Second Grade Home School Social Studies and Websites to Make Learning Fun

Like first grade social studies, second grade social studies is still pretty community and social based and not very history based at all. Second graders basically need to learn about the world immediately around them and to be slowly introduced to the fact that there is a larger world outside of their homes. Here are the topics and some free websites that will help you teach them.

Holidays festivals links for second grade social studies: Children can learn about Christmas around the world, such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year, and Ramadan at scholastic.com

Patriotic celebrations links for second grade social studies: Patriotic celebrations are also taught as a part of learning about their own country. For children in the United States, you can find patriotic games they can play at familyfun.go.com, and patriotic crafts at enchantedlearning.com.

Communities links for second grade social studies: Communities in other lands,past and present, helps children realize there is a bigger world out there. The IPL website has a program called Culture Quest World Tour that lets you take a virtual trip to Africa, Ghana, Kenya and other places.

Family links for second grade social studies: You'd think you'd be on your own for family and family history lessons, but there is help if you need it. Check out Lessonplanz.com's unit on My family and Me. They can learn about families around the world at FamilyEducation.com

Community links for second grade social studies: Second graders learn about neighborhoods, community services and helpers, citizenship and social responsibility, and Interdependence of people. You can find worksheets at Lessonsnips.com. and at Learning to give.org.

Basic geography for second grade social studies: oceans, continents, and map skills: At education.com you will find worksheets to test your child's knowledge of the geography of the U.S. states. The child will need to read through clues to help them locate the states.

When teaching social studies to second graders, it might be a fun idea to look at the calendar and try to match the holidays, festivals, and patriotic celebtations to the actual date as much as possible. Fit in all of the other lessons in between making them as date appropriate as possible.