Second Grade

Units of Inquiry
Circumstances
It's More Than Words
On the Road Again
Digging to Discover
Ingenuity
Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Language Skills
The second grade uses two anthologies and trade books to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Word attack instruction includes review of the sound-symbol correspondence blending and structural analysis. Literature provides writing models for students' own compositions. The processes of planning, writing, revising, and editing create experiences that develop skills in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and communication. Cursive writing is also introduced and good handwriting techniques are encouraged throughout the year. Time is provided during the day for silent reading of books students select themselves.

Mathematics
The second-grade math program incorporates many features, including a home-school partnership, cooperative learning, hands-on activities, real-life situations, games, informal assessment, and daily routines. The math curriculum reviews and extends the concepts and skills of the previous levels. Calculators are used as tools for concept and skill development.

Science
The science program, written and developed at Charlotte Country Day, provides two science lab experiences each seven-day cycle. The units are planned to further observation skills and to enhance critical thinking. Students experiment, observe, collect, record data, and begin to draw conclusions and make connections. One objective is to have students further develop curious minds.

Computer
The computer curriculum builds on the computer skills students learn in first grade. Second graders integrate technology with the curriculum by using a graphics program with multimedia capabilities. Keyboarding skills are taught with word processing experiences in computer class. In addition to the computers in each classroom, second graders have access to the computer lab in the library for teacher-led computer activities.

Social Studies
The goal of the second grade social studies inquiry-based program is to develop—through an economic, geographic, global, and historic perspective—an understanding of how people form, maintain, and change the groups in which they live and to show how these groups are interdependent. Students learn how communities develop systems to transport people and deliver goods and services.

French and Spanish
In second grade, students choose a language for concentrated study. Oral comprehension and expression in French or Spanish are expanded on through the use of visual materials, songs, games, and skits. Speaking, writing, reading, comprehension, and language-appreciation skills are developed in the targeted language.

Music
The focus in the second grade is a continuation of the study of elements of music that was initiated in first grade. An awareness of these elements enables children to become more sensitive to the different ways musicians express their ideas in music and to give them new insights into ways to express themselves with music.

Art
The second-grade art curriculum focuses on the effective use of the elements of art and principles of design to create original works that express the students' ideas, observations, and feelings. Through art, students are able to make connections between various subject areas and their own experiences. In addition to painting, drawing, and collage, students work with a variety of fine craft techniques such as weaving and clay. Art vocabulary and aesthetic awareness are cultivated through class discussions and assessment.

Physical Education
The Lower School physical education program is designed to get children fit by teaching them basic movement skills and providing rigorous activity. Second graders have PE every day for 30 minutes. Improving cardiovascular fitness and increasing arm strength are important parts of the program.

Library
Through flexible scheduling, the library curriculum enhances and extends the classroom curriculum, fosters literary appreciation, and targets information and research skills. Students enjoy a variety of genres in story time, develop active listening and viewing skills, reinforce concepts through experiential activities, learn to confidently use a library, and purposefully explore a wide array of media, both traditional and technological.