The APS District Core Curriculum represents the district plan for meeting state competencies and requirements.  Essential competencies are ones that all students must know before they can succeed at the next level.  Expected competencies are ones that most students will learn and be able to do at their given grade level.  Extended competencies are one that some students will accomplish and which are introductory or enrichment.  Listed below are the essential Language Arts competencies.  These will be addressed all year.

Listening Skills:
Follow three-step directions
Identify the sequence of events from an oral reading
Ask questions for clarification to extend knowledge and understanding of what is heard
Demonstrate the ability to listen for a specific purpose
Identify the main idea from and oral reading
Correctly answer questions about who, what, when, where and why (details, key words, main idea, characters, setting,) from an oral reading
Recognize questions, exclamations by cues in voice inflection
Demonstrate active listening skills in a variety of situations, including culturally diverse contexts.

Speaking Skills:
Recite, poems, riddles, and songs from memory
Ask relevant questions
Use prior knowledge and experiences to ask questions for clarification in order to extend knowledge and understanding
Uses oral communication to solve problems
Summarize events, stories, ideas, and information
Demonstrate a variety of speaking skills

Uses Phonological Skills/Letter-Sound Relationship:
Identify and produce a final consonant sounds in a given word
Identify and decode words with short vowel and long vowel sounds and common vowel diagraphs
Identify and produce the sound of consonant blends, initial and final diagraph sounds in a given word
Blend through the word
Identify syllables
Identify compound words and the two words that make up that word
Identify the root/base word and analyze contractions

Vocabulary Skills:
Identify the meaning of words in various content areas
Identify the written form of high-frequency words
Use specific words encountered in the environment to expand vocabulary skills
Use picture clues to determine text meaning
Use prior knowledge to facilitate reading
Use context clues to determine the meaning of a story
Use capitalization at the beginning of a sentence and capitalization of proper nouns to construct meaning

Literal Comprehension:
Recognize important details from a literary selection (character, setting,)
Identify nouns to which pronouns refer in a passage
Identify the correct sequence of events
Identify the topic sentence of a literary selection
Retell a story

Interpretive/Inferential Comprehension:
Summarize or describe the main idea
Analyze the cause and effect
Predict a logical outcome and events in a story on prior knowledge
Draw logical conclusions
Compare and contrast elements in a selection
Make inferences about characters

Critical Analysis and Evaluation Comprehension:
Justify inferences
Identify selection as fact or fantasy

Penmanship, Spelling, and Grammar:
Correctly form upper and lower case letters
Consistency in letter formation, size, spacing, margins, and legibility of writing
Spell words with beginning and ending consonants
Spell words with short vowels
Recognize declaring and interrogative sentences and write them correctly
Tell who or what performs the action in a sentence
Use present and past tense of verbs
Use periods, exclamations, or question marks as ending punctuation

Writing:
Produce several related complete thoughts to create a paragraph in a short narrative
Use content vocabulary introduced in the classroom
Collect ideas about a topic (ideas)
Create a written draft using specific criteria
Develop ideas and content to communicate knowledge of the topic
Develop and organize writing to show a progression from main idea, through several related complete thoughts, to a conclusion (organization)
Demonstrate individuality of ideas and a style for an intended audience (voice, word choice)
Write complete and grammatically correct sentences varying in length and structure flow with related thoughts to one another (sentence fluency)
Respond and react to own writings through questions, suggestions, or statements about ideas, organization, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions (the mechanics)
Edits own writing
Publishes a paper using the six traits of writing

Reference and Research:
Alphabetize a list of words
Identify the title, author, illustrator, and use the table of contents and index

Math:
This year Double Eagle has adapted a new math program school-wide.  It is called Trailblazers.  It is a hands-on critical thinking approach to mathematics.  It uses a spiral approach, meaning, everything covered once during the beginning of the year will be covered again later in the year and then continue to spiral from one grade to another.  Trailblazers aligns with the NCTM Standards (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) and TIMS (Teaching Integrated Math and Science).

Science:
Second grade science consists of four content areas: Life Cycles, Plants, Energy, and Rocks and Soil.  The first trimester we completed energy.  The second trimester we covered dinosaurs and rocks and soil.  The third trimester will cover life cycles and plants.

    Plants:
    Plant seeds and record present and future predicted growth
    Identify plant needs
    Identify basic parts of plants and their functions
    Identify various means of plan reproduction
    Identify food that is derived from plants
    Identify plants associated with specific resources
    Recognize that a plant is part of a population and community
    Life cycles:
    Identify a growth sequence for a given plant or animal
    Construct graphs from collected data and simple observations
    Interpret graphs of collected data or supplied data
    Keep daily records or a journal pertaining to observation of a plant or animal life cycle
 

Social Studies:
Second grade social studies consists of four content areas:  History and Culture, Geography, Economics, and Civic Understanding.  The first grading period we  worked on civic understanding where learners develop an awareness of the ideal, principles, and practices of a democratic republic within the school and the classroom. The second trimester was spent on understanding different cultures.  The third trimester will cover timelines, inventors, biographies, wants and needs.  Geography will be covered throughout the year.

Computers:
The first trimester we concentrated on using the computer as a tool specifically tied into art using Kid Pix.  The second trimester we concentrated on using the computer as a writing and publishing tool.  The third trimester we will work with problem solving and critical thinking interactive software.

Art & Music:
Art will be integrated into the curriculum.  Mrs. Kerbleski has graciously been helping out with this all year.
Music will be integrated into the curriculum.  We were provided with a music teacher for the fall semester from APS.
 

Home