2nd Grade Math: What Happens

Second grade math starts with a review of the basics from first grade and then moves to a series of new skills. Your budding mathematician will learn to order, label, and express quantities to solve problems. He or she will also begin to convert language into mathematical problems – understanding the math of everyday life while getting a little more formal with the way he or she expresses math problems. Pretty soon “take away” becomes minus and subtraction. Suddenly a simple “and” between phrases can make it an addition problem. Soon fractions become a part of your child's math world, as do patterns and spatial relationships.

Here's what your child should be able to do before starting second grade math:

• Work with patterns and sequences

• Add and subtract single and two-digit numbers

• Tell time by hours and minutes

• Estimate and predict simple outcomes
  
  

• Count money

• Identify place values to hundreds

• Practice measuring length, capacity, and weight

• Work with geometric shapes

• Become familiar with the concept of symmetry

• Count higher that 100

• Identify the fractions 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4

• Solve simple word problems

By the end of second grade students working at the standard level:

• Add and subtract two-and-three-digit numbers

• Collect and compare seasonal temperatures using a thermometer

• Use time to sequence events of the day

• Recognize, identify, and create a circle, quadrilateral, rhombus, square, triangle, trapezoid, hexagon, and parallelogram

• Compare and contrast the characteristics of shapes

• Model and find the perimeter of simple shapes

• Estimate and measure length, weight, and capacity using standard units of measurement

• Use appropriate tools and terms to explore measurement