Our 2nd Grade Homeschool Curriculum
With the new school year approaching, I wanted to share the 2nd grade homeschool curriculum resources we’ll be using for 2024-2025. Along with the Global Explorers Club: Africa, we’ve selected several other incredible family-style homeschool curriculum resources to enhance our learning experience. Some are tried-and-true favorites, while others are brand new to us and I can’t wait to try them!
2nd Grade Homeschool Curriculum
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MORNING BASKET
A morning basket is a curated collection of books, activities, and materials that kickstart your homeschool day with the family. It’s a simple yet effective way to incorporate group learning into your daily routine.
- Poetry: The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies + A Journey Through Time in Verse and Rhyme
- Art History: A Year in Art: The Activity Book
- Character Education: The Virtues Project
- Life Skills: Connoisseur Kids: Etiquette, Manners, and Living Well for Parents and Their Little Ones + How to Be a Person: 65 Hugely Useful, Super-Important Skills to Learn before You’re Grown Up + Social Skills Activities for Kids
- Geography: Mapwork Activities
- Spanish: Español En Vivo + The Fable Cottage
- Math Warm-Up: Hands On Equations + Primary Grade Challenge Math
Want to learn more about our morning basket routine? Click [HERE] for a detailed guide and tips on how to create your own!
LANGUAGE ARTS
Here are the Language Arts resources we’ll use this school year. The majority of our literature selections, along with our writing and spelling activities, are featured in our Africa unit study and our new American history curriculum, United Stories: A Journey Through America’s Past.
- Writing: The Writing Revolution 2.0: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades
- Spelling: Making Words: A Montessori Spelling Activity
- Grammar: Montessori Grammar Symbols Activity Pack
- Literature: The Global Explorers Club’s Africa unit study (book list) + United Stories: A Journey Through America’s Past (book list)
- Copywork: Aesop in Cursive: D’Nealian Cursive Copywork Book, Volume I
- Reading Comprehension: Narration + Notebooking
- Creative Writing: Once Upon a Time Storytelling Card Game + Once Upon a Time Writer’s Handbook
- Extra: Prodigy English
MATHEMATICS
My DD (7) really enjoyed Beast Academy last year, so she’ll be continuing with Level 2 this year. Additionally, we’re going to try the Critical Thinking Co.’s Mathematical Reasoning curriculum, too. For our daily math warm-up during morning basket time, she will alternate between the first level of Hands On Equations and Edward Zaccaro’s Primary Grade Challenge Math. For additional review and practice, we’ll continue to play lots of math-based board games, plus Prodigy.
SOCIAL STUDIES
We’ll continue our study of Africa this fall, having finished West Africa and Central Africa in the spring. In addition, we’ll begin learning about American history, starting with pre-civilization and continuing through the War of 1812 this year. Again, our social studies curriculum is interdisciplinary and includes language arts, science, art, music, and more.
- The Global Explorers Club: Africa Unit Study
- United Stories: A Journey Through America’s Past, Part I
SCIENCE
I’m really hoping this is the year we become more consistent with science. It always seems to be the subject that gets passed over far too often in the general busyness of life. With that being said, we’re going to start working our way through Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, Vol. II this year. We’ll be continuing nature study, plus have some fun experimenting with science magic tricks and trying to build some cool inventions as well.
- Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, Vol. II: I’m using the lesson plans and the notebook pages found [HERE] as a guide. They’re located near the bottom of the forum. Our goal is to do 1-2 lessons per week.
- Nature Journal: I’ll be using John Muir Laws’s free How to Teach Nature Journaling curriculum alongside The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling with my kids this year. If you prefer something more open-and go for nature study, the Wild Nature Journal looks like a fun alternative.
- Science Magic Tricks for Kids: 50 Amazing Experiments That Explode, Change Color, Glow, and More!
- The Extraordinary Book that Invents Itself
- Extra: Generation Genius (free through our charter program) and N*Gen (part of our Africa unit study)
HANDICRAFTS
In addition to the arts and crafts projects we’ll be doing as part of our Africa unit study, here are some of the other handicrafts we’ve selected this year. My kids have both asked to learn more about photography, so we’ll be using Kidamento’s Through My Lens book to provide us with weekly photo challenges. Make This Book Wild looks like it will be a fun, whimsical addition to nature study this year, and we’ll continue to practice brushwork, sewing and embroidery, and knitting.
- Mixed Media: Make This Book Wild
- Photography: Through My Lens: 43 Flip-the-Flap Challenges and Activities
- Brushwork: Brushwork
- Drawing: Sachiko Umoto’s Illustration School series (Let’s Draw Happy People, Let’s Draw Cute Animals, and Let’s Draw a Story)
- Sewing & Embroidery: Twelve Days Ornament Series
- Knitting: Loom Knitting
If our 2nd grade homeschool curriculum sparked some ideas, share this post on Pinterest and help other families create their perfect plan!
More Curriculum Picks
Looking for more curriculum ideas? Explore our past curriculum choices for more inspiration and ideas.
