Second Grade Math Basics for Homeschoolers and Websites to Make Learning Fun

For the second grade, math basically consists of spelling and subtraction at a more difficult level than the previous year. They will also learn to multiply and learn about decimals. Fractions, time telling, and estimation are also touched on during this year. When I taught my homeschooled daughter second grade math, I focused primarily on addition and subtraction review and multiplication. Once she had that down, the rest came naturally. If you want to follow a math program more in line with national standards, you can follow this guideline and use the websites listed below.

Counting lessons for second grade homeschoolers: The first thing second grade students should do in the new school year is to review their counting skills. They should be able to count read, and write numbers to 1,000. They must also be able to count by 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, and 10's, and understand ordinal numbers (first, second, third, fourth, etc) to 10. You can find counting games at learning planet.com and MathDynamics.com has a tutorial on teaching skip counting with blocks and rhymes.

Place value for second grade homeschoolers: Zero as a placeholder is concept taught to show how adding a zero increased the value of the number. You can teach these lessons in conjunction with place value which children need to learn, at least through 100's. Toonuniversity.com has a fun game for teaching practicing place value. Funbrain.com also has a place value puzzler you can use.

Addition and subtraction for second grade homeschoolers: Second graders need to be able to add and subtract numbers up to 20. AAAmath.com has great tutorials and practice games for addition and for subtraction.

Multiplication for second grade homeschoolers: Multiplication is next in line for second graders. They should learn basic multiplication and division facts and how multiplication and division relate to each other. There is a plethora of multiplication games on the internet. You can find a good amount of these at gamequarium.com.

Miscellaneous math topics for second grade homeschoolers: You can round out the year teaching these miscellaneous topics to second graders. Studyzone.com has some lessons on fractions in daily life that will be useful. Teach basic geometry with games and tutorials found at homeschoolmath.net. Students can learn to estimate with some gamequarium lessons and games. Teach measurement and weight based on customary and metric measures of time, weight, length, and volume as well as learn to tell time at this AAA math.com page. I think the best way to teach money is by playing monopoly or grocery store games, but this public TV website will help too.

I will also mention that Time4learning (low cost subscription homeschool program) was also a large part of homeschooling my child when she was in second grade, but I also used some of these resources for extra practice and used a simple second grade math workbook for review. The last thing you need to remember is that you cannot practice multiplication tables too much in second grade.