OUSD curriculum questions 2nd grade
Hi there bpn community! Like most of you, we're trying to prepare for a drastic shift in life and wonder what your experience with 2nd grade math in the OUSD system has been? Our kid really enjoys math and is doing multiplication and a bit of division now in 1st grade. She's also a great reader. What kind of math can we expect she'll have a chance to do as a second grader in Oakland? Also, what's on the reading list? Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Apr 9, 2020
Parent Replies
OUSD follows Common Core standards for math, so you can check out the second grade standards for a sense of what she'd be learning. (In general, not multiplication or division quite yet, at least not formally--for more advanced math, you'll likely need to supplement.) Different schools use different math and reading programs, so there's no districtwide reading list. Best bet is to talk to your child's teacher to get a sense of what lies ahead. If you're not currently at an OUSD school, you might reach out to the principal where you'll be enrolling to see if they can connect you to a second grade teacher to get a better sense of what to expect.
The California state (and thus OUSD) curriculum for all grades is here: https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/ccssmathstandardaug2013.pdf. When my daughter was in school I referred to these standards frequently when I was helping her at home.
We have a first grader in OUSD who loves math as well. Your kid sounds a lot like ours. Unfortunately, my kid finds math at school too easy and boring and his grade in math is slipping. We supplement at home and know that he has a high level grasp of mathematical concepts and is simply frustrated with what he finds to be busy work. His work is “sloppy” at school but when encouraged intentionally at home, he excels.
OUSD has no support for younger kids who are advanced. We sadly feel that our kids languish while waiting for other kids to “catch up”.
Common core is very confusing which makes supplementing at home tricky. We end up ignoring some common core approaches when we supplement. My spouse majored in physics and Statistics and I am grateful she is able to supplement at home and feels confident in her approach despite it being a bit different from common core. I am a history major, so I would be lost without my spouse.
We are not happy with OUSD in terms of its “teach to the lowest common denominator” approach but that is the only option we have, so we try to provide a lot of enrichment at home.
Our child is in 2nd grade at a high scoring OUSD school. I have his common core math book here and they do a variety of things. Learning about money, telling time, 2-digit addition, and subtraction. Then they move to measurements, 3 digit addition, and subtraction. They do some geometry and word problems. Multiplication and division are not included from what we have experienced.