History & Geography

About this course

Second grade keeps the same eight strands as first grade but puts real substance behind each one. The American history unit walks a genuine chronology: the 13 colonies, colonial life, the road to revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the words "endowed by their Creator," the Revolutionary War, the writing of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, westward expansion, and the Civil War. World civilizations covers Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, and Israel with real dates attached, then the Middle Ages, the Age of Exploration, and Martin Luther and the ninety-five theses. Geography moves past naming continents into landforms, the regions of the United States, the difference between weather and climate, cardinal directions, map symbols and legends, and how terrain shapes the way people work and live. Civics runs from what government is through local, state, and national levels, the three branches, how laws work, voting, and a lesson on the relationship between church and state. Economics adds goods and services, supply and demand, borrowing and debt, and trade alongside earning, saving, giving, and stewardship. The culture unit looks at food, music, art, families, languages, and daily life for a student in Kenya, Brazil, China, or Norway, and the final unit is about following news honestly and praying over it.

There are 72 lessons, eight units of nine, at about 25 minutes each. The format shifts partway through the year, and this is worth knowing. The community, American history, economics, and current events units are still written as a script for you, with lines to say and questions to ask. The world civilizations, geography, civics, and culture units are written straight to the student as two or three paragraphs of plain expository prose. Every lesson has a King James verse woven in and closes with an activity that usually calls for pencil and paper, such as copying a phrase from the Declaration in best handwriting, keeping a one-week weather journal, or looking up who the mayor of your town is and what the city council decided recently. Each lesson ends with a ten-question multiple-choice quiz that grades itself.

This level assumes a student who can read a short paragraph and write a couple of sentences, though you will still be reading aloud for roughly half the year. The first grade course is helpful but not required. Several activities send your student out of the book to find local information, so expect to help with a search or a library trip now and then.

What the course covers

• The 13 colonies, the Revolution, and the Declaration of Independence
• The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and westward expansion
• The Civil War
• Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, and Israel
• The Middle Ages, the Age of Exploration, and the Reformation
• Maps, landforms, US regions, weather, and climate
• Local, state, and national government and the three branches
• Goods and services, supply and demand, debt, and stewardship
• World cultures, languages, food, music, and art
• Following the news and praying for leaders and nations

What your student will be able to do

• Put the main events of America's founding in order and say why each mattered
• Identify major ancient civilizations and what each contributed
• Read a map using its legend, symbols, and cardinal directions
• Explain what local, state, and national government each handle
• Tell the difference between goods and services and explain supply and demand
• Look up a fact about the local community and write about it clearly

Scope and sequence

All 8 units of History & Geography for Grade 2, in the order they are taught.

Every lesson, by title

All 72 lesson titles are listed here — nothing is withheld until you download. Open a unit to read its contents.

One whole lesson, exactly as it comes

This is a real lesson taken from the middle of the course — the teaching text, the practice, the homework, and the first three quiz questions with their answers. It is not a marketing excerpt.

What you will need

Drawn from the materials named across all 72 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.