Grade 2: weeks 1-6
Medieval History:
Text: An Island Story
Week 1: Chp. 1: Albion & Brutus
Chp 2: The Romans come
Week 2: Chp 3: The Romans come again
Chp 4: Caligula, Caractacus
*Supplemental: St. George and the
Dragon (303AD)
Week 3: Chp 5: Queen Boadicea
Chp 6: the last of the Romans
(410AD)
*Supplemental:
Story of King Arthur
Chps 1-2
Week 4: Chp 7: St Alban
Chp 8: Vortigern & King Constans
*Supplemental: Story of King Arthur
Chps 3-4
Week 5: Chp 9:
Hengist & Horsa, Saxons
(449AD)
Chp 10: Hengist's treachery, Saxons
*Supplemental: Story of King Arthur
Chps 5-6
Week 6: Chp 11: Stonehenge
Chp 12: Arthur
*Supplemental: Story of King Arthur
Chps 7-8
Week 1: The
Mouse & the Motorcycle
Chps 1-5
Week 2: The
Mouse & the Motorcycle
Chps 6-10
Week 3: The
Mouse & the Motorcyle
Chps 11-13 (end)
Golden Book of Fairy Tales
-Sleeping Beauty
-The Frog Princess
Week 4: The
Sword in the Stone
(You may want to have your child
read
this book to you.)
Golden Book of Fairy Tales
-Donkey-Skin
-Kuzma and the Fox
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle
Chps 1-2
Week 5: Mrs.
Piggle-Wiggle
Chps 3-7
Week 6: Mrs.
Piggle-Wiggle
Chp 8
Golden Book of Fairy Tales
-Puss in Boots
-Thumbelina
The Big Wave
-pp 3-1, 11-18
Poetry:
Read one or two poems aloud from
Favorite Poems Old & New daily.
Reading: at child's own pace
Phonics workbook: approx. 2pp a day
(Language Practice 2: I suggest starting it in January-- good practice for standardized tests)
First Language Lessons:
Lessons 101-118
*If you are starting the book in 2nd grade, do lessons
1-30.
(For second graders
who have already done the first grade portion of the book,
I suggest doing 3 lessons per week.
There will be, however, eight weeks in
the year when you only need to do 2
lessons per week. I've scheduled these
around holiday periods.
(For second graders who have not done the first portion of the book, I
suggest
doing five lessons per week. At
the end of the year, however, there will still be
twenty lessons left, perhaps to
continue during the summer.)
The Burgess Bird Book: Read one chapter per week
Nature Walk/outing:
Try to do two outings per week.
On at least one of the outings, have your student
focus on one particular group of living things (i.e. mammals, insects,
birds, flowers, etc) Briefly read to yourself one or two lessons about
that group in the Handbook of
Nature Study and share some interesting fact concerning it with
your student at some point during the outing.
Have your student record observations in the nature notebook, perhaps including one of the appropriate verses found in the Handbook.
Science Crafts & Topics to cover:
Wks 1-6: Topics (Taken from Science Crafts for Kids-- Out of print, but excellent! Try to find a copy.)
What science is & areas of
scientific study:
Science
is the study of something in our world. Scientists usually use a
special method called the "scientific method to study whatever it is they
are interested in. Experiments are done over and over in order to see
if the same result always occurs. This helps scientists determine what
causes what.
Just as
people are interested in many different things, scientists are interested in
many different things. Can you guess what a scientist who studies
zoology is interested in? (Animals). Do you know what a geologist
studies? (rocks, minerals, and the earth's crust). Most areas of
scientific study have a special name that ends in -ology. Read the
following list and find out about a few other areas of study: (Parent-
copy & paste into a word processing program)
Anthropology- humans
Apiology-- Bees
Biology-- Living things
Cartology-- Maps
Cetology-- Whales
Conchology-- Shells
Criminology-- crime and criminals
Cryptology-- codes
Ecology-- environment
Entomology-- insects
Graphology-- handwriting
Herpetology-- reptiles
Pedology-- children
Psychology- mind and behavior
Seismology- earthquakes
Sociology- human society
Speleology- caves
Camouflage and Seeing
Outlines
Camouflage is the art of hiding by blending into your environment so that
you are hard to see. Many animals have skin or fur that helps
camouflage them because it is nearly the same color as their surroundings.
For example, a snow fox is hard to see on the snow, because it is hard to
see white on white. A green insect is hard to see when it is sleeping
on a green leaf, because at first glance, it seems to just be a part of the
leaf.
Colors
provide camouflage, but patterns also do. Have you ever seen a
silhouette, or shadow picture, of a famous person or of someone you know?
You can tell who it is just by the shape. It's the same way in nature.
Many birds and animals can't see colors at all-- only shades of light and
dark. But all wild creatures recognize shapes. If you're a bug,
bird, or animal, it's your outline that makes you stand out. That's where
patterns come in. Patterns help "break-up" the outline of the animal,
making it harder to see. A spotted fawn resting in leafy sunlight
looks like a bunch of brownish plants. The tiger's stripes help it
blend into the long grass it is hiding in.
The Fungus Among Us
What's black and yellow and orange and brown and red and white and green and
blue...and gobbles up anything in its path except metal...and lives
everywhere-- in the air, inside animals, on plants, underneath the ground,
in your shoes, and even in your ears and mouth??? Fungus!
There are
more fungi in our world than any other kind of plant. Most plants make
their own food, but fungi can't. So instead, they eat other plants and
animals-- just like people do. The difference is, we eat our food
first and then digest it. Fungi do the opposite. They give off
chemicals that turn their meal-to-be (a nice banana, for instance) into
yucky mush. Then they suck up the liquid.
Their odd
eating habits make fungi both friends and foes to us human types. For
one thing, we have to go to a lot of trouble to keep fungi from eating our
food before we do. Refrigerators help, because most kinds of fungi
prefer warm surroundings. But even in cold temperatures, hungry fungi
will eventually turn the good, solid food we like into the nasty,
oozy stuff they like.
Fungi cause a lot
of diseases in plants, and even in people-- like athlete's foot. If it
weren't for fungi, however, we'd be up to our necks in dead plants and
animals. Fungi breaks down these dead things and turns them into plant
food and soil. Molds help us make things such as cheese and vinegar.
Have you ever seen the green mold growing on oranges and other fruit?
That's the most famous fungus of all: Penicillium-- which has saved
more lives than any other medicine in history.
Wks 1-6: Crafts
(coming soon)