The Present Teacher Podcast

The Ultimate Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Teaching 2nd Grade

• Helena Hains • Season 1 • Episode 93

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Did you just find out you're teaching 2nd grade and you have no idea where to get started?

Today I'm sharing my top guide on everything you need to know about teaching 2nd grade, including how to have great classroom management skills, how to set up your classroom for success, what books to get for your classroom, and what to plan on teaching during the first week of school in your 2nd grade classroom.

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//  ABOUT

I’m Helena, a coach for new and first-year teachers sharing knowledge on how to have a thriving career and personal life.

The Present Teacher Podcast is a resource for classroom management, classroom organization, time management, and teacher wellness. Follow along and learn how to thrive in the classroom and in life.

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Helena:

So you just got notified that you're going to be teaching second grade and more. Mine is filled with about a thousand questions like what should I be prepping, what does second grade teaching look like, what should I be buying for my classroom, what does it look like for teaching, what do second graders like, what kind of books should I be getting, and everything in between. Well, about six years ago I got my first teaching position as a kindergarten teacher. Now, for the record, I had always wanted to be a kindergarten teacher since I was about six years old, but after three years of teaching it I found myself finding teaching a little bit stale and I was ready for something a little more advanced and I just wanted a change in general. So that's when I moved to second grade. Now, for the record, when I applied to this other district, they had several different positions open at this district and second grade. They had kindergarten, first grade, second grade or something like that, and second grade was honestly kind of like my last priority. But I got chose to be the second grade teacher for my old school and can I just say I am so glad that I did, because second grade turned out to be, honestly, I think, my favorite grade, which is crazy for me to say out loud, because I had wanted to be a kindergarten teacher for almost two decades at that point. So, anyways, I'm going to dive into everything you need to know about teaching second grade everything from where they're at emotionally, what you should prepare for over the summer, what you'll be teaching, what books to get and everything in between. So, with that being said, let's dive in. Hey, teacher Bestie, my name is Helena and I'm the creator of the Present Teacher Podcast. I'm a first-year teacher coach and in this podcast you are going to learn everything from simple, actionable classroom management, social learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom. We're going to make it happen here.

Helena:

So one of the things you might be wondering if you are teaching second grade is what are the maturity levels of my second graders? Well, in general, they are just starting. If you don't have a background in primary, they are just starting to go from that identity in self. They are learning about their likes and their dislikes and they're slowly starting to connect with others and create friend groups at this age and really start to care about their peers. So they start the year really caring about their self, their self-image, what their likes and dislikes, and by the end of the year they're really starting to care about what their peers think. So it's really cool to find that transition, or see that transition in second grade, how they go from being independent beings who are proud of who they are and unapologetically them which I absolutely love about them and by the end they're starting to care about what their peers think. Also, as a side note, because I am slightly sarcastic, your second graders may not exactly pick up on sarcasm. They might towards the end, but as far as that goes, that might be a little bit over their head. So also something to know about the maturity of second graders is they still love to make you proud, and that is one of the things I love about second grade. They still care about school, they still care about making you happy, they still care about getting their work done, but they're not quite at the extreme primary, foundational level that kindergartners will be at.

Helena:

The second thing I'm going to dive into is the academics. Academically, you might be wondering what will you be teaching as a second grade teacher? Now I'm going to go ahead and link to the Common Core CNerds, because that's a good indicator of what you're going to be teaching. So I'm not going to dive too deep into this, but I'm just going to give you a general overview of what to expect to start teaching in second grade. So in second grade, let's start talking about math Now.

Helena:

In first grade, second graders started learning about two digit numbers. So now they're going to, in the beginning of the year, probably review those second digit numbers and then they're going to, in the beginning of the year, probably review those second digit numbers and then they're really going to start learning about three digit numbers. That means they're going to learn they've already learned, hopefully addition and subtraction with two digit numbers, and now you're going to use those concepts and start teaching them how to add and subtract with three digit numbers. They should also be able to count to a thousand by ones, fives, tens and hundreds. You're also going to want them to be able to compare two-digit numbers, like they did in first grade. But also they're going to start learning how to compare three-digit numbers, which ones are greater than, less than and equal to.

Helena:

When it comes to measurement, they're going to start learning about rulers, yardsticks and meter sticks. They're going to be learning about inches, feet, meters and centimeters, and, with time, they're going to continue learning about the analog clock, but this time they're going to start learning to the nearest five minutes and they're going to learn the difference between am and pm. As far as shapes go, they're going to start learning about triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons and cubes. They're also going to review the three-dimensional shapes that they learned about in kindergarten I can highly speak for that one and then they're going to start learning about fractions. Now the fractions they're going to start learning about partitioning circles and triangles into halves, thirds and fourths and equal shares and whether or not that's an equal fraction or not. So that's a general overview of what you're going to be teaching in math. Again, if you want to dive deeper, I will list to a site that has all the common core standards for second grade.

Helena:

Now let's talk about reading. Now, when you're talking about reading, they're going to start learning about who. Now, when you're talking about reading, they're going to start learning about who, what, when, where and why. They're going to be able to recount stories into fables and folk tales. This is one of my favorites about teaching second grade. But they're also going to be starting to learn about poetry. They're going to learn about alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines, and I love my poetry unit in second grade. It's honestly a lot of fun, especially when they start making their own and their acrostic poems with their names. It's just, it's really fun, and they start making it for the family members Honestly, one of my highlights, anyways. They're also going to describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges. They're going to be talking about different points of view between first person, second person, third person. They're going to understand the setting and the plot and then the last thing that they're going to do is they're going to start comparing and contrasting two or more versions of the same story. Now, I personally like this because I like learning about the different stories and different cultures and how they relate to each other or not, and that's also one of the fun things about second grade. So, in general, you can see how, as a second grader, they're still learning foundational skills, but the content is more in depth, which I really like about second grade, coming from a kindergarten teacher background.

Helena:

Now that we've talked about the academics, let's talk about some reading and books to include in your library. Now a quick statement I and a quick story. When I transitioned from kindergarten to second grade teacher, I left all my books and I had to start completely over with my classroom library and I didn't know what books to get. So here's what I did I went to all the secondhand stores nearby, whether that was Goodwill, salvation Army, here, where I'm at, in the South, in the south, or just south, central south, I'm sorry, I'm from the northwest, in New Mexico. I went and looked for books on sale from those secondhand stores. What I liked about these is typically books were anywhere from one to two dollars. So instead of spending $500 from the get-go, I would just spend maybe 20 bucks, a paycheck, and I would go to a secondhand store and I would just buy all the books I could and complete the series that I'm going to list down below. So, with that being said, here are some books that I recommend getting Now.

Helena:

In general, second grade is where I like to think that most students a majority of students are going to start transitioning from picture books to chapter books. Now a quick, fun story about this. When my first year of teaching second grade, my kids absolutely refused chapter books. They absolutely hated them. So what I did is.

Helena:

I found a very cool comic chapter book that was then a good transition into more chapter books. So what happened was I took a couple of my readers in my class and I said hey, will you read this book for me and give me feedback on whether or not you liked it? And before I knew it, that series was a series of the year. I had to buy multiple copies of that series because I could not keep my books on the shelf, and that is Bad Guys. So Bad Guys is a series about villains who try to be good but they're not necessarily good and they kind of just fall back into their old ways. It's a really good series. It's comic book like. So it's a good transition from full-on chapter book to picture book. It's somewhere in the middle, which I really like and my kids absolutely loved it. So that's one of the series I recommend for second grade popular as well. Humphreys is another popular one.

Helena:

Magic Treehouse A lot of my students who read Magic Treehouse in first grade continue the series in second grade. Flat Stanley that was one I introduced to my kids and you can do some really cute pen pal, you know projects with other teachers in the world with Flat Stanley, which I really like. You can go back to Fly Guy. Pot Stanley, which I really like. You can go back to Fly Guy. You can also do Amelia Bedelia, cam Jansen and Judy Moody. All of these are some great book series for your students.

Helena:

I like to have a good mixture of chapter books and picture books, because again, it kind of just depends where you're at. A majority of my students were below grade level, so having a good mixture of both was really helpful. Now, in general, I liked to color code mine based on level, and what I would do is I would just tell them go pick whether it was a red, a yellow level, a blue level or a green level. But in general, if my kids really wanted to read that book, they had to have one book in their level and one book that was maybe out of their level. That way they couldn't continue practicing and being an academic challenge. I have more content on how I color coded my library because I like organization, so I'll make sure to link that in the description down below.

Helena:

All right, so, academics aside, something else you might be wondering about teaching second grade is what should your classroom management look like? Now I'm going to break this down into a couple different categories, but here are some things to consider when you are thinking about classroom management for second grade. Now, in general, I like to have different areas in my classroom and here's why, when my students are whole group learning, I like to have them have a different area in the classroom where they're expected to listen and participate, and I do where I teach to listen and participate, and I do where I teach so that they are fully engaged and there's different expectations depending what's going on. So, for example, the different areas I like to conclude in my second grade classroom was whole group, independent work and group work. Now, what I loved about this is during the first couple weeks of school, I could talk about the clear expectations and procedures for each area and how they were different and why it was important that they were different. That way, mentally, subconsciously, when my students got up to go sit at the carpet for whole group learning, they knew what the expectations were, as opposed to independent work, where the expectations are going to look and sound differently. This just helped my kids compartmentalize the expectations in the classroom. This is something I did in kindergarten as well. Now I know other teachers who don't teach it that way. They have their students sit in the same desk all day, whether they're doing whole group, independent work, group or group work. But I personally liked giving that opportunity for my kids to get up and move around. Just like I said, it helped create a clear line on what the expectations were in class.

Helena:

The other thing you're going to want to think about in classroom management in regards to teaching second grade are your centers. So what I loved about centers is you can differentiate them and it's a great area or time for your students to work on specific skills they need to practice, depending on where they are at in their journey. Now some people say that second grade is too old for centers or stations. I personally think that no grade is too old for centers or stations because, again, it helps compartmentalize what students should be doing in an organized way and, as you can tell, I'm kind of an organization guru, nerd, geek, whatever you want to call me. So here are the different kind of centers I liked to have in second grade. So, again, these are differentiated and I can talk more about that if you want to learn more about that. I don't know how in depth, honestly, you want me to go, but here are the things we worked on. We worked on letters, digraphs and blends. That was one of my centers, depending on whether where my students were in their journey. We also talked about number identification, number sense, addition, subtraction. All of those would make a great center.

Helena:

Also, technology Now some of the different technology resources my students use. Some of them still use Starfall, but by the end they kind of didn't have as much of an interest in that. We also used iStation, Prodigy, cool Math Games, etc. Games like that. That helped them. Oh, and IXL. All of those are different resources we would use during the technology center. Some other centers I recommend having is a writing center so your students can practice writing in their journals every day, spelling, word practice, silent reading or reading in the library. All of those make really good stations and centers to work on, and this is a great time to then pull your groups back for independent or small group time.

Helena:

The next thing you want to focus on when you're teaching second grade is to having clear expectations and procedures. Second graders do really well when they have structure. Now I'm not saying that you have to be the mean, cranky teacher, but there is a such thing as having a balance between structure that gives you more ease so you can have more fun in the classroom. Now, in the beginning of the year, I like to list out all the procedures and expectations I'm going to teach during the classroom. Now, in the beginning of the year, I like to list out all the procedures and expectations I'm going to teach during the year. So here's just a list of some random ones off the top of my head. Some expectations of procedures could be raising your hand, class calls, grabbing a pencil, getting online using the restroom, coming in in the morning, packing up centers, whole group learning, independent working. You get the idea, but essentially, all of these have different routines and different expectations with each one.

Helena:

So what you're going to want to do when it's time to introduce these things, you want to introduce what you are going to be talking about, and then you want to talk about what it looks like and sounds like. Here's what it looks like and sounds like. I'm going to physically get up and model it to my students and then we're going to have a discussion what it doesn't look like and sound like and why it's important that we do it the right way instead of the wrong way and we're going to practice often and we're going to review often. During the first couple weeks of school, I heavily focus on procedures and expectations, because the more I focus on it at the beginning of the year, the quicker my students become to running the classroom without me meaning. I can finally drink my coffee without reheating it 10 times, because my students run the classroom and I don't have to do a thing. That's the goal of solid classroom management and yes, second graders are definitely capable of that, I promise you.

Helena:

So after you have clear expectations and procedures, the next thing I recommend doing is brain breaks. Now there's a study that says students can only focus every one to three minutes per year's old that they are. So, for example, your students who are eight can only focus up between eight to 24 minutes. Therefore, I recommend having a brain break or a movement break at least every hour. At the beginning of the year I recommend making it more often, maybe 20-30 minutes, and by the end of the year your students may be closer to an hour, depending. But some brain breaks that my students like using apart from the games that I make up or I've seen other teachers use we did use GoNoodle and Brain Break Central and they seem to like both of those. But making sure you have plenty of movement breaks throughout the day is going to help minimize disruptive behavior and if you have a chatty class especially, that's going to be really important for you.

Helena:

The last thing for classroom management for second grade I recommend doing is building strong relationships. So a really good way to build strong relationships with second graders is to take interest in their interests outside of school. Ask about their family, their hobbies, do they play any sports? What's their favorite food, and when you show later in the school year that you remember their interests, they are absolutely going to love you. Building relationships with my second graders is my favorite part and it's one of the easiest ones for me, but incorporating their hobbies and interests wherever possible and taking interest of their lives outside of school is going to go a long way when building relationships with your students.

Helena:

All right, that was a lot, a lot of knowledge, but overall I love second grade. I didn't think I was going to love it as much as I did but honestly it's probably my favorite grade level and I love it because, like you said, it's foundational, but it's not to the point where it's so foundational that you get bored easily. They are more mature than kindergartners. They still love school and they still love you and they love making you happy, which I absolutely love with primary grades. So, honestly, welcome, fellow second grade teacher. You're going to love it. I absolutely love it.

Helena:

So what questions do you have about teaching second grade? Feel free to drop them in the comments below or send me a DM and I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Now. If you wanna take setting up your classroom a step further, if you are looking at getting ready ahead of time for your upcoming school year, I recommend checking out the free classroom setup guide. This is a free guide where I answer the top 10 questions I get about setting up your classroom over the summer to get ahead for the school year. And if you want to take it a step further, every I like to do a classroom kickstart mini course. This is a four-week program that shows you everything you need to know about setting up your classroom for success.

Helena:

Because a mistake I made my first year of teaching is I spent my entire summer setting up my classroom and I didn't focus on the right things. I focused on making my classroom cute when in reality, I should have been focusing on other things like classroom management, family communication, planning, the first couple weeks of school and yes, organization, but focusing on organizing the stuff in my classroom too. And all of this we cover inside the Classroom Kickstart mini course. That way you can focus on it in four weeks or less instead of it taking you the entire summer. So if you would like to join us inside this summer's cohort, we would love to have you. As always, remember we are stronger together and I will see you in the next one.

Helena:

Teach your besting Bye. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and out of the classroom. It would mean the world to me if you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials to let me know you're listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together. With all the love in the world, helena, aka the Present Teacher, see you next time, teacher Bestie.

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