be a part of our time. I am in the process of writing our preschool plans to share with you who are curious! Stay tuned.
Our year will be full of new trials and errors, but I am confident we will find our new homeschool rhythm.
I will certainly share more about our 2nd-grade homeschool rhythm (with a preschooler/tag along) in the coming months!
