Second-grade students who are proficient in math order numbers 1 through 20 and recognize numbers up to 99. Use of enjoyable activities that instruct and review encourage students to participate willingly in review and enrichment activities. Use dot-to-dot pictures with numbers to assist students to correctly order numbers. Practice skip counting while jumping rope or playing with dice. Practice determining which number is greater or smaller than another while playing card games.
At the beginning of the year, second-grade students add and subtract numbers under 20 and recognize that addition and subtraction are opposite, or inverse, operations. Use counters and base 10 blocks to verify that students successfully compute addition and subtraction problems. Teach students alternative ways to compute such as touch math, which uses touch points for number values. Continue to use math manipulatives for teaching multiplication facts. Skip counting may help students assimilate multiplication tables.
Some students have difficulty translating word problems to number problems. Teach students to scan word problems looking for the type of computation before writing the problem in numbers and solving it. Walk the students through the scanning process and circle clues they need to translate the words into a number problem. Identify the important elements in a problem such as, “If Mary has five apples and gives three away, how many does she have left?” “Gives away” and “have left” indicate a subtraction problem and your primary numbers are five and three. Pair a strong math student with a challenged math student to work math problems to reinforce skill sets.
Second-grade students learn how to add money and determine equivalent monetary values. Invite students to use play money to shop in the class store or to compute values in a bank for purchase of a favorite item. Use games where students can accumulate small monetary prizes for correct answers and have each student compute the total value of his prize money.
Review spatial designations such as right and left, up and down or horizontal and vertical. Identify three-dimensional figures such as pyramids, cubes and spheres and correlate those figures to two-dimensional squares, circles and triangles. Use tangram puzzles to review the number of sides for each shape and congruent shapes.