2nd Grade Language Arts

I've been researching what I'd like to use with Elyse next year for second grade. Although I've been pleased with some aspects of our Language Arts curriculum, other parts have been only mediocre. But I think I've found solutions for the issues I was having.

For phonics, I will continue to use Webster's Blue-Backed Speller, which I printed off for free from Don Potter's website.

For spelling, I have found what I have wished for, but didn't think existed! All About Spelling teaches spelling with the same patterns as the syllabary. "Ba" is pronounced with a long a because it is an open syllable instead of with a short /a/ the way many phonics and beginning spelling manuals teach it. It also teaches rules of spelling in a very systematic way. It will supplement Webster's wonderfully!

I hadn't planned on using a separate writing curriculum, but when I discovered Writing Tales, I thought it would be perfect for Elyse. The first level of this book is for 3rd and 4th graders, but we will give it a go, since Elyse is advanced in her handwriting and reading comprehension. She is such a word girl--she loves making up stories and poems anyway, so I think this will be great to give her some guidance. I printed off the sample pages and I really love the format. It also includes the grammar in a very natural way (within the context of reading passages and writing), which for this young age, I think is more appropriate. Therefore, our grammar will be taken care of with Writing Tales and also will be continued in our Latin program, Latina Christiana.

We will continue our Italic handwriting and our poetry memorization on our own. Elyse has gotten "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" down and we will start Psalm 23 tomorrow, as well as continuing to work on the Old Testament Books. I've decided to go ahead and stick with the Explode the Code series. Elyse is almost done with book 3. She loves working through these on her own, and although I don't know that it helps that much, it certainly can't hurt. Plus, I've also heard that Book 4 is where it starts getting a little 'meatier' anyway.